well, this generated a lot of replies. immigration is one of the most contested files in the country and people have good reason to be angry about how it's been run. ignoring that many of the replies are just bot flooding triggered by a keyword, I do think it's worth a more nuanced post than a quick one-liner. so, here's a fuller version: first, the replies saying we're not labour-constrained are right. there are 3 unemployed canadians for every job vacancy. in 2022 it was 1 to 1. vacancies have halved since then and youth unemployment is 13%. there is no general labour shortage. what's left are specific shortages: nurses in remote regions, licensed trades, some engineering. jobs that need someone with a specific a credential or willing to be in a specific location. that's why yesterday's change is directionally good. points now follow jobs that pay at least 1.3x the national median, which is exactly where the real gaps are. it is an attempt to end the "come study, work a low-wage job, hope for PR." approach to immigration. Build Canada has published several memos in the past making the case for prioritizing higher skilled immigrants who will more immediately contribute to economic growth. I interpret this change as a sign this government is trying to be more thoughtful about who, not how many. my concern, and one shared in the comments: the LMIA has been removed as a requirement from the job-offer. to be fair, it was totally broken, people were buying LMIAs, and there was massive fraud, so i get why the government removed this. but, in a 3:1 labour market, a 100-point job offer with no published check has high potential for being a fraud magnet, as many have pointed out. "IRCC will verify" is not a method and I think this is a real weakness. IRCC should be more specific about how they will verify and put up a public website that shows the audit rate and the enforcement numbers in real time so that Canadians can see if this is working. the other big piece everyone is arguing about: vacancies didn't fall because the jobs got filled. they fell because demand fell. the problem is that we're not creating enough high-wage jobs for the people already here. that's a growth problem, and no immigration policy will fix it. so yes, there are definitely challenges, but better targeting to prioritize high income and high skilled immigrants is a good step -- necessary, but not sufficient -- in starting to fix what has become a very broken system.