Earnings Call Insights: OSI Systems (OSIS) Q4 2026
Seeking Alpha’s Disclaimer: This article was automatically generated by an AI tool based on content available on the Seeking Alpha website, and has not been curated or reviewed by humans. Due to inherent limitations in using AI-based tools, the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of such articles cannot be guaranteed. This article is intended for informational purposes only. Seeking Alpha does not take account of your objectives or your financial situation and does not offer any personalized investment advice. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank.
Community activist Karen Bass achieved a decisive victory in the Democratic primary for the 47th state Assembly district by assembling a coalition that extended beyond the traditional base of African American voters to include Latinos and organized labor.
That broader coalition, which allowed her to trounce two candidates who have long been part of the African American political establishment in the area, may signal a changing of the guard in South Los Angeles. The district extends from Westwood through Culver City to the Crenshaw area.
Bass captured 48% of the vote in the Democratic primary, while Nate Holden, who represented part of the area as a state legislator and city councilman for 20 years, received 21%. Attorney Rickey Ivie finished a distant third, despite support from many of the area’s most prominent black leaders, including current Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, City Councilman Bernard C. Parks and state Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City).
Bass and political experts said that her campaign had benefited from demographic shifts, grass-roots organizing and the power of organized labor.
The candidate said people had seemed to appreciate that, before running for office, she had toiled in the community for more than a decade as the executive director of the Community Coalition, a group that led the fight against rebuilding liquor stores in South Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, and championed education reform for schools in poor neighborhoods.
“I think the idea of new leadership resonated,” Bass, 50, said Wednesday. “People wanted a new style of leadership. I think they liked the fact that I was an activist who had been deeply involved in the community for years.”
Working in the community gave Bass a huge base of grass-roots supporters to draw on in one of the most ethnically diverse districts in the state, said Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who, along with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D- Los Angeles), formed a powerful group of Latino leaders that backed Bass.
“She has demonstrated that successful candidates in multiracial districts are going to have to build coalitions, and Karen Bass has been building coalitions for 30 years,” Villaraigosa said. Bass benefited from a $250,000 independent campaign by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which also flooded the district with 450 volunteers to get out the vote on election day.
“She is part of a new paradigm, of an African American/labor alliance for South Los Angeles,” said Miguel Contreras, head of the labor organization.
The 47th Assembly District was redrawn in 2002 to make it less heavily African American, making it imperative to build alliances beyond a single ethnic group. That’s an increasingly important skill in Los Angeles, where the growing Latino population means there are few areas where someone can be elected with the support of black voters alone.
Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles), a Bass backer, said Bass had done the best job of reaching out to diverse groups. Bass said she had courted Jewish voters in the western end of the district, while organized labor had helped her by targeting Latino voters on her behalf. Ideology also played a role, Ridley-Thomas said, saying that Bass is more liberal than Ivie, Wesson and Burke.
“Ivie is a middle-of-the road, moderate Democrat and Karen is definitely left of center and progressive,” said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A..
A Baldwin Vista resident who teaches health communications at the USC School of Medicine, Bass agreed that she was a better ideological match with voters in the predominantly Democratic district.
The 47th Assembly District was one of 100 state Senate and Assembly contests that drew California voters to the polls Tuesday.
Though Tuesday’s winners must still compete in the November general election, most districts have been drawn to strongly favor either Republicans or Democrats. As a result, odds are good that the people who will take seats as new lawmakers in December will include Van Tran, who would become the first Vietnamese American elected to the Legislature, and Lori Saldana, a San Diego community college teacher who shocked the Democratic establishment by spending just $50,000 to beat other Democrats who enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of support from some of the biggest interests trying to influence the Legislature.
Saldana’s clear win over former Gov. Gray Davis aide Vince Hall and Democratic pollster Heidi Von Szeliski was the biggest decided upset in the state, but three races were too close to call Wednesday as counties tallied absentee ballots.
Interest groups, including trial lawyers, business groups and unions, sank nearly $7 million into races, either directly or through independent expenditure campaigns, but no special interest group emerged as a clear winner.
The election allowed some politicians to extend their careers, including Board of Equalization member Carole Migden, who won the Democratic primary in a liberal San Francisco state Senate district, and Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine), who beat fellow Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) for the Republican nomination in a conservative Orange County Senate district. Johan Klehs, a Democrat who has served eight years in the Assembly and six years on the Board of Equalization, appears headed back to the Assembly. Unopposed, he won the nomination in a Democratic-leaning district east of San Francisco.
Another former assemblyman seeking a comeback, Democrat Tom Umberg, had a slight lead of 51.2% to 48.8% over opponent Claudia Alvarez in the heavily Latino 69th Assembly District, which includes Santa Ana. Alvarez held out hope Wednesday that the absentee ballot tally could swing the race her way.
Also awaiting absentee ballot results were the trial lawyers who sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into the 21st Assembly District south of San Francisco. A four-way race among Democrats has been narrowed to a neck-and-neck contest between Redwood City Councilman Ira Ruskin, with 37.4% of the precinct vote and attorney Joe Carcione, with 36.6%.
A former US State Department advisor on Syria tells Al Jazeera’s ‘This is America’ the improved relationship between Washington and Damascus makes sense. Syria’s new leadership’s priorities overlap with US interests – regional stability and containing armed groups.
Published On 19 Aug 202619 Aug 2026
Share
The TWZ Newsletter
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The Polish Navy launched its largest surface combatant since the interwar period, when the frigate Wicher went into the water today. The warship, built locally according to a British design, is the first of three and part of a wide-ranging modernization program for the Polish Navy as it adapts to meet a growing Russian threat in the strategic Baltic Sea region and elsewhere.
Wicher (Polish for gale) was floated off a semi-submersible heavy-lift barge in the Gulf of Gdansk today.
Yesterday, the frigate was still on dry land, in the dock at the PGZ Stocznia Wojenna (PGZ SW) yard in Gdynia, on the Baltic Sea, where it had been built. It was rolled out and placed on the barge there before its christening and naming ceremony attended by Polish President Karol Nawrocki.
“Within the PGZ Group, we are implementing projects of strategic importance to national security,” said Adam Leszkiewicz, CEO of PGZ. “The christening and launch of the first frigate under the Miecznik program is one of the most important milestones in rebuilding the operational capabilities of the Polish Navy.”
W pewnym sensie Wicher odbył już swój pierwszy rejs. No, może „rejsik” 😉
Późnym wieczorem, na pokładzie barki, dotarł na miejsce dzisiejszej uroczystości chrztu i nadania imienia. Napędu jeszcze nie ma – ale pierwszy odcinek drogi po wodzie już za nim.
Do historycznejchwili… pic.twitter.com/VT1lVGacAQ
— PGZ Stocznia Wojenna ⚓ (@StoczniaWojenna) August 11, 2026
Yesterday’s ceremony was marked by the blasts from the ship horns of two of the warships that Wicher will replace. These are the Kościuszko, which accompanied Wicher during its launch today, and Pułaski, currently in dry dock at the shipyard.
These are Poland’s two Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, dating from the late Cold War period and transferred from the U.S. Navy.
The three new multirole frigates being built in the Project 106 Miecznik (Swordfish) class — described as the largest program of its kind in Polish Navy history — are far more capable vessels, based on Babcock International’s Arrowhead 140 design.
The Arrowhead 140 design is derived from the innovative Iver Huitfeldt class frigate used by the Royal Danish Navy and also forms the basis of the U.K. Royal Navy Type 31 general-purpose frigate. Overall, the Arrowhead 140 has a modular structure and generous internal space, meaning it can be adapted for a variety of different systems and sub-systems, as required.
The new Swordfish frigates have a length of 138 meters (453 feet), a beam of approximately 20 meters (66 feet), and a maximum displacement (including additional equipment and armor) of approximately 7,700 tons. They will have a maximum range of approximately 8,000 nautical miles, and a maximum speed of 28 knots, powered by four combined diesel and diesel (CODAD) piston engines driving two propellers. Each will have a core crew of approximately 120, with space to embark an additional 60 personnel.
Babcock’s Arrowhead 140 design was selected by Poland in 2022, after which a keel-laying ceremony for Wicher was held in Gdynia in January 2024.
Construction of the second vessel, Burza (Storm), had begun by early 2026, which is planned to be followed by its launch in 2027 and commissioning in 2030. The keel for the third ship, Huragan (Hurricane), will be laid down in late 2026, followed by a planned launch in 2028 and commissioning in 2031.
While they are multirole vessels, the Miecznik design stresses anti-air warfare (AAW) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW).
Compared to the British Type 31, the Miecznik is more extensively equipped.
For its AAW mission, the primary weapon of the Polish warship is the MBDA CAMM, or Common Anti-air Modular Missile.
Firing trials of the CAMM (also known as Sea Ceptor) from the U.K. Royal Navy frigate HMS Argyll:
Sea Ceptor firing trials from HMS Argyll
For medium-range threats, out to beyond 62 miles, the warship will be armed with the CAMM-MR, being jointly developed by Poland and the United Kingdom under the Future Common Missile (FCM) program.
The standard CAMM, with a maximum range of around 28 miles, will also be carried to engage targets at shorter distances.
Versions of the CAMM can be quad-packed, in this case in the U.S.-made Mk 41 vertical launch system (VLS), with 32 cells. That would provide for a maximum of 128 missiles, especially significant bearing in mind current concerns about magazine depth in the face of sustained drone and missile barrages.
Depending on the exact configuration of the VLS, other kinds of missiles and ASW weapons could potentially be integrated at a later date, too.
For ASW specifically, the Miecznik class is provided with two dual-tube launchers for MU90 Impact lightweight torpedoes. The same torpedoes arm the Polish Navy’s AW101 helicopters, seen in the tweet below, which can also be embarked.
For surface strike, the frigate will be armed with eight Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles (NSM), stealthy weapons that can be used against other ships as well as against targets on land. There is an option to install an additional eight NSM launchers if required.
Gun armament will comprise a Leonardo 76mm Strales, which is compatible with guided ammunition. While these are dual-purpose weapons also capable of striking surface and land targets, the guns are optimized for the anti-missile and anti-drone defense role, for which they fire DART projectiles that employ radio-command guidance for accuracy. The video below shows the Strales/DART combination in action during peacetime:
Strales system with DART ammunition
Two 35mm guns will also be able to fire programmable ammunition. These guns will likely be the locally produced OSU-35K remote weapon stations, as seen below on a Polish Navy minehunter:
Najbliższe dni upłyną nam pod znakiem Miecznika i wodowania Wichra. Równolegle pracujemy jednak przy jednostkach już będących w służbie – dziś na niszczycielu min ORP Albatros (602) zamontowaliśmy docelowy system artyleryjski OSU-35K.
Albatros to typ Kormoran II. Okręty te… pic.twitter.com/pEvF79AofY— PGZ Stocznia Wojenna ⚓ (@StoczniaWojenna) July 28, 2026
For self-defense, the vessels will be fitted with the Terma C-Guard system, with eight fixed 130mm launchers that can dispense infrared, radar-frequency, and acoustic countermeasures.
The majority of the sensor suite on the Miecznik class is provided by Thales, integrated under its TACTICOS combat management system (CMS), already used by the Polish Navy. Thales-provided equipment also includes primary and secondary multifunction radars, a panoramic electro-optical system, and an underwater detection suite comprising a hull-mounted sonar and a towed array sonar.
TACTICOS, Thales’s Combat Management System for Warfighting and Maritime Security Operations
The electronic warfare system is from Rohde & Schwarz, based on that company’s KORA system.
Other additional systems include a laser warning system, navigation radars, and a diver detection sonar.
From the outset, the Polish Navy has schemed the Miecznik class around uncrewed systems, both in terms of operating these itself and countering hostile drones.
While it’s unclear what types of drones may be embarked, the Arrowhead 140 design includes four boat bays, which can accommodate uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) as well as traditional small, crewed boats. The large helicopter deck can also embark rotary-wing drones.
Bearing in mind the emphasis on ASW missions, USVs and rotary-wing drones equipped for this mission could become a regular fixture on the frigate, helping to extend its surveillance range and also for prosecuting targets, especially in high-risk and/or littoral environments.
Under current planning, Wicher is expected to be commissioned in 2029, following sea trials and qualification tests. Before then, the warship needs to be fully outfitted and its systems integrated, which will also be conducted at Gdynia.
The Miecznik program is scheduled for completion by the end of 2031, making it a remarkably compressed effort, reflecting the urgency behind Poland’s military modernization.
PGZ – Miecznik – Nowoczesna fregata dla Marynarki Wojennej RP
In the maritime realm, the new frigates are key to Poland’s efforts to transform its navy from a relatively small Baltic force centered on aging, second-hand warships into a more capable fleet able to make meaningful contributions to high-end NATO maritime operations.
The Miecznik class represents a substantial increase in both size and combat capability over the Polish Navy’s existing surface combatants. The transformation is being driven in large part by the changing security environment in the Baltic following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Germany strengthening its maritime capabilities, and the Baltic states expanding their armed forces, Poland is positioning itself to play a much larger role in the alliance’s regional maritime architecture.
Russia retains substantial air defense, electronic warfare, and strike capabilities in the Baltic region, while its Baltic Fleet is relatively modern and well preserved compared with the Black Sea Fleet. Russian forces in and around the Baltic region — particularly Kaliningrad, western Russia, and Belarus — can combine these capabilities with long-range missiles, submarines, mines and other systems to threaten NATO forces before they even have the chance to concentrate.
Already, Russia is employing cyber operations, sabotage, GPS/electronic interference, drone activity and other “gray zone” measures around NATO’s eastern flank.
A modern frigate force, backed by advanced submarines, coastal anti-ship missiles, and other naval capabilities, will give Warsaw considerably more reach and flexibility both inside the Baltic and beyond it.
However, there remains a question over whether Poland can generate enough people, infrastructure, and sustained resources to turn its ambitious procurement plans into a genuinely effective fleet. The Polish Navy has historically operated with a relatively small personnel base, currently numbering just over 6,000, while the country’s armed forces are simultaneously pursuing one of Europe’s most expansive modernization programs. Manning, training, maintaining, and sustaining an expanded fleet could ultimately prove a challenge.
Poland has an option with Babcock to build a further five ships to the same design. Perhaps more significantly, construction infrastructure built for the program, and the accompanying skills base, will be available for projects in the future, helping the Polish Navy continue its modernization.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
Obsidian Entertainment, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox, has canceled multiple projects and will begin working on a new game in the popular Fallout franchise as part of the division’s broader restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter.
The video-game studio, based in Irvine, California, also laid off around a quarter of its workforce, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
As part of the shake-up, Obsidian has canceled a planned sequel to the 2025 roleplaying game Avowed along with other unannounced projects.
Under the new plan, studio design director Josh Sawyer will lead a new title in the Fallout universe — a series of roleplaying games that take place in an alternate history in which the U.S. has been ravaged by nuclear war. The emerging strategy is still in flux, the people said, and could still change.
Previously, Sawyer had been directing a roleplaying game that was similar structurally and thematically to Fallout but was not part of the franchise.
An Xbox spokesperson declined to comment.
The shifts take place as Xbox Chief Executive Officer Asha Sharma executes what she has called a “reset” of the organization. On Monday, Sharma announced plans to cut 3,200 jobs and divest five studios. She’s said she’ll invest more in the company’s biggest franchises, including Fallout, which has sold tens of millions of copies and led to a hit show from Amazon.com Inc. that is currently filming its third season.
Despite its critical and commercial success, the Fallout video-game series has not seen a new entry since 2018’s online title Fallout 76 because its primary developer, Xbox’s Bethesda Game Studios, has been focused on other projects. Bethesda has also regularly updated and created new content for Fallout 76, which has reached more than 23 million players.
The only Fallout game in the last two decades to not come from Bethesda was 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian and directed by Sawyer. Although New Vegas has become a fan favorite, Bethesda has maintained control over the franchise. The Rockville, Maryland-based studio will work with Obsidian on the new project, the people said.
Obsidian released three games last year, two of which did not meet sales expectations, including Avowed, the company told Bloomberg Businessweek. The studio had been hoping to build on Avowed by developing a sequel in a shorter timeframe using the world and technology that it had already created.
Progress on the sequel was going well, and it was on track to be announced within the next year. But in the end, it did not fit into Sharma’s overall strategy, according to people familiar with the game’s development.
Some Obsidian employees will continue working on the Avowed sequel as they wait for new projects such as Fallout to be ready, perhaps in hope of one day reviving the game, the people said.
Obsidian will also continue to develop downloadable content for last year’s The Outer Worlds 2, the people said, and will also still work on its live-service multiplayer survival game, Grounded 2.
Schreier writes for Bloomberg.
July 6 (Asia Today) — North Korea is using tacit support from China and Russia to harden its status as a nuclear-armed state, raising pressure on South Korea to rebuild the kind of international sanctions coordination that brought Pyongyang back to negotiations in 2018 and 2019, analysts said Monday.
North Korea has repeatedly stressed the “constant expansion and strengthening” of its nuclear forces and the “thorough exercise” of its status as a nuclear-armed state, signaling that it has no intention of returning to talks premised on denuclearization.
Diplomatic observers in Seoul say North Korea is taking advantage of a turbulent international environment to consolidate its nuclear status.
Russia, which has become a close partner of North Korea since the war in Ukraine, vetoed the renewal of the U.N. panel monitoring sanctions on North Korea in March 2024. At the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in May, Russia also opposed including language on North Korea’s nuclear program in a consensus document, according to the report.
China, which has long maintained a formal position supporting denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, did not mention the issue during a North Korea-China summit in June.
The North Korean nuclear issue has become even more difficult to resolve as U.S. attention remains focused on the Middle East and the U.N. Security Council has become increasingly ineffective, analysts said.
Experts say South Korea should pursue denuclearization by maintaining sanctions on North Korea, strengthening its military capabilities in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear buildup and securing diplomatic means to apply pressure through China and Russia.
Kim Tae-woo, former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, said South Korea must acquire capabilities that can offset North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.
“As North Korea’s nuclear threat grows, South Korea must secure corresponding capabilities to neutralize that threat,” Kim said. “Only when North Korea recognizes that an intensifying arms race will be harmful to both Koreas can nuclear arms control negotiations begin.”
Kim said South Korea should quickly move forward with security consultations under the Korea-U.S. joint fact sheet. He said Seoul should pursue the construction of nuclear-powered submarines, secure what he called “nuclear latent capability” and push for stronger U.S. extended deterrence.
Analysts also said Seoul should wage a more active diplomatic campaign toward China and Russia, which retain significant influence over North Korea.
They said South Korea should work to recreate the diplomatic environment of 2016 and 2017, when the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a series of strong sanctions resolutions in response to North Korea’s nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
Experts say those sanctions were the key factor that pushed North Korea into inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korea denuclearization talks in 2018 and 2019.
A former senior South Korean diplomat, who requested anonymity, said sanctions remain one of the few long-term sources of leverage over North Korea.
“Every area of North Korea except its nuclear program remains backward because of sanctions,” the former official said. “As long as sanctions are not abandoned in the long term, I believe there is still hope for North Korea’s denuclearization.”
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260707010002164
A steep NAV drop and a federal probe trigger a high-level departure at BlackRock.
The private credit market’s roughest stretch in years has claimed its first senior leader at a major asset manager.
BlackRock’s Phil Tseng is in the process of leaving his post as CEO of the firm’s publicly traded business development company, according to Bloomberg News.
The move comes amid a brutal year for BlackRock TCP Capital Corp. The firm marked down its net asset value twice in 2026 — by 19% in January and another 5% in May. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been reportedly probing the fund and questioning executives as part of the inquiry.
Tseng, an acqui-hire from BlackRock’s 2018 acquisition of Tennenbaum Capital Partners, remains employed for now with no set departure timeline.
Tseng’s exit echoes a pattern that emerged last fall when two auto-related borrowers collapsed and rattled private lenders. Cleveland-based First Brands filed for Chapter 11 in September after off-balance-sheet financing obscured leverage levels beyond what lenders had underwritten. Founder and CEO Patrick James resigned as the bankruptcy unfolded.
That same month, subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings began liquidating. Federal prosecutors later indicted founder and CEO Daniel Chu and chief operating officer David Goodgame, alleging the pair systematically misled lenders to keep credit lines open. Goodgame pleaded guilty in June to six counts, including bank fraud and conspiracy, and is now cooperating with prosecutors — a deal that could put him on the stand against Chu, who has pleaded not guilty. Chu had also abruptly resigned from Origin Bancorp’s board days before Tricolor’s implosion.
Industry executives have largely characterized the two collapses as isolated fraud cases rather than evidence of systemic rot. Blue Owl co-president Craig Packer told CNBC in October that the failures “weren’t private credit stories” at all.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink struck a similarly confident tone. On an April earnings call, he told analysts that institutional demand for private credit was “accelerating.” Still, headlines around the sector aren’t reflecting what the firm’s own client and portfolio data showed.
Redemptions from business development companies, key lenders in the private credit market, are surging. Investors requested $20.8 billion in redemptions in the first quarter alone. In some cases, those redemptions exceeded the 5% cap set by BlackRock and its rivals: Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital, and KKR.
Not all private credit funds appear troubled. Goldman Sachs’ private credit fund, for example, honored all redemption requests in Q2 because it reported relatively modest private credit fund redemption requests (3.2%). The same goes for Nuveen Churchill and Oaktree with withdrawals of 3.1% to 4.5%, respectively.
But with so many of the sector’s players posting losses, Tseng’s departure suggests the reckoning is reaching up the org chart.
Toronto, Canada – When Diana Gallego listened to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s widely touted speech at the World Economic Forum at the start of this year, she couldn’t help but feel a disconnect.
Carney had made an impassioned plea to the world’s “middle powers” to break with a United States-led international order that he said was no longer working, and his words found receptive audiences around the world.
list of 3 itemsend of list
But for Gallego, co-executive director of FCJ Refugee Centre, an organisation that supports refugees and asylum seekers in Canada’s largest city, the prime minister’s statements rang hollow amid his government’s hardening approach to immigration.
“We saw the [prime] minister going to Davos [with] this beautiful discourse, saying we should not copy our neighbours … But internally, the policies are telling us another story,” Gallego told Al Jazeera. “Canada is closing the doors now.”
Gallego is among more than a dozen experts – from lawyers to professors, rights advocates and former government officials – who told Al Jazeera that Canada is at a “troubling” crossroads in its policies towards migrants and refugees.
As Canadians have grappled with rising economic and social pressures in recent years, a decades-old consensus on the benefits of immigration has frayed.
Hostile rhetoric blaming newcomers for Canada’s ills has intensified, and Carney’s government has slashed temporary visas and restricted access to asylum. Experts say a “generational shift” is under way.
“The general rhetoric is, ‘We don’t want you here’,” said Gallego.
A settler-colonial state, Canada has encouraged successive waves of immigration throughout its history, from largely European settlement in the early to mid-1900s to specialised programmes that brought refugees and high- and low-skilled workers to Canadian shores.
For decades, that influx of newcomers was widely viewed as a positive thing: immigration was fuelling the country’s economy, staffing key job sectors and counteracting a rapidly ageing population.
But over the past few years, Canada has seen one of the most dramatic shifts in how the public views immigration – and the government has tapped into increasingly negative sentiment to cut programmes and pass new, restrictive laws.
The policy changes began under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose Liberal Party government had dramatically increased temporary immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic to fill labour market gaps.
The figures shot up rapidly and, by October 2024, there were nearly 3.15 million non-permanent residents in Canada, accounting for roughly 8 percent of the population, according to official figures.
At the same time, systemic issues – from a shortage of affordable housing to high grocery costs and long hospital wait times – were putting the squeeze on many Canadian households.
Public attitudes quickly hardened, and a 2024 poll (PDF) found a majority of Canadians saying for the first time in decades that there was “too much immigration”.
Since then, several incidents of xenophobic violence have been reported, including in some of Canada’s largest cities, where the influx of migrants has been among the most visible.
Under pressure as angry discourse soared, the Trudeau government promised in 2024 to get immigration back to “sustainable” levels, and the cuts began, including most notably to international student visas.
“The reality is that not everyone who wants to come to Canada will be able to – just like not everyone who wants to stay in Canada will be able to,” Marc Miller, Canada’s former immigration minister, said in September that year.
The numbers of arrivals dropped quickly as student and work visas were cancelled, forcing thousands of people to leave Canada or remain without legal status. By the start of this year, non-permanent residents totalled about 2.67 million, according to government figures, a 15 percent drop from the peak in October 2024.
“I don’t think you can blame the housing crisis in Canada on immigration, but there’s no doubt that the radically increased numbers under Justin Trudeau’s regime had a political effect,” Allan Rock, a former Canadian justice minister and Liberal lawmaker, told Al Jazeera.
The government, Rock explained, has been “reading the room and sensing that Canadians were connecting local economic and financial difficulties with migration”.
At the same time, right-wing politicians have seized on those public attitudes, with the opposition Conservative Party earlier this year pushing the governing Liberals to cut healthcare for people it described as “fake refugees”.
The Conservatives, also, have echoed US President Donald Trump in advocating for changes to “birthright citizenship”, claiming that the “outdated rule” that grants citizenship to anyone born in Canada “presents yet another strain on our immigration system that Canada can’t handle”.
“With over 7 per cent of Canada’s population here on temporary status – and arrivals massively outpacing the capacity of our housing, healthcare and jobs markets – something needs to change,” the party said.
Rights advocates have denounced that rhetoric while accusing policymakers of falsely linking migrants and refugees to social problems to absolve themselves of responsibility for a years-long failure to properly fund healthcare, education and other services.
On the housing issue, for instance, experts have found (PDF) that, while immigration increases demand for housing stock, its effect on prices is far less important than public discourse would have people believe.
“Leadership means not simply caving into public opinion when it’s based on erroneous beliefs,” Rock told Al Jazeera. “We’re buying into, and we’re supporting, a growing international trend to tighten borders and build walls and validate erroneous beliefs about refugees and migrants.”
“It’s a betrayal of values that this country has always stood for, and I find it troubling.”
Yet, since taking office in April 2025, Carney – the prime minister – has continued where his predecessor Trudeau left off on immigration.
In late March, Carney’s Liberal government passed a sweeping new law that grants Ottawa the power to cancel visas en masse, including for permanent residents, if it deems it in the “public interest” to do so.
The law, known as Bill C-12, also restricts access to Canada’s refugee status determination system in ways that lawyers told Al Jazeera are “arbitrary” and likely run counter to the country’s constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The government has justified the measure – which is expected to face a constitutional challenge in court – as part of an effort to streamline a backlogged asylum system and prevent “fraud”.
At the end of last year, nearly 300,000 cases were pending at the independent tribunal that adjudicates refugee claims in the country, known as the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).
A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department, told Al Jazeera that it had introduced Bill C-12 “as global migration pressures intensify”.
The law introduces “measures to address challenges such as sudden increases in asylum claims and situations where existing processes may be used to circumvent regular immigration pathways”, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“This means we can provide faster protection for those in need,” they said, adding that Bill C-12 also respects Canada’s obligations under the United Nations Refugee Convention as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
But experts say the law will do little to address the backlog at the IRB. They have also accused lawmakers of failing to dispel – and even of playing into – xenophobic rhetoric rather than addressing the real concerns of Canadians or structural problems in the asylum system.
The government is “creating this sense in the public that people are scamming us, they’re taking advantage of the system [and] there’s something broken that needs to be fixed”, said Julia Sande, a lawyer at Amnesty International Canada.
“People’s struggles are real. People are facing a housing crisis, inflation and unemployment, wage stagnation and widening inequality,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Then, instead of taking responsibility or making the changes needed to address these things, governments look for a group to blame – and who’s better to blame than people who don’t have the right to vote and can’t vote you out?”
Despite such concerns raised by rights advocates, Canada’s changing immigration policies do not appear to have drawn much attention – or pushback – from the wider public.
A wide-reaching effort by civil society groups earlier this year to get the government to make amendments to Bill C-12 failed to secure any meaningful changes.
In addition to that law, the Carney government also has rolled back a healthcare programme for refugees, extended a freeze on refugee resettlement applications, and announced significant funding cuts to several ministries, including the immigration department.
Planned cuts at the IRB – the board that adjudicates refugee claims – have also been reported, fuelling concerns that delays may get worse.
“The fact that there is no real plan in place to deal with this backlog [at the IRB] then contributes to negative opinion by the public about refugees,” said Maureen Silcoff, a refugee lawyer who previously served as a member of the tribunal.
“I think the government has a responsibility to proactively undo some of the myths that are circulating,” Silcoff told Al Jazeera. “This is especially important in times where we see in other countries that there’s a surge of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric.”
Nevertheless, Carney continues to enjoy high approval ratings as he has justified government policies during his first year in office as part of an “elbows up” response to pressure from the Trump administration.
“The Carney government still seems to be [enjoying] a honeymoon of sorts,” said John Carlaw, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University who specialises in Canadian politics and immigration.
“We’re seeing a major withdrawal of social spending and then an investment in militarism and border enforcement,” Carlaw told Al Jazeera, describing it as a “troubling period” in Canada.
“I think C-12 really showed the government is not interested in hearing from communities that work with migrants and immigrants to make policies that are consistent with a human rights framework. They just don’t want to listen to dissent.”
Despite that, rights advocates say they will continue to push back against the direction Canada is heading on immigration.
“We can’t stop fighting,” Luisa Ortiz-Garza, a migrant rights organiser at Parkdale Community Legal Services, told a packed gymnasium at Trinity-St Paul’s United Church in downtown Toronto in late April.
Several dozen people joined the event, dubbed “No More Divide and Rule”, to denounce xenophobia and urge the government to grant legal immigration status for all migrants and refugees in Canada.
“What [the government is] doing is actually just putting people against each other,” Ortiz-Garza told Al Jazeera in an interview at her organisation’s office a few days before the gathering.
“It’s citizens against migrants [and] migrants against migrants because there is this idea that some migrants did things right and other migrants just jumped the queue or abused the system,” she said.
“We’re trying to have these conversations and bring people together: allies, citizens, migrants … so that we can actually talk about this and remind people about unity.”
That was echoed by Sande at Amnesty International, who warned that Canada is “not immune” to a backsliding on human rights. “Things will just continue to get worse until governments feel they’re held to account,” she said. “Yes, scapegoating may start with migrants, but it never ends there.”