Yes, absolutely. This is why I say unapologetically that the focus of our immigration program must be on Canada's prosperity. Within that context, of course, we must continue our openness to family reunification and refugee protection, but the emphasis must be on prosperity, because of our aging population and our shrinking workforce.
I think one thing that's different now from the early decades of the last century, with high levels of immigration, is that we were really focusing then on settling virgin territory. We were farmers and people with basic skills. In today's highly competitive global economy, where value is often added by people with higher levels of education, I think we need to focus—not exclusively, but focus—on those newcomers who bring the skills that are most likely to succeed in the Canadian economy.
The new PhD program that we just announced was based not on some guess but on the data, which tell us, for example, that foreign-born, Canadian-educated PhD students do much better in Canada than most other newcomers. It is not entirely surprising.
Having said that, I do think that in the future we need a more flexible immigration program. We've made it more flexible through the large expansion in the provincial nominee program, which does allow, for example, skilled tradespeople to come into Canada and go to those regions where there are labour shortages. We've made it more flexible through the creation of the Canadian experience class, and next year we intend to make it more flexible through reforms to the skilled worker program, to put more emphasis on those traits that our data say lead to faster economic success in Canada for immigrants, such as people with arranged employment offers, people with higher levels of language proficiency, and people with Canadian work experience. But one thing that we're also contemplating is a skilled trades stream, so that people who would not normally qualify for the points system, which places a great emphasis on higher education, would still be able to immigrate through our skilled worker program.
So I think grosso modo, yes, we should.
Finally, frankly, one of the problems we've had in our immigration system is that about two-thirds of the people who obtain permanent residency in Canada are not primary economic immigrants. Either they're dependants, they're subsequently sponsored relatives, they're humanitarian refugees, or they're other humanitarian permanent residents. Only two out of every ten are actually assessed for their human capital before coming to Canada.