It seems that Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Zach Churchill has an audience for his disingenuous campaign against immigration levels. According to polling by Abacus Data, “managing population growth” is a growing issue in the provincial election campaign – and Tim Houston’s record on the file isn’t getting high ratings.
Ontario-based Abacus recently set up an Atlantic region office in Halifax and marked the occasion with a horse race poll, as well as a closer look at the impact of population growth on political opinion. The former still had Tim Houston’s PCs well in the lead after week one of the campaign, but the population growth stuff is intriguing.
Although it trails well behind health care, affordability and housing as a vote-determining issue, population growth has moved ahead of issues like the economy, climate change and Houston’s favourite, defending Nova Scotia’s interests in Ottawa. And while respondents – 600 surveyed from Oct. 28-31 – seemed to align with party preferences on who could best deal with the issue the verdict on Houston was harsh. Over half said the Premier is doing a poor (28 percent) or terrible job (24 percent) versus only 12 percent who said excellent or good.
The Abacus report also fired another volley in Houston’s direction – “some national polling we did this summer also tells us that concern about population growth is higher in Nova Scotia than it is in any other Canadian province.” Last week’s release from Abacus didn’t provide any details on the nature or exact timing of that particular poll – but for what it’s worth, 57 percent of Nova Scotians think their community is growing too quickly, well ahead of the next two provinces on the list, British Columbia and Alberta at 47 percent.
As discussed here and here both Churchill and Houston are guilty of using immigrants and asylum seekers for political gain. Churchill has seized on Houston’s musings about doubling the Province’s population by 2060 to blame him for immigration levels putting pressure on housing and the health care and education systems. In response, Houston has introduced a red herring – accusing Churchill of supporting a non-existent federal plan to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia.
While Houston’s asylum seekers claim appears to be completely bogus, Churchill is guilty as well of leaving out several salient points, chiefly the impact that the post-pandemic influx of temporary work and student visas has had on Nova Scotia’s population. That inflow – accounting for nearly half of the 51,111 increase in population from July 2022 to July 2024 – peaked a year ago and has been dropping sharply ever since. Also missing from Churchill’s narrative is any acknowledgement that the spike in non-permanent residents is the responsibility of the federal government, which now is putting the brakes on handing out temporary work and students visas.
The drop in non-permanent residents, combined with a steep decline in interprovincial migration has already slowed the rate of increase in Nova Scotia’s population, as the table below shows.
Population Increase by category July 1 2022-24
| 2022-23 | 2023-24 | |
| Net immigration | 11,830 | 13,247 |
| Net non-permanent immigration | 16,529 | 8,745 |
| Net Interprovincial migration | 6,989 | 2,252 |
| Births-deaths | -4,125 | -4,356 |
| Total Increase | 31,223 | 19,888 |
Source: Statistics Canada Quarterly Population Estimates
As the table shows, following an increase of 31,223 from July 2022 to July 2023, the increase dropped below 20,000 over the next 12 months. Updated quarterly numbers will not be available until next month, but based on StatsCanada’s population clock, the increase since July is consistent with the lower growth pattern established in 2023-4. If there ever was an immigration crisis, it seems to have peaked, a possibility being ignored by some politicians.
Aside from raising the issue and reminding voters of Houston’s “double-the-population” goal, the Liberals lack a coherent plan for achieving their “sustainable rate” of population growth. They say they want to limit landings to 7,000 a year, while focussing on professionals needed in areas such as healthcare, education and trades. However, by ignoring both the non-permanent resident factor and the over-riding federal responsibility for immigration, their plan is as vapid as Houston’s pipe dream.
But what the plan lacks in policy coherence, it more than makes up for in cynical political finesse. As much as he likes to tout his independence from the Conservative Party of Canada, Tim Houston depends on the support of many of the same voters as the Poilievre-led party. Another Abacus Data poll, this one conducted in early October involving 1,915 participants nation-wide, found that while 53 percent expressed negative views of immigration, the number rose to 70 percent among Conservative voters.
Because most conservatives – large “c” and small – are negative about immigration, Houston’s population growth pledge could lose him support from conservative swing voters, likely to Churchill’s benefit. As last week’s report from Abacus put it:
“Population growth is emerging as a ballot-box issue in Nova Scotia’s provincial election. At the end of the first week of campaigning, managing population growth is not as important an issue to eligible voters as fixing healthcare, affordability, improving housing, or cutting taxes, but it is definitely influencing the way some voters are thinking about their political choices, particularly those who see ‘a lot’ of growth in their communities.”
Houston has shown he is aware of the emergence, and maybe even the verdict that he is doing a “poor” or “terrible” job on the issue. One response was to engage in combat with the straw man he created around the 6,000 asylum seekers. Another was to claim that“we have been strategic and focussed… so the only immigration that can come into the province at this time is if they are a skilled trades worker or a health care worker.”
What we are left with is the inference that there’s no room in Nova Scotia for asylum seekers or anyone else who does not meet our narrow specifications. That sends a poor message to the 50,000-plus international immigrants who have arrived in recent years and don’t fit into the strategy, or to others who may be considering coming here in the future. Overall it seems like a cruel and self-defeating way of dealing with negative perceptions about immigration and population growth.
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The xenophobic chatter coming out of the Conservatives certainly sounds like a script written by Poilievre. The Liberals stand on immigration is unrealistic. People need to understand that the damage the white, western world has done to the south in terms of resource theft, corrupt politics, war mongering, and climate change means we will see increasing numbers of immigrants and refugees do that’s what we should be preparing for, with open arms and a sharing attitude. We owe it, they deserve it.