Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 19th, 2017

[Dr. Howard Ramos]

I will add that another element to remember is that the students are quite young, and it's important to give opportunities for them to sponsor their parents and grandparents who are also young. A 20-year-old student whose parent is 50 represents an opportunity to have people come into the labour force, so it's important to make sure those pathways open up again.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'll share my time with Mr. Whalen.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Zahid.

Dr. Haan, in quantifying the issue around interprovincial migration, you provided some interesting information during your speech. It formalizes or quantifies what some of us always thought, which is that the more entrepreneurial people who take the leap and move to another part of the country tend to do better than the average. Did you say their GDP per capita was around $100,000? Is that the number you were using?

[Dr. Michael Haan]

The number I cited was that they were four times as likely to earn more than $100,000 if they left their province of birth in Atlantic Canada versus staying in their province of birth in Atlantic Canada.

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

That's pretty incredible. We have a generation of people who went out and made fortunes, and some of them are going to start to retire soon. You talked about the migrations during the 1960s. The migration that I talked about in the early 1990s would have been the 20- to 40-year-old cohort. Some of them are going to move home. Is there going to be a net negative economic impact associated with retirees moving home, or is that going to be a positive because they're going to be bringing their capital with them?

[Dr. Michael Haan]

I would argue that it's a positive, and it is indeed beginning to happen. The baby boomers started to retire in 2011, and we are seeing some evidence of return migration. It's particularly strong in Prince Edward Island, but it is happening in other Atlantic provinces.

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

I see many friends of my parents from their old school days moving home and buying homes. Is this an aspect of social planning that we need to consider? If we can attract large numbers of retirees bringing their pensions home to Atlantic Canada to spend and make sure we're providing the services they need, could that provide an economic lift?

[Dr. Michael Haan]

It has great potential. I can't answer that question as a yes or no, but it's certainly worth investigating.

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

Okay, well, maybe it's something for a study by the human resources, skills and social development committee.

Thank you very much, Mr. Haan.

I have one final question, if I can squeeze it in.

Retention is such an important part of this piece, but it also requires a willingness of the local community to engage. Over the past couple of years, we've seen a real flux internationally in the view of immigration and how willing people are to accept it. I know Liberals won all the seats in Atlantic Canada on a strongly pro-immigration platform, but that wasn't the only issue.

In your hearts, do you feel that Atlantic Canadians are prepared to accept one to two percent immigration over the next 15 to 20 years and allow these communities to settle, or do you see resistance? Just answer honestly, please.

I'll start with Dr. Yoshida and maybe move to the J.D.I. folks.

[Dr. Yoko Yoshida]

Well, my gut instinct, based on my experience living there for the last 12 years, tells me I see a huge difference between 12 years ago and now. Yes, we are ready.

[Susan Wilson]

I'd like to comment on that. We've seen a very positive response to some of the things we did initially, and to be honest, it's more positive than we anticipated. We're currently seeing less resistance than we were preparing for in some of our communities.

With that said, I strongly believe that it has to be an orchestrated partnership with the employer community, to the point that Angelique was making earlier. It is possible—

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

Thank you. That's very heartening.

I want to get a quick comment from the folks in Moncton to see if they agree. This is great news. I just want to make sure it's resounding.

[Charles Leger]

I would agree, but it's really important that the city be involved and that they add staff and do things that are really trying to help on an individual basis. The cities have to go out there as well. It's not all going to be reliant on industry.

The last thing is that university partnerships with businesses would be huge in terms of retention of students.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of the witnesses.

I want to mention that if anybody has anything in writing that they think we should consider, including members of the committee, I'd like a deadline of 5 p.m. today.

You mentioned the Harris Centre report, and a few people have mentioned other things. If you think there's anything we should read or have our analysts read for us, it would be needed by 5 p.m. today so that we can finish our study.

Thank you to all the witnesses. I quite liked the Moncton city mug product placement in the video, Deputy Mayor. You should be very happy with your staff for doing that.

Thank you all for joining us. We're going to end this part of the meeting and move into an in camera meeting.

[Proceedings continue in camera]