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.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
I'm sure they feel that way, but the way—
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
Let me answer, please.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
It's not that they feel that way. This is an objective fact.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
Can I answer the question? You keep interrupting me.
Liberal
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
The wages should rise until local people, people from Ontario or people from B.C. want to move there to do the jobs, or the companies should invest in new technology. The fish plants and companies.... We have temporary foreign workers coming to work in fast-food restaurants in Toronto. Are there not workers in Toronto? The wages have to rise, and this raises wages for low-income Canadians and reduces income inequality.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
I take your point, sir, on Toronto and, in particular, the fast-food sector.
You're telling me that in the fish plant example I gave, we're going to tell the entrepreneurs who run those places that they should wait for Canadian workers from Ontario to move out there—
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
I started by saying—
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
At some point, they'll realize that they suddenly want to go and work in Atlantic Canada in a fish-processing plant.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
I said local workers could take the jobs first.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
That is because the wage hasn't risen yet.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
That's the answer to this: Increase wages and everything will magically fall in place.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
That is the answer. That's what we did in Canada for the first 100 years. We didn't have temporary foreign worker programs.
On your other question about left wing, right wing and centre, today I had a look on the public use census file for 2021, and I restricted it to economic immigrants in Canada. If you compare economic immigrants who work in French in Canada outside Quebec to all other economic immigrants who work in any other language, their earnings are 20% lower. That's straight from the census.
There are real costs to the policies we're laying overtop. This means they're paying less taxes; they may need more services. This is costing Canadians.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
Thank you.
As I said, Professor Worswick, I'm happy to follow up with you afterwards.
We're a bilingual country. We're quite proud of this. That much is clear.
Mr. Amoussou, do you think that the immigration system plays a significant role in this vision?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.
Thank you, Mr. Amoussou.
Next, we have six minutes for Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll stick to the hockey analogies. The Prime Minister of Canada and all his Liberal troops used the expression “elbows up” during the most recent election campaign. This expression translates into French as “lever le coude”.
That said, the expression “elbows up” in English means to protect yourself in hockey. In French, “lever le coude” means “to have a drink” or “to drink alcohol excessively” in our neck of the woods. As you can see, the differences between English and French make it worthwhile to point out the variety of words. Even when expressions are translated word for word, they don't necessarily mean the same thing.
Mr. Worswick, in your opening remarks, you said that criteria such as francophone immigration outside Quebec would take us further away from our economic objectives.
Is that right? I may have misunderstood.
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
Could you repeat the question? I'm sorry.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
In your opening remarks, you said, for example, that criteria such as francophone immigration outside Quebec would take us further away from our economic objectives for newcomers in the economic class.
Is that right?
Professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, As an Individual
My concern is that it would lead to an intake of economic immigrants to Canada, but not in Quebec, and they would have lower human capital on average. They would have lower earnings. They would pay less in taxes. That's what I'm getting at.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Do you believe in the vitality of francophone communities outside Quebec?