Evidence of meeting #19 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 claimants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
About three years ago, I saw an article that you wrote in which you essentially warned the government that a crisis was coming.
Am I correct in that, and what was the logic of it?
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
The article I referenced before was with Mikal Skuterud and Matthew Doyle. It was something we started around that time, so it's possible it was an early version of the paper.
We were concerned about the growing levels of permanent immigration. What ended up becoming a bigger problem was the extraordinary growth of temporary migration. Both changes combined really led to a surge in the population, which is really unprecedented—since the fifties, anyway. I think it strained our ability to settle.
I am sympathetic to the challenges of my colleague here. It must be extremely difficult. It's a mixture of levels, which I know is a different part of the study. However, it is also selection.
My colleague mentioned, completely correctly, that labour force growth is going to come from immigration, but it's not just the number of workers that matters. It's also earnings. If we're trying to fund social programs, it's not the number of people but how successful they are.
I want to make it really clear that I am talking about economic programs. I strongly support refugee programs. We need services to support refugees and family class. I'd just like us to need them less for economic immigrants.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
You mentioned levels, so let's talk a bit about that.
Do you think our levels should be constrained by housing availability and those types of things?
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
The short answer is yes, it should, but we should be able to build housing and build health care to match immigration. We've struggled to do that, certainly, in the last 20 years.
As I said, one rule of thumb that we've come up with is to look at the pool of applicants. If you take the economic principal, do you think that applicants, 10 years from now, are going to have earnings above average? That assumes that you can build homes if there is a large number of people. If you can't, you would trim back the level—not cut drastically, but you'd have an adjustment factor.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Mr. Amoussou, we have approximately three million temporary residents in our country right now. The government has plans to essentially expire their paperwork, and it expects them to leave the country.
In your experience, when the paperwork of temporary residents essentially expires, do they leave the country or do you run into folks who hang around after their paperwork has expired?
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
From a realistic perspective, is it realistic for the government to expect these people to leave the country, or as you said, are just going to try to find a way to stay?
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Right. They should, but in your experience, will they?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.
Thank you, Mr. Amoussou.
Next, we have five minutes for Mr. Peter Fragiskatos.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
That's fine, Madam Chair. It's no problem.
Professor Worswick, thank you very much for being here today.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I think we're all hockey fans at this table. It's a very Canadian game, obviously, by definition.
Analogies have their place, but if I take your analogy to its logical conclusion, you're ultimately talking about differences of degree and not kind. What I mean, if we're going to continue down the path of the analogy, is that a right winger and a centreman are different, but not really. In the end, they're hockey players.
If we're thinking about the economy and the place of the immigration system in helping to build it up, when individuals can't be sourced domestically—I'm talking about skills—then your analogy and, frankly, your overall argument, might be out of place.
Just tell me a little more, because I'm a bit confused on the rationale. I say this with great respect. If we're trying to address skills gaps in the economy, we're obviously going to want people of various backgrounds, including income types. The trades are a challenge. It's hard to source people in the trades, to give one example. Also, you can talk to business owners in rural and remote communities. They have a very difficult time finding people.
If we're going to source people of only one income type, or in a certain category of income, if you like, then I think we're going to run into problems. The immigration system should serve the economy first and foremost.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
May I say something?
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
Really quickly, as I know there's not a lot of time.... In the absence of an immigration program, when there's excess demand for workers, the wages should rise. That's what Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations. My experience is that if a job has chronic labour shortages, it's usually because there's something to do with the job that people don't like. The idea that we should have immigrants do the jobs that Canadians don't want to do is a huge mistake, because the wages will never rise if that's the case.
My colleague Mikal Skuterud has put out numbers on construction. Everyone's always saying that there are construction shortages, but we do not see wages rising rapidly in construction—
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Sir, I have limited time. I don't want to interrupt you. In fact, I'd be quite happy to follow up after the meeting.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
Sure.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
What would you tell members of Parliament from Atlantic Canada who, to give you an example, have fish-processing plants in their communities? The problem with the plants is not that they're not getting orders. They're getting many orders from across Canada and from across the world. They can't fill those orders because they have such a challenge getting access to workers.