Evidence of meeting #5 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was immigrants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I understand that, sir. I'm just trying to get a feeling of levels.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
So it may not be a bad policy to increase the annual level to 300,000 per year. In your view, that could be okay?
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute, As an Individual
If they pay their way, they will pay the for health care, for the disposal of the garbage that Ben-Ami was talking about. At the moment, they don't.
NDP
Economist, Global Economics Ltd., As an Individual
Given that the current level seems to be too high, judging from the performance of the immigrants, raising it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. If you raise the limit, given the bureaucratic approach we have to immigration policy, what it means is that we will bring in more immigrants, either from out of the backlog or from a higher number of applications accepted. So if you raise the number, more will come.
That doesn't say whether they're going to do better or not. My suspicion is that if you raise the number, they'll do worse.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
The reason I asked is that the minister was here last week, and he said that under the Conservative government, since 2006 they have increased the levels 14% over the previous Liberal government, which had let in for the 10 years previous to that about 220,000 per year. The Conservative government has raised that to an average of 254,000 a year, including the largest number in the history of Canada last year--280,000.
I'm just trying to get a feeling from you whether you think that was a wise policy move on the Conservatives' part to raise levels, or not.
Economist, Global Economics Ltd., As an Individual
You won't know whether it's a wise policy or not until 2015 or 2020, when you see how the immigrants have done.
Economist, Global Economics Ltd., As an Individual
Given that they've abandoned the long-form census, you're not even going to have the information now.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
So you think the lack of having the long-form census will have a negative impact on our ability to assess the value in our immigration system?
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I'm not a demographic expert, but I have been told by a number of sources that our population is aging, that our birth rate is declining. And a number of sources, including the Conference Board of Canada and the citizenship and immigration department itself, are telling us that within as soon as five years from now we will be dependent on new Canadians--immigrants--for 100% of our new labour growth. If I understand that properly, it means that with our natural production, we can replace our jobs now, but five years from now we won't be able to grow our economy.
Do you have any comment on that?
Economist, Global Economics Ltd., As an Individual
I do have a comment. If the problem is in five years, you're not talking about the demographic impact. What you're talking about now is that the labour force will stop growing in five years. That doesn't mean you need to take in more immigrants now; that just exacerbates the problem. If you want to take in enough immigrants to keep the labour force growing, you don't need to take in as many as we're taking now. It has to be gauged on how many are needed to grow the labour force.
President, Canadian Centre for Policy Studies
Mr. Davies, that argument is an argument for maintaining or increasing levels. First of all, I have no confidence in those projections. Mr. Grubel hit the nail on the head: there is no credible, comprehensive process in place to determine what our labour force needs in the long term, what we need in this country in terms of immigration. It could be 100,000, it could be 500,000 a year, it could be a million a year. There's no way, no process in place, to assess those numbers. So I don't have a lot of confidence in those things. But even if I did, that's an argument against allowing parents and grandparents to come in automatically by virtue of the fact that their children have qualified to come in.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Let me just delink that for one moment, because some assert that family reunification has been credited as one of the reasons for Canada's success in attracting and retaining so many experienced and highly skilled professionals. For instance, if an engineer or a doctor in some country--I appreciate your concern about credential recognition, but that's a different issue--or an architect is thinking of coming to Canada, with the kind of money that Mr. Grubel would like to see in our wealthier type of immigrant that he's proposing come to our country, would the fact that the person is choosing between several countries and may be able to bring their aging mother or their parents, to keep their family intact, be one of the reasons they're attracted to Canada? Would you see that might be possible in some cases?
October 25th, 2011 / 11:40 a.m.
President, Canadian Centre for Policy Studies
I submit to you that on the credentialing issue that you said is a separate issue, I think you missed my point. The credentialing issue and associated issues are exactly the point. Unless we're dealing with those issues--and I agree that it's not the purview of this committee or probably even the Parliament of Canada to deal with them, certainly not exclusively--we can't talk seriously about how we're going to absorb the numbers of people we're bringing into this country. I simply fundamentally disagree with you. I don't think you can ask the questions you're asking and make decisions and recommendations in isolation from everything else. I think that's one of the fundamental flaws of the process we're engaged in right now.
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute, As an Individual
I think all of the arguments that you've made about people who say we need more immigrants to make the country grow use the wrong criteria. There is no interest in having a large national income, aggregate GDP, or else China would be the best place to live in. What we need is policy set to increase the per capita income, and all these policies are not addressing that issue.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
There are a couple of issues I want to quickly address, because I find that we'll probably agree to disagree on many of the points you've raised.
When you talk about family reunification, not all parents are to the detriment of our community. Parents who come to Canada continue to contribute to Canada. As for the economy, you get many young parents at 48 to 55 who come to Canada and they still have a lot to offer in terms of economic production. There are many parents who provide assistance to small businesses. There are many parents who provide child care services and other health care services to family members. Many would argue that they play a role in providing stability in the family. Would you not see those as assets and things that can be healthy for Canadians as a whole?
Please answer very, very briefly, because I only have five minutes.
