Thank you for the question, Mr. Davies.
First of all, just to correct you, we, as a government, haven't kept levels flat. The average level of admissions of permanent residents under the previous government, from 1993 to 2005, was 222,500. Since our government has come to office, in the past five years the average number of admissions has been 254,000. That represents an increase of 14% in admissions, the highest sustained level in Canadian history. Although there were a couple of abhorrent post-war years that were higher, it's the highest sustained level. It also represents the highest per capita level in the developed world.
Now, Mr. Davies, I agree with you. I think you make a very good point, that we are facing a problem with future labour shortages. That's why we need immigration. But as I've pointed out before, immigration in and of itself is not a solution to those problems. According to the C.D. Howe Institute and other reports, our merely maintaining the average age of our population through immigration increases would require quadrupling levels to about 4% of the population per annum. That would be well over a million immigrants per year right now.
Some people might want to make a case for that. I think that's completely unrealistic.