Abul Rizvi swings and misses again in immigration attack

Immigration influencer Abul Rizvi often rudely abuses people on Twitter (X), only to end up with egg on his face.

Rizvi’s latest salvo was launched at Tarric Brooker for daring to state the bona fide 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 shot 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%”.

Abul Rizvi might want 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:

Indeed, below are the Canadian government’s migration forecasts, which literally corresponded to the events that transpired:

Thus, the 0.25% decline in Canada’s population recorded in 2025 played out as forecast by the government in October 2024.

Rizvi’s suggestion that the population has only declined because Canada’s unemployment rate has hit 7.0% (the latest figure is 6.9%) is also laughable.

Canada’s unemployment rate was already above 5% and rising through 2023 and 2024 when immigration and population growth exploded.

Does Abul Rizvi seriously believe 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 100,000 in the 2025 calendar year?

Rizvi’s claim is patently absurd. It was policy-driven and explicitly forecast by the Canadian government.

Finally, 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 adversely impacted 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”.

Clearly, Abul Rivi’s latest attack on Tarroc Brooker is both rude and factually incorrect.

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:

Instead, Australia experienced its biggest migration boom in history.

Seriously, why does anybody still listen to this bloke?