http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/views/story.html?id=5e81c3f4-15ed-4cfa-8250-13627c41dd27&p=1
Truth and immigration
Rather than climbing over each other promising to increase the number of
immigrants to Canada, party leaders should acknowledge that levels are already
too high
James Bissett, Citizen Special
Published: Thursday, September 18, 2008
We sometimes complain about politicians who don't do what they promise to do
after they get elected. Ironically, it is sometimes much better for the country
when some of these promises are broken.
Let's hope, for example, that the promises made by our political leaders to
raise immigration levels and provide more money for immigrant organizations are
not kept.
Either our political leaders do not know that Canada is facing an immigration
crisis or they care more about gaining a few more so-called "ethnic voters"
than they do about telling the truth about immigration.
Canada is taking far too many immigrants and the leaders of all the parties are
promising to take even more.
There are already close to a million immigrants waiting in the backlog to come
here. They have all met the requirements and by law must be admitted. There is
also a backlog of 62,000 asylum seekers before the refugee board and even if
these are not found to be genuine refugees most will be allowed to stay. In
addition, there are between 150,000 and 200,000 temporary workers now in the
country and here again it is unlikely many of them will ever go home.
Despite these extraordinary numbers,the Harper government wants to raise the
immigration intake next year to 265,000. The Liberals and the New Democrats
have said they want even more, as much as one per cent of our population, or
333,000 each year.
These are enormous numbers and even in the best of times would place a serious
burden on the economy and on the already strained infrastructure of the three
major urban centres where most of them would end up.
Let's face the facts -- when there is a turndown in the world economy and dire
predictions of serious recession or worse this is not the time to be bringing
thousands of newcomers to Canada. In July of this year Ontario alone lost
55,000 jobs -- so what is the rationale for more immigration? The fact is there
is no valid rationale. There is only one reason why our political parties push
for high immigration intake and that is they see every new immigrant as a
potential vote for their party. This is not only irresponsible; it borders on
culpable negligence.
There are few economists today who argue that immigration helps the economy in
any significant way. Studies in Canada since the mid-1980s have pointed out
that immigration has little impact on the economic welfare of the receiving
country and similar studies in the United States and Britain have reached the
same conclusion. Comprehensive studies by George Borjas, the world's most
renown immigration economist at Harvard have shown that immigration's only
significant impact is to reduce the wages of native workers.
Our politicians justify their desire for more immigrants by raising the spectre
of an aging population and tell us immigration is the only answer to this
dilemma, and yet there is not a shred of truth to this argument. Immigration
does not provide the answer to population aging and there is a multiplicity of
studies done in Canada and elsewhere that proves this
Moreover, there is no evidence that a larger labour force necessarily leads to
economic progress. Many countries whose labour forces are shrinking are still
enjoying economic buoyancy. Finland, Switzerland and Japan are only a few
examples of countries that do not rely on massive immigration to succeed.
Productivity is the answer to economic success, not a larger population.
Most Canadians assume that our immigrants are selected because they have
skills, training and education that will enable them to enhance our labour
force but only about 18 to 20 per cent of our immigrants are selected for
economic factors. By far the bulk of the immigrants we receive come here
because they are sponsored by relatives or because of so-called humanitarian
reasons and none of these have to meet the "points system" of selection.
This is why over 50 per cent of recent immigrants are living below the poverty
line and why they are not earning nearly the wages paid to equivalent Canadian
workers.
It also explains why a study published this year by professor Herbert Grubel of
Simon Fraser University revealed that the 2.5 million immigrants who came to
Canada between 1990 and 2002 received $18.3 billion more in government services
and benefits in 2002 than they paid in taxes. As Prof. Grubel points out, this
amount is more than the federal government spent on health care and twice what
was spent on defence in the fiscal year of 2000/2001. Isn't it time our party
leaders were made aware of this study?
In the discussions about immigration we never hear from our political leaders
about the serious environmental problems caused by the addition of over a
quarter of a million immigrants each year. Most of our immigrants are coming
from developing countries of Asia where their "ecological footprint" is tiny
compared to the average Canadian but within months of arrival here the
immigrant's footprint has increased to our giant size.
We have already experienced the impact mass migration has had on the health,
education, traffic, social services and crime rates of our three major urban
centres. It may be that cutting the immigration flow in half would do more than
any gas tax to help reduce our environmental pollution.
If immigration is to be an issue in the election campaign then let us insist
that the real issues be discussed and that our politicians contribute more to
the debate than promising higher levels and more money to immigrant groups.
Canadians and immigrants deserve better.
James Bissett is a former executive director of the Canadian Immigration Service
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