Parliament should allow free debate on immigration quotas without dismissing calls for reductions as racist, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said Thursday. The Ottawa think tank warned that Canada’s reluctance to face blunt disagreements on immigration has left the country “weakened to the point of serious decline.”“Citizens must embrace freedom of speech even on divisive issues like immigration,” said the Institute’s report The Forgotten Freedom: Reviving Rational Debate In Canada’s Public Sphere. The paper, authored by lawyer Ryan Alford, argued that suppressing discussion over immigration quotas risks undermining democratic accountability.According to Blacklock's Reporter, Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs have called for steep cuts, including limits on 3,049,277 temporary permit holders. The Commons last spring narrowly passed a Bloc motion by a 173 to 150 vote calling on cabinet to review quotas based on “integration capacity,” though no figure was set..Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre this week pledged to lower quotas if elected. “We will secure our borders by putting an end to the Liberal open borders experiment of mass immigration which has been a disaster,” he told supporters. “Over the next several years we need to have more people leaving than coming so citizens in Canada can afford homes, find jobs and health care.”Poilievre said Conservatives favour “lawful, orderly immigration” but want it conducted “in our national interests with the right people and in the right numbers.”Prime Minister Mark Carney, in an April 16 leadership debate, acknowledged the system is not working but avoided specifying reductions. “Our population has gone up at about 3% per year because of immigration,” said Carney. “That’s why we need to have a cap for a certain period of time.” He pledged to maintain a cap “for certainly a couple of years” but offered no details.Asked whether the immigration system had gone “off the rails” in recent years, Carney replied: “Well, yes. The system isn’t working.” He added that Canada must balance compassion with limits: “We have to be human but we have to be realistic. Canada cannot accept everyone.”
