Thank you for the invitation to appear here, and for the opportunity to present some views. My comments are not about any of the specific questions about the features of family-class immigration, but about the place of family-class immigration in the overall immigration program. I want to address that because it seems to me that sometimes the primary economic impact of immigration is seen through the economic stream, and that the family class is a humanitarian concern. I think, as the previous speaker illustrated, families are economic units, and it's very important to recognize that and to include that consideration as a positive element in the design of the family class.
I think you all know that; you've heard that argument before, but I do want to mention one piece of evidence, which I think is often not taken into account in thinking about this, and that is when we compare the Canadian program with the American program. The American immigration stream—and I'm speaking now of the main part of the immigration program in the United States that's administered by the government, not undocumented immigrants. The main immigration program is a very high-skilled program, and the largest bulk of people coming into that program are family class. Ask any American, they'll tell you that they have mainly a family-unification immigration program. What is often not then observed is that the educational level and the economic contribution of that stream, including the family class and the economic component, is as high or higher than what we have in Canada.
Why is that? I think the reason for that is that the family members who come into the program under family reunification are the family members of those people who have been selected previously under the economic stream. Their characteristics are not independent of the characteristics of the economic stream. For example, the reason the educational level of the family class, humanitarian immigration stream in the United States is as high as it is, is that the educational level of family members of those members of the economic stream is very high; it's higher than the economic stream in the Canadian immigration program.
Of course, the reason for that is they have a very small stream, and it's a requirement in that stream that the main immigrants, the economic immigrants, have university degrees as a minimum.
The point is that it has reverberations throughout the immigration program, including the family class. I think that, when we're designing the family class, the two parts of the program, the economic and the family classes, should really be designed together, recognizing the interdependence of them. Our goal should not necessarily be to increase the size of one group relative to the other. Rather, it should be to design the two of them together, recognizing that the characteristics of the two streams are interdependent. That's one point I want to make.
The other point has to do with the fact that when we look at the economic stream in recent years, we're bringing in immigrants who are as much as possible selected by employers because of a particular labour market need. They're coming to fill labour market gaps. That's occurring at all levels of the economic hierarchy: high-skilled jobs, middle-skilled or trade jobs, and less skilled jobs. In all these levels, there's increasing attention given to the need, once people come into the country and begin making an economic contribution, to transition to permanent status. To some extent, that is actually happening.
This has an impact later on the family class. It means that the family members coming in will be the family members of people selected for those economic criteria. In the family class, as it's being administered, family members are asked to take responsibility for the economic welfare of the family members they are bringing in. That's because, I think, family members are seen as a potential liability we should protect ourselves against.
On the employers' side, employers are bringing in people they want for a particular purpose, but they're not necessarily asked to make the same kind of commitment, even though there's a potential economic liability there. I think there's been a difference in the view of family-class immigrants as opposed to skilled or unskilled workers coming in for particular employment needs. Both of those streams, since they're not individually selected for the long-term interests of the Canadian economy, may represent potential liabilities.
On the family-class side, we think of imposing constraints and requirements on the people requesting that they be brought in, but we don't ask that on the employers' side. That's a bit of a disparity, it seems to me, suggesting that family-class immigrants are viewed with a bit more suspicion. I think that, as I mentioned initially, the family-class immigrants—