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Canada has always chosen newcomers primarily by how well they serve the economy: whether they can plug labour shortages, pay overpriced international tuition fees, or fill regional gaps. It鈥檚 not about giving people from other countries safety or a fresh start 鈥� those things are secondary, sometimes tertiary to the codified 鈥淐anada First鈥� ideal. Refugees get excluded by . Reuniting parents and grandparents get . International students are demonized as .

And now, as the Star reports, the federal government wants even broader powers to cancel or suspend immigration applications if it decides it鈥檚 in the 鈥減ublic interest.鈥� In practice, that means the governments鈥� interests, however the minister of the day defines it. With Bill C-2, the so-called Strong Borders Act, immigrants aren鈥檛 just second 鈥� they can be cut out of line completely.

Bill C-2 simply legislates something we already know 鈥� that immigrants have been, are and will always be second.

Second to economic needs.

Second to security concerns.

Second to angry voting citizens.

The proposed law crystallizes this reality. Refugee claimants who鈥檝e been in Canada for more than a year may lose the right to a hearing. International students who face bureaucratic delays could see their applications suspended. Temporary workers could suddenly lose status if their permits are revoked. And because the bill even applies retroactively to people who arrived after June 2020, those who thought they were playing by the rules could find the rules rewritten beneath them.

Here’s the awkward thing about an 鈥淚mmigrants Second鈥� politics when Canada is in a moment: Canada can鈥檛 build without immigrants. Ottawa鈥檚 new just flagged a slate of nation-building infrastructure projects that will require tens of thousands of construction and industrial trades jobs across the next decade. Those sectors are already short of people.

Even now, , and industry groups warn that without faster recruitment and training, . So, without enough Canadians who want to do the work, inevitably some of these jobs, especially in rural or hard to access parts of Canada, will be 鈥淚mmigrants Only鈥� jobs.

It might sound ridiculous on first look, but we鈥檝e been here before. When Canada became a nation with the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, it turned to imported labour because there was a chronic labour shortage, and Canadians didn鈥檛 want to do the more dangerous jobs.

Chinese migrants formed three-quarters of the total railway workforce in British Colombia, and it was Chinese men who were sent to do the perilous work of blasting through mountains, often hanging from cliffs with dynamite. Historians estimate 鈥� their families uncompensated and unnamed 鈥� building Canada鈥檚 nation-building railway. This was the cost of nation-building on the cheap and it looks like it鈥檚 a bad habit Canada can鈥檛 seem to shake.

Bill C-2 doubles the contradiction. On paper, we need immigrants to build housing, ports and our energy sector. In practice, the bill lets the government cancel or suspend applications in a catch-all 鈥減ublic interest鈥� escape clause. These policies heighten precarity for the very workers Canada will quietly reply on when domestic supply falls short. That is 鈥淐anada First, Immigrants Second鈥� made law.

If we鈥檙e serious about nation-building, then build the workforce fairly: clear, narrow limits on 鈥減ublic interest鈥� powers; due process guarantees; and fast, humane pathways for the immigrants who will help us pour the concrete, run the cables, weld the steel and build the turbines. Anything less is a replay of our past 鈥� expecting immigrants to do the dangerous work while leaving them last in line for dignity and rights.