Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Rivera, for coming, and also thanks to Mr. Martel.

I have some questions for StatsCan just to start off. I'm wondering, first off, if we can see some of the data that's presented on the StatsCan website in terms of demographic information on a more refined basis than province by province. Does StatsCan have access to information that might help us either on a riding by riding basis or a postal code by postal code basis? How refined can we get the information?

[Laurent Martel]

Yes, the information is available on the Statistics Canada website free of charge, of course, and it's related to the 2016 census. There's a web page with all of the 2016 census results focusing on age and sex. In there you have differences in terms of, for example, the proportion of young adults, the proportion of seniors, the proportion of the most elderly, and the proportion of young children living in the different regions of Canada. We go all the way down, for example, to what we call the census subdivisions, which are basically the municipalities across the country.

With this website you'll be able to compare, for example, the proportion of seniors living in a municipality in Atlantic Canada to any other municipality across the country, and that's very convenient.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Martel, with respect to the quarterly data that's published on the website, is that also available at the municipal level, or is that type of information less refined because it's not based on the census?

[Laurent Martel]

The information that we have in terms of population estimates in between censuses is available on a quarterly basis for the total population counts only, and age and sex once a year. Once a year we can get information all the way down to the census subdivisions. It's usually the population estimates based on July 1, and it's released every September.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

There are three factors that I was just taking a look at. As compared to national versus international migration, when I look at some of the data for Atlantic Canada, it seems as if interprovincial migration is four to eight times more important in population growth than international migration. If I look at the annual numbers, for instance, immigration in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's plus about 500, but if I look at the quarterly data, it's minus 500 or even minus 5,000 in some quarters.

I'm just looking at this year's data, so when we're focusing on migration, are there any things we can look at that might help us in terms of not only retention of international migrants, but just retention of Canadians generally?

[Laurent Martel]

Usually, net international migration in the Atlantic provinces is positive, meaning that these regions receive more immigrants than there are emigrants leaving these regions. The net interprovincial migration rate is usually negative for these regions, meaning that there are more people leaving these areas for other places in Canada than people coming from other regions to establish themselves in the Atlantic region. Those are trends that we've seen for quite a while. For quite a few years it's been pretty stable.

When you want to have a look at the most recent trends, I would say the best data source is the population estimates released on an annual basis. I would suggest to focus, really, on the information that we release every September, because it includes the final data from IRCC and we use tax files to estimate internal migration, so you have something pretty solid and robust in terms of data quality.

These are the trends you want to look at to monitor or track down the changes in those patterns. Overall I would say these patterns have been fairly stable for the last 30 years.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Martel, now that we know that there's been net out-migration for the past 30 years and that the birth rates have gone below the death rates, which is a critical factor, when we're focusing on immigration, we've heard a lot of questions about whether or not we need to grow the labour demand before we grow the immigration, or how they work together. Does StatsCan have information or tools that can let us know whether immigration is a leading or a trailing indicator for economic growth, and how those two interrelate?

Immigration itself causes economic growth just by its nature, because there are more people in the economy. Do you have tools available for us to see? The reason I'm asking is that we want to know whether or not we're succeeding, and we want to know what to measure against. If we can change the trajectory, I would think that's success, but how do we know whether we've changed the trajectory when we have so many competing variables to look at? Do you have tools we can use that compare immigration and economic growth at the same time?

[Laurent Martel]

This is a really interesting question. Links between economic growth and demographic growth have been a long-standing debate in the field of demography. What are those links? It's been a debate for the last 400 years, basically, in the field of demography and population studies.

What I, as a demographer, can tell you is that there is certainly a link between the two. When we're observing—and that's my job—shifts in interprovincial migration patterns, we know that there's usually a link to economic shifts as well. A good example is what's happened in Alberta very recently. We've seen a decrease in the movements toward Alberta in terms of internal migration. We all know that recently the price of oil was slightly down. Economic growth was slowed down a bit in Alberta.

In the demography division, we don't have specific studies linking the two—

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thanks, Mr. Martel. If you don't have the studies—

[Laurent Martel]

No.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

—I have one quick question for Mr. Rivera.

Mr. Rivera, your organization does great work in Newfoundland and Labrador, particularly in the metro St. John's region, in helping new people start businesses and integrate into the community. If you were being asked to increase the level of service you're providing not just to 500 new immigrants per year, but to something like 2,000 or 5,000 new immigrants per year, how much additional resources would you need as an organization to offer those services to a population of newcomers about five times as large?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Please answer very briefly.

[Jose Rivera]

RIAC has been working since 1983, and we can say that in the last 10 years we have seen a large number of people come through our doors seeking help. In the last three years, we saw around 1,000 people per year come to ask questions and ask for services. That is without our being able to reach out into the community, so there are still a large number of people outside who don't avail themselves of services because they don't know that we exist and that other organizations exist.

Our budget for those thousand people is around $200,000 a year. That's the way we work our budget. If we want to help a number of individuals, increase that; that would be the proportion, more or less.

Our problem is that the income we have is really unstable. We cannot focus properly on providing those services while we have to be out chasing money. If we could have a steady income that allowed us to do outreach, to go out and knock on doors and help those individuals who are homebound—they don't know that services exist—we would be able to spread the service.

The most important thing is to provide funding so that an information service can be developed, such that anybody—a nurse, a doctor, a police officer, or you as a member of Parliament—can find information easily on how to go about X or Y process, such as credential recognition, getting a driver's licence, or getting your children transferred from one school to another.

The three elements that drive people—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need you to bring this to a close with perhaps a last sentence or two.

[Jose Rivera]

Sorry?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need you to wrap this up. We're running out of time on this session.

[Jose Rivera]

I'm sorry about that.

The three elements that drive people out are employment, information, and transportation here in Newfoundland.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Maguire is next.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the panellists for their presentations as well.

Mr. Rivera, I have a quick question to start with. You mentioned that mental health was an issue with regard to the situation in St. John's. Can you elaborate on that?

[Jose Rivera]

Yes. Recently—in the last five years, we could say—the mental health issue has been on the agenda. Just two or three years ago, a non-profit group was formed to deal with the lack of mental health services. Newcomers in particular have no access to that kind of service for the main two reasons I already mentioned: lack of information and lack of services such as translation, interpretation, and navigation to the system.

Mental health has been a big drive for people to not stay in the province. They don't feel that there is a solution for them. We as newcomers oftentimes consider mental health taboo, something we don't talk about, something we don't disclose. That makes it hard for people to get a life and be active members of society.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Martel, you indicated that the death rate is higher than the birth rate for the first time. You said that was a first in Canada. Does that compare the territories or Nunavut in that area, as well?

[Laurent Martel]

It is not at all the case in the territories. The fertility rate is much higher than elsewhere. In Nunavut, for example, it is almost three children per woman, so the natural increase remains very strong in the territories, actually.

In the Atlantic provinces, it's happening for the first time in Canadian history. That's a very important aspect, which means that for the first time, deaths are now outnumbering births and the trend, or the gap, will increase in coming years. If these regions are to succeed in achieving a positive population growth, they'll not only have to bring some immigrants, but they'll have to keep bringing more and more over the years, because the natural increase is becoming more and more negative in the forthcoming years. All scenarios of our projections are showing exactly that.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you.

I also understand from your statistics that one person in five is over the age of 65 in the Maritimes.

[Laurent Martel]

Yes. Those are the results from the 2016 census, which are the most recent results in the most recent census. I can confirm that one out of five in the Atlantic provinces is now 65 and over, in comparison to other provinces, such as Alberta, for example, where it's only 12%. There's an increasing diversity in terms of the different populations across Canada.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

My own two children are both in Calgary. They left Manitoba. I think there are a number of reasons that Calgary is a younger city, if I can put it that way, or a younger region.

Yesterday Dr. Emery referred to the need for capital requirements to make sure that there are investments in jobs and it's not all private. His reference was even to caregivers as jobs in some of those areas, and the public sector and that sort of thing.

Three different areas have attracted people to Alberta. Their birth rates are higher, as you've said, and national and international migration have impacted that. Obviously if there are increased birth rates, there are lots of youth. There's national migration because there are sometimes better wages, particularly in the oil sector, which was very capital intensive, and the international immigrants come in as well because, even with all of that, there's still a shortage of workers.

Can you elaborate as to how that formation of capital impacts the demographics of people moving within our country? Has that got something to do with it?