Liberal cabinet withdraws to focus on housing and immigration

Housing and immigration take centre stage Monday as the federal cabinet meeting in Halifax enters its first full day of meetings.

The annual cabinet meeting at the end of summer is intended to set the agenda for the autumn session of parliament, which begins in three weeks.

The Liberals are in a make-or-break moment, after more than a year of declining poll numbers and with less than a year to go until the next federal election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will take questions from the media early Monday morning, a move he has done far less frequently since the Liberals lost a crucial byelection in a Toronto stronghold in late June.

Ministers are also expected to provide updates on the government’s ongoing review of the temporary foreign worker program, as well as national childcare and electric vehicle tariffs.

The cabinet will also have to deal with the still unresolved labor disputes within the two national railroads. Teamsters are planning a protest rally today.

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Disruption to Canadian railway workers could be a sign of more unrest to come

The government last week asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to initiate binding arbitration to end the work stoppage that began when both Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) blocked their workers from leaving at midnight on Thursday.

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The board agreed to the request for binding arbitration on Saturday, but Teamsters President Paul Boucher has vowed to fight it in court and will lead a protest in Halifax today.

But for the liberals, affordability and the housing shortage remain the top priorities.

Under their rule, the explosion of immigration has become a major problem, contributing to rising housing prices and fueling anti-immigration sentiment in many parts of the country.

The explosion in international student visas was discussed during last summer’s Cabinet retreat. In January, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced that the government would approve 35 percent fewer student visas this year than in 2023.

He is now focusing more on temporary foreign workers, many of whom are paid low wages to do jobs that Canadians are hard to find. The number of low-wage foreign workers increased fivefold between 2016 and 2024, much of it during the post-COVID-19 labour shortages in 2022.

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Federal government announces government land will be leased to build more affordable housing

Miller has said that circumstances have changed and that the program must too. The government recently approved a six-month freeze on new low-wage temporary foreign workers in Montreal.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is also expected to discuss with her cabinet colleagues the summer talks that examined whether the US and Europe should join forces and impose new tariffs on electric vehicles made in China.

On Sunday evening, the Cabinet was heard by Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, during a working dinner on the occasion of the Cabinet meeting. Sullivan warned about Chinese economic policies, including overproduction and state subsidies, that lead to unfair prices and competition.

1:37
US tariffs on Chinese electric cars a ‘tightrope walk’ for Canada?

President Joe Biden announced in May that he would quadruple import duties on electric cars made in China to 100 percent, and Canada is expected to follow the U.S. lead with new tariffs of its own.

Freeland held the required consultation to bring this about in July, but has not yet said when the tariffs would be introduced or what they would be.

The European Union also plans to vote on introducing new tariffs in its member states in October.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is pressuring the government to impose tariffs, promising to do so if he wins the next election.

Sullivan told reporters Sunday night that the U.S. won’t tell Canada what to do, but that there are significant economic fairness and data security issues surrounding cars made in China.

“The US believes that a united front, a coordinated approach to these issues, benefits us all,” he said.

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