Thank you for the question.
I'm not aware of the particular study you're citing, but certainly when we're looking at immigration and immigration levels, we look at it from various perspectives.
One of the perspectives is that it's a long-time commitment. We're looking at permanent residents, so people who will be making an impact upon entry to the country, but then for their lifetime and for generations. The outcomes of immigrants are very well researched. We look at things longitudinally. We look at entry earnings and we look at earnings over time. There are very solid outcomes that we see from recent immigrants to Canada, certainly in the economic categories, but across the categories.
When you're looking across all the categories of immigrants and talking about family reunification and also the refugee class, immigrants catch up to the Canadian average after 10 years. But if you're looking at the economic classes, they're already starting out, in terms of entry earnings, higher than the Canadian average.
One of the things you're looking at is the long-term benefits because of this group being permanent residents to Canada.
Another thing you're looking at is the second generation, and the outcomes of the second generation in terms of educational attainment, by far, outstrip the Canadian average. That's another angle you're looking at.
Those are more longer-term concerns. There are demographic aspects to growth. Immigration contributes a lot to labour force growth. I think about 75% of Canada's labour force growth is contributed by immigration, currently. That trend is likely to continue with the aging population.
Then there are shorter-term benefits. There are employers looking for high human capital talent right now, and the fact that through some of our immigration streams—like express entry, where there is a six-month processing time, which is quite competitive internationally, and actually quite quick for our department—employers can access that kind of talent and skill set quite quickly.