Immigration influencer Abul Rizvi often rudely abuses people on Twitter (X), only to end up with egg on his face (for example, see here, here, here, and here).
Earlier this month, I reported on Rizvi’s tirade against Tarric Brooker for daring to state the proven fact that Canada deliberately chose to cut immigration and population growth:
“Only a total idiot would say Canada achieved zero net migration at the stroke of a pen. Canada’s unemployment rate hit 7% to get the rapid departure rate needed. Is that what this guy wants?”, Rizvi rudely wrote.
Cameron Murray hit back at Rizvi, noting that Canada’s policy to restrict immigration was deliberate and the major driver of its population decline:
The best Rizvi could muster was to admit that Canada’s immigration policy tightening “contributed to the fall but the big outflow would not have happened if unemployment was 4%”.
In my response, I called on Rizvi to examine the Canadian government’s announcement in October 2024, which explicitly stated that the government forecast “a marginal population decline of 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026” due to the immigration policy changes:
Below are the Canadian government’s official migration forecasts, which corresponded to the events that transpired:
The 0.5% decline in Canada’s population recorded in the year to March 2026 played out pretty much as forecast by the government in October 2024.
I also argued that Rizvi’s claim that Canada’s population only declined because its unemployment rate hit 7.0% was asinine.
Canada’s unemployment rate was already above 5% and rising through 2023 and 2024 when immigration and population growth exploded.
Therefore, it is patently absurd to claim that a ~1% increase in the unemployment rate was the main driver of Canada’s annual population growth swinging from a gain of 1.2 million in the June 2024 year to a loss of 187,500 in the March 2026 calendar year.
Finally, I argued that Canada’s unemployment rate would likely be even higher had the Canadian government maintained its former loose immigration settings amid US President Trump’s tariff war, which has punished the Canadian economy more than any other.
TD Economics Chief Economist Beata Caranci argued that if migration had remained high, Canada’s unemployment rate would have risen above 8%.
“If the labour growth rates of the prior two years were maintained through 2025, we estimate today’s unemployment rate could have breached 8%”, Caranci wrote.
“Canada’s current unemployment rate would likely be at least 1 ppt higher if immigration growth had continued unabated”.
Thus, Abul Rivi’s tirade against Tarric Brooker was both rude and factually incorrect.
Like a true glutton for punishment, Abul Rizvi has returned, attacking Tarric Brooker’s factual claim that “after ~20 years of running one of the largest per capita intakes in the developed world, we still allegedly have broad based skills shortages”.
Brooker is right. Australia’s population expanded by 35% between 2005 and 2024, nearly three times faster than the OECD total:
Yet, there are persistent complaints of skills shortages, despite Australia’s population being 7.7 million larger today than 20 years ago.
Rizvi couldn’t handle Brooker’s logic, so he clapped back, claiming, “Old Avid still struggling with how demography & the labour market works”:
When Twitter (X) user jrbru87 asked Rizvi to explain himself, he stated, “Like you old Avid doesn’t understand the lump of labour fallacy. Unthinking ‘different’ doesn’t mean things get better”.
Once again, Rizvi played himself, because what Tarric Brooker implied was that importing migrants to solve labour shortages hasn’t worked, as it has created shortages elsewhere – a point acknowledged by Twitter (X) user Steve:
“Do you even listen to yourself anymore?”, Steve wrote.
“The lump of labour fallacy supposes new workers take jobs without creating more. Tarric is saying the lump of labour has created so many new jobs that we still have skills shortages”.
“Are you honestly this stupid?”
Well said, Steve. As I have written repeatedly on MB, importing migrants to solve labour shortages is like a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ as it may solve the shortage in one area, only to create shortages in others (as demand from migrants in these other areas increases).
Sadly, Abul Rizvi always tweets first and asks questions later and repeatedly ends up looking stupid.
It’s a wonder anybody listens to him given he is responsible for arguably the single worst immigration forecast in Australia’s history:
Rizvi markets himself as Australia’s greatest expert on immigration and frequently derides others for lacking knowledge. Yet, in July 2020, Rizvi projected that Australia’s net overseas migration had no chance of surpassing 200,000 a year this decade:
That forecast aged like milk. Instead, Australia experienced its biggest migration boom in history.
Seriously, why does anybody still listen to this bloke?
