Sure.
At the moment, about 70% of our Canadian population growth is coming from immigration. The economy grows because either you have more workers or you use your workers more productively. When we think about the trend slowing in the Canadian economy, we realize that if we hold productivity constant and the aging effect takes place, what will happen is that growth will slow.
Canada is doing a very good job of bringing in additional newcomers, which is helping to offset some of the impact of the aging population. It's not going to be enough to stop the impact, because the baby boomer cohort is so large that you couldn't bring in enough newcomers to fully offset the impact.
The other dimension is that as you ramp up immigration and it levels, it becomes really important to make sure that you integrate the new immigrants correctly and effectively. One advantage Canada has is the enormous public support for immigration. This actually stands out for Canada, relative to many other countries that at the moment are much less welcoming to immigrants. There's a real opportunity for Canada to attract top international talent, because we're a beacon of light.
That being said, the integration is still not optimal. When we look at newcomers coming to Canada, we see a significant wage gap. The wage gap has grown over time.
What's interesting is that when you ask immigrants five years after they've arrived whether, given the challenges they're having in the labour market, they would do it again, 90% of them say yes, but when you ask them why, they'll say it's for their kids. That's not a good outcome. We need to be giving a good experience to the newcomers themselves.
I think there has been progress. Some of the changes in the immigration system that have been introduced in recent years have been helpful in improving integration. There are, however, things we could do. For example, the government might consider support for local immigration partnerships, immigrant employment councils, and other comparable initiatives that have demonstrated that they are effective and low-cost ways to improve immigrant integration. Groups such as TRIEC in Toronto are very effective and low-cost in improving integration.
The government could leverage technology more, so that when they are looking to come to Canada, newcomers can get a lot more information pre-arrival about where to get settlement services, where to get language training, about what is already there. There is a lot of support for newcomers. It has to be accessed.
We also might consider—and this is probably the most contentious—federally funded settlement services for selected temporary residents. For example, providing access to federal settlement support for international students who have identified that at the end of their program they plan to look for permanent residency could actually facilitate their integration.
Those are a few ideas.