Episode Description
In this episode, I'm speaking with Blair Hyslop, the Co-CEO and Co-Owner of Mrs. Dunster's Bakery, one of the largest fresh commercial bakeries in Atlantic Canada, headquartered in Sussex, New Brunswick.
Over the last twelve years, the business has grown from 50 employees to over 250, with 65% of its workforce born outside Canada.
However, Blair and dozens of other business owners like him are facing what he calls the leapfrog immigration policy. That is, trained, tax-paying employees who have contributed to Canadian society and their communities are having to leave Canada because their work permits have expired. And then businesses have to replace them with new arrivals, train them, and face the prospect of losing them again when their permits expire a year or two later.
For his bakery, they're going to lose twenty-six people starting this year.
Blair and I also chat about:
How employers can give the government the social license to act on immigration
The great Canadian compromise
How newcomer transit ridership made public systems sustainable
The Vermont bakery with 36 lawn signs that show Canada's future
Why he thinks the conversation about immigration in Canada is almost one-sided
Why a federal immigration policy built for Toronto doesn't work for New Brunswick
Dozie's Notes
A few things that stuck with me as I listened through this week's conversation:
Blair estimates that most people would say Canada needs immigration. But because the minority who disagree are the loudest and control the public voice, everyone stays silent. Add that the individual cost of speaking back is immediate and personal (hate mail, internet backlash, or customer blowback), while the collective cost of silence is distributed across society and delayed (bad policy, lost workers, and a shrinking labour pool). And so we end up with a classic collective action problem.
Blair's proposed compromise is the simplest version of a national policy I have heard anyone offer: let the people who are here stay. They already have housing; they've got kids in school, and they are tax-paying workers. Even someone who is skeptical of immigration should be able to see that sending home a trained, employed, tax-paying worker who is already housed and already in the healthcare system is a worse outcome than keeping them. Whether that compromise can survive an election cycle is a different question, but the logic is hard to argue with.
Nobody in Canada gets paid to hire a newcomer. No employer is receiving government subsidies to choose an immigrant over a Canadian-born applicant. In fact, it costs money, flights, temporary housing, and training from zero. The myth that there's some financial incentive driving employers to hire newcomers, which shapes some of the anti-immigrant narrative, is false and needs to be tackled.
Official Links
✅ Connect with Blair Hyslop on LinkedIn
✅ Order the East Coast's favourite yummilicious donuts or nuggets
One Ask
If you found this story helpful, please consider sharing it with one Canadian immigrant you know.
Timestamps
0:00 65% of my workforce are born outside Canada
0:49 Intro
2:10 From 50 employees to 250 in twelve years
4:13 Why facts beat the narrative on immigration
5:55 New Brunswick's 15,000-person workforce gap
7:17 The federal policy vs. what provinces need
8:47 Two million work permits expire in 2026
12:50 The leapfrog immigration trap
14:33 What this means for Canadian productivity
17:44 Why employers stay silent on immigration
20:06 Giving politicians social license to act
24:56 How newcomers are filling rural schools and buses
28:26 Fresh eyes on old problems
34:06 The one-sided conversation about immigration
44:03 Building community wherever you land
45:16 Outro