Evidence of meeting #15 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was caregivers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Public Policy Analyst, As an Individual
Obey the law, first of all. Respect pluralism and respect that people come from different places. If you bear hatred toward someone of a different creed, ethnicity or linguistic identity that accords with tensions and sectarian divides that come from the place you originate from, you shouldn't bring those things with you to Canada.
I think that's a reasonable expectation, and it's one that, unfortunately, we have not placed on newcomers nearly to the extent that we could.
Conservative
Michael Ma Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Building on that, what weight would you give to residency requirements in terms of language proficiency tests and citizenship tests?
Public Policy Analyst, As an Individual
Based on my own experiences, I would structure it based on the class of immigration. We see different socio-economic outcomes for immigrants.
I worked at Statistics Canada for a couple of years, years back, in the census of population unit, particularly on immigration data, and I worked on some files where we looked at what was called the immigration longitudinal database. When immigrants come, their immigration class has a great impact on their overall socio-economic outcomes in this country, including whether they're hospitalized, whether they die early and whether they or their children attain education.
That fact stayed with me, and I think it should stay within this conversation, because if you're imposing linguistic fluency requirements on newcomers, you need to do so with an eye to whether they have the means to afford the types of education they need to be proficient in a language. If they're an economic immigrant, perhaps they pay for it themselves, and if they're coming under family reunification or as refugee, perhaps the state should support that.
Conservative
Michael Ma Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
How would you feel if we gave away Canadian citizenship without meeting these requirements that you just mentioned?
Public Policy Analyst, As an Individual
I think giving away citizenship without considering things like integration, linguistic fit and cultural fit is a unique thing in the context of a world that has lots of people migrating at all times. Many other countries like Canada are highly desirable places to live. No other countries, unlike Canada, are quite as lax about the standards to which we hold newcomers and immigrants.
Liberal
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today.
Mr. Hengeveld, thank you very much for being here. Your organization is an important one doing critical work on economic issues, and that's where I want to take my question. Under Prime Minister Carney, the federal government is now enacting reforms. We saw a key part of those reforms articulated in budget 2025 with respect to the levels plan.
Under the Prime Minister, economic policy is crucial to immigration. Immigration policy has been in the past—and needs to continue to always be—fundamentally about economic policy and fostering greater economic growth.
With that in mind, can you give us one or two key recommendations on what you would like to see in our immigration policy that you think could foster further economic growth? I know you've provided testimony here, but it's good to have this opportunity to engage with you and have a conversation around it.
Vice President, Investment Attraction, Toronto Global
I think I'd like to go back to where I started my opening address with regard to business immigration, which is what I am speaking about today.
Our clients, it's important to recognize, operate in a competitive environment, as does Toronto Global. When a company is thinking about international expansion, not only is it risky, but they are evaluating a number of other jurisdictions on the merits of immigration policy, access to talent, cost of doing business, quality of life and ease of capital access. These are factors that play into a variety of discussions and equations. Ultimately, companies factor in all of these when they make a decision.
As it relates to your question about immigration policy, we view this as a competitive advantage for Canada. Companies, when they make those decisions, look at that and ask, “How, as part of my international expansion, can I bring senior talent into Canada to set up operations, to ultimately grow and scale our companies here and to hire Canadian workers?” There is a direct economic benefit to the work we do and to immigration policy, especially as that relates to hiring Canadians through these means.
To answer your question, I think our recommendations would be, through our clients, clarity, predictability and open communication as it relates to the immigration policy.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
I have about two minutes left. I want to ask Mr. Basa a question as well.
Clearly, sir, caregiving is about providing a social benefit. This is what comes from it in the main, but there are negative economic impacts when we lack caregivers in this country. Can you give us an overview of what the situation is in Canada with respect to caregivers or the lack thereof, and how you think the immigration system has helped and, more importantly, can help in this area in the future?
Caregivers Policy Reform Advocate and Founder, Canadian Caregivers Assistance Organization
I don't know if I heard it right. I have a hearing problem.
I think one thing the government must also look into is the uniqueness of caregiving jobs. Caregiving is a job that is in isolation. Caregivers are in a workplace, in a household. There are no human resources. There's no union. Their vulnerability to exploitation is inherent.
I think the government must seriously consider that, because we have a caregiver occupation that is in crisis. As I speak, there are caregivers who are mentally tormented by the pressures they are experiencing in their households. The government should look into this and come up with an effective mechanism to address the vulnerability of this type of job.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
I understand that. I don't mean to cut you off, sir, but I have, as you just heard, about a minute left, and those points I don't diminish, but I want to ask you this specifically. Your view is that the immigration system is key to securing, among other things, caregivers, which are in need in Canada. Can you talk about that?
Can you talk about how you continue to believe fundamentally that the immigration system is vital for ensuring we have more caregivers, which are obviously needed, in Canadian society? Sourcing them domestically isn't going to be very fruitful.
Caregivers Policy Reform Advocate and Founder, Canadian Caregivers Assistance Organization
Can you....
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Okay, sir. I have about 15 seconds. The immigration system is vital for securing caregivers. This is what you're putting to us. We need to continue to look to the immigration system to fill those gaps. This is very clear.
Caregivers Policy Reform Advocate and Founder, Canadian Caregivers Assistance Organization
Yes, yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Basa.
Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.
Mr. Simard, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Ms. Dovgal, I want to come back to what we were saying earlier, because I do not want you to misunderstand what I meant. Earlier, I talked to you about postnationalism among Germans. I do not want to start theorizing, but I just want to explain my point of view.
This concept was introduced in the 1960s and 1970s by a philosopher named Jürgen Habermas, who wanted to develop patriotism among Germans. How could this be done in the 1960s and 1970s in Germany? You certainly could not talk about nationalism since we know what happened during the Second World War. Habermas's solution was to find a way for immigrants to give their consent to Germany's principles of political association and to its constitution. That is where the idea of postnationalism comes from. Unfortunately, it was misconstrued by politicians here in Canada, who said that we were a postnational state.
In my opinion, what we should instead be trying to do through our immigration system is to develop a sense of belonging, of shared history, of living together or vivre-ensemble, even if that term is a bit overused. Personally, as a Quebecker, I do not believe that can be achieved through multiculturalism, where what you are trying to do is erase the shared history, erase the historical references we have in living together.
I would like to hear what you have to say about integration, which allows us to share a sense of belonging.
Public Policy Analyst, As an Individual
As Quebec shows us, being a people and being a nation is about more than just living in one geography together. This is a harder truth to fully roll out in a country that has gone through a period of postnationalism than if we had never gone this route. As someone who benefited from an immigration policy that allowed for my family to come from eastern Europe, I'm grateful that this was—
Public Policy Analyst, As an Individual
I would note that it is incumbent upon Canadian political leadership to now think seriously beyond postnationalism, go post postnationalism and maybe take lessons from places like Quebec that have never given up their faith and their cultural identity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Simard and Ms. Dovgal.
Next we have Mr. Davies, not Mr. Don Davies, for five minutes.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Hengeveld, could you quickly give me a brief profile of the companies that you generally speak with that are interested in coming to Canada? Can you break it down by region, just generally?
Vice President, Investment Attraction, Toronto Global
The companies that we work with are anything from start-ups and scaling companies based internationally to what you might think of as Fortune 500s.
These are industry-agnostic. We work with companies in everything from advanced manufacturing to food and beverage to technology to, in some degree, energy. It's a very wide-ranging group of companies from all over the world. Those markets, which I think is what you were referring to, typically originate a great deal from the U.S. There's a portion from Europe, primarily from the U.K. and Germany, and then from the Indo-Pacific region, which would include India, Japan, South Korea and, to some degree, Taiwan.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
Generally then, what would the average investment be from these companies coming into Canada?