Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I want to welcome a delegation from the Finnish Parliament, which includes six members and the clerk.

I know you have a number of meetings here in Ottawa. You're meeting with the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

As most of us are aware, Finland is currently in the process of finalizing a new migration policy, so we welcome the opportunity to have you share your experiences with us. If we can be of any help as a committee, we would be only too pleased to do so.

We're going to try to be as informal as possible, so please feel comfortable. I'll pass it over to you. You can make your presentation or do whatever you want.

[Liisa Jaakonsaari, Chairperson, Delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament]

Thank you very much for receiving us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You're very welcome.

[Liisa Jaakonsaari]

You said we could share our experiences as far as immigration policy is concerned. We don't have any experience, in comparison to your tradition and history and what is happening right now. We are willing to learn from you, because we are aware that Europe is lacking in immigrants.

It has been said that Europe is the old-age home of the world because our population is aging. We urgently need immigrants. Actually, the worst thing is what is happening in Finland. In Finland, the population is aging the fastest of all the EU countries right now.

Delegates from our Ministry of Labour recently visited your country, and they had an excellent opportunity to hear your views.

We are members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. My name is Liisa Jaakonsaari, and I'm chairing this committee. As far as my political background, I'm a Social Democrat.

[Jari Vilén, Member, Delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament]

I just have a few words.

I'm Jari Vilén, a member of the Conservative Party in Finland. I'm the chairman of the Grand Committee, which is the Finnish Parliament's European affairs committee.

[Johannes Koskinen, Member, Delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament]

My name is Johannes Koskinen. I'm also from the Social Democratic Party. I was the Minister of Justice from 1999 until last September, but now I'm back in the Parliament.

[Maija Perho, Member, Delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament]

My name is Maija Perho. I am from the National Coalition Party. I am also the vice-chairperson of my parliamentary group. In the previous government, I was the Minister of Social Affairs and Health.

[Aulis Ranta-Muotio, Member, Delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament]

My name is Aulis Ranta-Muotio. I'm a member of Parliament for the Centre Party. The Centre Party is more or less the Prime Minister's party in Finland.

[Antero Kekkonen, Member, Delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament]

I am Antero Kekkonen, Social Democrat, and a member of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

There are more Social Democrats than Conservatives here today.

[Jari Vilén]

In Lapland we say it's not the quantity, it's the quality that counts.

[Liisa Jaakonsaari]

Our ambassador and counsel to the committee....

As you just heard, Mr. Vilén is from Lapland, where Santa Claus lives. If you have any wishes, you can tell him.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Liisa Jaakonsaari]

On my background, I was Minister of Labour. I'm the mother of the first immigration law in Finland.

Now it would be interesting to hear how your committee works. You said that you are finalizing some core points of your immigration law.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We just had the Auditor General in to talk about and review some of the reports she's given us since 2003.

We have a target of roughly 250,000 to 300,000 immigrants per year. We've benefited a great deal from immigration. We have a multicultural country, and most people would agree that immigrants make a great contribution to our country. Immigrants have a history of creating jobs here and bringing new ideas to the country. They're very productive and integrate well into our society. Canada really is a country of immigrants. The little province from which I come, Newfoundland and Labrador, has English and Irish people, and most parts of Canada have a lot of immigrants.

Right now we're looking at examining a number of issues from the immigration targets for 2006-07. We have a backlog of applications generally for the country, so we're going to be looking at that. We're looking at temporary foreign workers, embassy closures, problems in obtaining temporary resident visas, foreign credential recognition, general issues dealing with the refugee appeal division, and quite a number of other issues as well.

Maybe I'll go around the table and some of our committee members can ask some questions or make some observations, if you will.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to Canada and welcome to the committee. I have just a couple of comments to pass on to you. I know your economy has been doing incredibly well lately. We've had 10 years of prosperity here in Canada, which has taken us to the point now where we're balancing our budget, interest rates are low, and unemployment is at a 30-year low. I'm from western Canada, Vancouver, and the economy in British Columbia is booming, as is Alberta's.

One of the interesting things you said in your opening comments was that your need for immigrants is urgent and your population is aging rapidly. That is one of the things that as a committee we've also discussed. I think it's a global problem with developed countries. We've got an aging population that will be retiring soon, between about 2012 and 2015.

One of the things Canada has is a great competitive advantage, vis-à-vis your country and other countries in the world, in accepting immigrants and assimilating them peacefully into our society. I don't think Canadians really appreciate the fact that we're world leaders in opening our doors to people, and we have such great success stories of people who have come here, even recently. In the next five or ten years, I think Canada is going to realize how great a competitive advantage we have.

I think we have that advantage because it's been our history. Canada is a young country compared to a lot of the countries of Europe, and we were forged out of the fact that we had English- and French-speaking people coming together, and we had a large first nations aboriginal population to begin with. So the way Canada started to grow was due to three distinct societies having to get along with each other. I think the level of mutual respect and tolerance is part of being Canadian. We've been able to take that and evolve that forward, and now I believe we celebrate the differences between ethnic groups and members of society.

I know that in Vancouver, where I come from, you can walk down the streets, and every ethnicity in the world is prevalent there and growing. We also have the luxury of having lots of real estate. We have lots of areas to take in people and grow, so we're not like smaller countries, where you really have to figure out how to maximize the efficiency of your area.

Those are just some of the comments I wanted to pass on to you to show how our society is structured. I think that's what benefits us on the immigration front.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Good. Thank you, Blair.

Madam Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

First, I want to welcome you. Johanne and I are from the Bloc québécois. So we represent Quebeckers, and we are in the majority in Quebec.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll just take a moment to allow people to get their earphones in and get technically fixed.

[Jari Vilén]

Which channel is the Finnish one?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The next time you come we'll have a Finnish translator.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

In Quebec, unlike the other provinces, we have our own immigration agreement. So there is a division of responsibilities. The main difference between your system and ours may reside in the fact that we have a department dedicated to the development of immigration policies, whereas, in your case, the Department of the Interior does that, so it's much more focused on security, sovereignty protection, and so on. That's one major difference between the Canadian system and yours.

Our immigration model differs depending on the province you're in. In Quebec, the model is necessarily different as regards permanent residents and selection. Quebec has full power over immigrant selection. You can understand why: French is important for us, since more than 80% of the Quebec population speaks French. So we have different integration concerns.

On the other hand, what remains under federal jurisdiction are family reunification and refugee issues.

As regards investors, Quebec has a different model. The federal model is offered, but, if you go to Quebec, the preferred way of managing the investor category is different there.

I could give you a document prepared by the Quebec government which very clearly explains the differences between the federal immigration system and the one in Quebec.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I come from Quebec as well. My riding is called Laurentides—Labelle. The immigrants we take in there are more business people who come to settle in our region, Hautes-Laurentides. So we take in a lot of foreign investors. I invite you to come to Quebec and visit the Laurentides region.

I have a question for you on the document you submitted to us. In it, you say that you've been dealing with a major increase in immigration in Finland in the past 10 years or so.

I'd like to know what has caused this increase in immigration there. Is it a labour shortage? Why are you facing higher immigration demand?

[Jari Vilén]

I'm glad to respond to it, if you'll allow me very briefly to say just a few words.

As you can see, we are from different political affiliations here, but speaking overall, most of the parties in Finland feel the same, that for the first time in our history we need immigration to Finland.

So far, we have been giving the population to Canada, the U.S.A., Australia, and especially Sweden. One hundred and fifty thousand to 200,000 Finns, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, immigrated to Sweden. For the first time in our history we have to start actively recruiting people to Finland. So we're in an absolutely new situation, which means we don't have any traditions. We are concerned about the mistakes we might make. And we're especially concerned about the mistakes that have been made in some other European Union countries. We want to prevent the kinds of escalations and troubles we have in Belgium or France, for example.

We've just started the debate. For example, should immigration be work-based or social-based? Should we be selfish enough to try to redirect people to our society needs today, which is more or less in the service sector, especially in the social sector and the health care sector. These are the people we need to have. And how do we especially prevent the situation in immigration for people who come to work in places where Finns don't want to work in any more? This has the potential for social challenges and for political problems.

At the same time--we have an election next March--there are always parties willing to exploit the situation, saying that foreigners are taking Finnish jobs. We still have unemployment of roughly 8% in our nation, due to the fact that we had one of the worse recessions in the early 1990s, which profoundly changed Finnish society. People who were unemployed at that time are at the moment in a situation where we can't find jobs for them because the structural changes in society and working life have been so profound. They mainly come from the countryside, from areas where there are the more hand-based skills of lumber and agriculture, where we can't really find jobs today.

So we are in a profoundly new situation. Therefore, we're interested in finding out why you have been so successful--or have you been so successful? What we all have in our minds now are the events of last weekend. Maybe, Mr. Chairman, your colleagues would comment to us: Will last weekend's events and the first arrest of Canadian citizens suspected of being active in terrorism profoundly change your immigration policy? Will it have political consequences, or what political consequences might it have for your society and your country? I think this is the question we all have in our minds at the moment.

Let me say that the information we have--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Will immigration policy tighten up as a result of the homegrown....?