At least countries like US and UK are not in such desperate need of immigrants that they have to give out permanent residence to people who have never set foot in their countries but Canada is a special case, pretty sure they were just sitting on their ass until the population problem became too big.
But i think that's a testament to how their system functions properly, not a testament to how badly it works.
If you look at the UK and US, their systems have been complicated and indirect for a long time and still are, whereas a points system is far fairer and more objective. I mean a lot of people are still immigrating to the US through chain migration, it's an antiquated system. You've got lottery systems for many visas.
It's clear that countries like Canada and Australia need to target immigrants because they have a growing economy, and an aging population. I will say that Canada for a long time wasn't accepting enough immigrants consistently to offset the population decline, and it's now why they are having to set perhaps too ambitious targets.
But they could just as easily provide temporary permits like IEC to other people around the world and probably the same number of people would apply to come. It's a good thing for both them and immigrants that they are willing to provide PR to people from the get-go. In fact Australia has slashed their independent points-tested PR visa numbers, and most of the immigrants they are accepting will come in on a temporary status now, or one where there are strings attached. That's obviously a big disadvantage to the immigrant on that status.
So i think they should be lauded for that not criticised.
If you look at the systems for other countries, in Australia you have a system where even if you study, live and work there you aren't guaranteed immigration. New Zealand's system now is a glorified job-sponsored immigration system, it's very difficult to get the number of points required as an outlander.
So again, the choices are diminished and whatever criticism people have of IRCC, EE is still very straightforward and direct compared to other systems especially for outland applicants.