Canada's experiment with mass immigration and multiculturalism have helped cause stagnating living standards in the country, U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance said on Friday.

“While I'm sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into ‘diversity is our strength, we don't need a melting pot we have a salad bowl’ immigration insanity than Canada,” Vance wrote on X in response to a post featuring a graph showing Canada lagging behind the U.S. and U.K. in post-pandemic growth.

While I'm sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into "diversity is our strength, we don't need a melting pot we have a salad bowl" immigration insanity than Canada.

It has the highest foreign-born share of the population in the entire G7 and its living… https://t.co/PtlesqPJJl

— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 21, 2025

“It has the highest foreign-born share of the population in the entire G7 and its living standards have stagnated.”

In a follow-up post, the vice-president said the fault lies with the country's leaders — and the voters who have repeatedly backed them — as he fired a shot at the state broadcaster.

Go Ad Free

“And with all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame,” he said.

“The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.”

In September, a Fraser Institute study found Canadians' standard of living had declined from 2020 to 2024, with GDP per person decreasing by 2%, “the worst five-year decline since the Great Depression,” researchers wrote.

This decline was driven by a reduction in the country's capital-to-labour ratio, meaning the country had lowered its productive output.

At the same time, Canada's immigration system welcomed millions of newcomers, particularly in 2022 as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions largely eased across the country. 

“The outlook for growth in living standards in Canada over the medium term is bleak and dramatic changes in policies, particularly in Ottawa, are required to reverse the country’s markedly poor economic performance,” said the authors of the Fraser Institute study.