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Immigration rates would have to fall by at least 80% for Canada to have a chance, no Western country has ever reduced immigration by even half that amount in recent (post-1980) history. Even Denmark has only held steady (numbers shot up last year, but mainly because they took 35,000 Ukrainian refugees), and Danish polices of forced assimilation, tracking the population of "MENAP" (essentially all Muslim countries) descent, paying people to go home and banning almost all asylum seekers from ever settling permanently are almost unimaginable for Canada.
To give you an idea, the anti-immigration movement in Denmark won in 2001 and non-Western immigration continued to rise through 2019. It took almost 20 years for them to fully grasp the levers of power. The all time asylum seeker record intake was in October 2015. And this is in a country where it is considered broadly politically acceptable to say "the majority of people in Denmark should be 'Danish-minded'" (the term is translated directly, indirectly it essentially means ethnic Danes). Imagine a mainstream CPC politician saying "the majority of Canadians should remain ethnically French or Anglo-Saxon". They might well be expelled from parliament. Even the hardcore Quebec nationalists on the far right of the PQ dance around this stuff.
The Canadian Tories have mulled maybe possibly potentially possibly reducing immigration by "a bit". In reality, the most they seem likely to accomplish is keeping numbers where they are (a feat given family reunification is an ever-expanding process by default, especially without US-style caps on greencard numbers by country of origin). That's 2.2 million immigrants a year (900,000 of which are students, but only 40% of international students seem to leave Canada upon graduation) in a country of 38 million people.
Canada just needs to have a better informed immigration policy. And by better informed, I mean incredibly discriminatory immigration policy.
Don't import people from war torn nations. The 'victims' are often the families of violent rebels who lost a civil war. You're likely importing people who have seen such incredible violence, that a little bit of squalor is no big deal for them. That means, they will continue living in squalor than immerse themselves into the rat race.
Import those who are easy to integrate. Those who can speak a certain level of English and can demonstrate cultural ties and awareness of Canada should be prioritized.
Don't bring in the ultra religious. Just generally, any population with a fertility rate above 3.0 is going to be replacing your local demographic really quickly. The ultra-religious also love ghettoizing and congregate around non-democratic local spiritual leaders.
Don't bring mediocre immigrants to Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver. Canada's big cities do not have will-power to densify and the local populace does not want to compete with immigrants for the middle-class jobs. Send the <90th percentile immigrants to work in the northern areas. Let them work in rural towns. The >90th percentile immigrant can be in the city. They are unlikely to be competing for the same jobs as the local populace and will likely even create new jobs as they rise up an international corporate heirarchy.
Effectively, make immigration profession based. Most immigrants would be professionals who will do the jobs that Canadians wont (rural jobs, northern areas jobs, hard-hard blue collar work) or ones who immediately allow Canada to start new industries (Engineers, Programmers, etc).
India is obviously the country sending most people to Canada right now. But, it's lowest skill bums who are most desperate to immigrate. A lot of them are testosterone-heavy Punjabi 20 yr old men,who have never held down a job and want to go to 'Kaneda', imagining a land of promise that does not exist.
So for starters, Canada can start appealing to the Indians that would be useful to it. The best Indians go to the US, then Bangalore (they are increasingly staying back), then Ireland, Europe if possible and Canada is the last option. Part of the reason is because COL is so high in Canadian cities, that only the >90th percentile professionals can afford to live there, and 90th percentile professional can usually get into the US making 2x the wage.
IMO, the US lowkey figured it out when it comes to India immigration.
The US imported 3 waves of Indias. Blue collar restaurant owners, 7/11 running business owners and high achieving IT professionals. All 3 groups are known for an almost protestant-eque work ethic and strong aversion for public nuisance.
There are a lot of countries or Indian states that are 'untapped' in the same manner. Canada should target them, rather than getting 2nd tier citizens of urban India and the rest of the world.
Is there any example at all of a modern country that kept large migrant populations in rural areas with coercion?
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