The real immigration crisis

And a Queen's Park hit plot

ABOVE THE FOLD

While Premier DOUG FORD dominated headlines this week with a heated rant about getting tough-on-crime — lamenting that Ontario “wasn’t like this five years ago” in a not-so-veiled jab at immigrants — the Toronto Region Board of Trade is worried about a different kind of “crisis”: productivity.

Their recent report, Raising the Bar, argues that the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program is no longer “fit for purpose” and is failing to deliver the kind of talent required to drive long-term prosperity.

I sat down with SAAD USMANI, the Board’s senior director of economic research, to discuss why they believe the province has inadvertently created a backdoor for lower-skilled immigration and why the current focus on short-term labour gaps is undermining Ontario’s economic strength.

Your report calls for an urgent overhaul of the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program. What is the big takeaway from your research? The program is approaching 20 years since its inception, and it’s not so cl…