In a budget next week that鈥檚 dedicated to innovation, the federal government might want to set aside funds to fend off innovative immigration.
About 4,000 kilometres southwest of Ottawa, migrant shelters line the Mexico border where, Reuters reports, many of those now being deported from Trump鈥檚 America are plotting a Canadian invasion.
They鈥檙e telling reporters there鈥檚 no future trying to re-enter and stay in a hostile U.S.A.. Their Plan B is to beeline for Canada.
These could be dismissed as isolated or anecdotal experiences except the raw numbers suggest, and I apologize for this badly mixed metaphor, the canary is doing a swan song in the immigration coal mine.
Since Canada鈥檚 lifting of visa requirements for Mexicans four months ago, advice requests of immigration specialists and approved travel authorizations have tripled.
Flight bookings to Canada by Mexicans are up 90 per cent from a year ago although, to be fair, some of that could be from enhanced tourism.
Meanwhile, the calls for asylum-seeker assistance from Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister rate little more than a shrug from federal ministers waiting to see if there鈥檚 a wave developing before reacting.
Yet consider the advance warnings from the Immigration and Refugee Board. The chair says the board is funded and staffed to handle 17,000 asylum claims, but he anticipates double that number this year. In short order, wait times will double to eight months, giving illegal arrivals plenty of time to disappear into the underground, undocumented economy.
Like it or not, Canada has become a beacon for the poor, huddled masses from Mexico and elsewhere yearning for freedom, or at very least refuge from Donald Trump鈥檚 ongoing crackdown efforts.
The word is out and spreading that simply setting a foot on Canada soil is to reach the land of immigration opportunity, by legal or illegal means.
That鈥檚 not a bad thing for potentially productive arrivals.
But it鈥檚 a big problem if reports are true that Mexicans deported as undesirable by Trump are set to become Canada鈥檚 next immigration surge under Trudeau.
That suggests now is the time for government to deter illegal border jumpers with obstacles more durable than cold weather and snowdrifts.
That鈥檚 the Last Word鈥�
