Nonetheless it gained 4.9% of the vote, and while it had a range of other issues—opposition to “radical gender ideology,” support for oil pipelines, liberalization of gun laws and protecting the values of “Western civilization”—the votes it gained may have been a harbinger of a new immigration politics in Canada.5 Recent polling has indicated a change in public attitudes towards immigration. [...] Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has sought to link immigration to the price of housing.13 He has criticized the Trudeau government for increasing immigration levels while not addressing housing, thus worsening the shortage, saying that “we need to make a link between the number of homes built and the number of people we invite as new Canadians.” However, he has shied away from specifics such. [...] The priority of the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois is the maximum devolution of authority for immigration to Quebec, which by agreement with the federal government already administers its own immigration screening system, with the aim of maximizing the entry of francophone immigrants. [...] 22 Canada Encounters Illegal Immigration Geography largely but not entirely spares Canada from the illegal immigration issue which has risen to the top of the political agenda in the United States. [...] Still, the Trudeau government has seen that this issue is sufficiently salient as to require some trimming around the edges of immigration levels while the Conservative opposition prefers to frame the immigration question as a consequence of alleged failures in economic, especially housing policy.
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