Conservatives' Immigration policy changes

The Conservatives have tacked on their changes to Canada's immigration to the budget implementation bill. I believe this is a serious mistake since whether one agrees or disagrees with them, this should be debated on its own. I would urge the Liberals to vote against this for the simple reason this should be a stand alone bill not attached to the budget.

As for the bill, itself, it contains both good and bad points. I support granting points for Canadian experience as well as increasing the availability of work permits. While some criticize this, there are many benefits to work permits for new arrivals. For starters, it ensures they have employment, but more importantly it allows them to begin their new life in Canada while still waiting for their application to be processed. Finding a job is not easy and as someone who has not too long ago gone through the job search, it is very difficult to find one without having any personal connections with someone who works there. While living in Canada, this will give them time to build up the necessary network to find the right job for their skills. Also knowledge of one of the two official languages is essential to finding a job and as someone who always got A's and B's in French in high school yet struggles to even string together a complete sentence in French, I know how difficult it can be to learn another language if not using it on a regular basis. By living in Canada, they will be using the language on a regular basis and thus can improve their language skills. I also support giving higher priority to highest skilled workers and those filling areas we have strong shortages in such as doctors.

On the other hand, I am dead set against the idea of the minister being arbitrarily able to cap applications. This opens the door to being abused for political purposes and should be withdrawn from the bill immediately. It also creates uncertainty for those wishing to apply. All those who wish to apply have the right to apply. This off course doesn't mean everyone will be accepted, but we should not slam the door on those who wish to apply.

However, I think the time has come for an open and honest debate on immigration. Those who favour higher levels of immigration are not doing it to increase the pool of liberal voters and those for lower levels of immigration are not necessarily racists, although some may be depending on their rationale. Those who favour restricting immigration since it is predominately non-European, dislike immigrants, or wish to base immigration based on country of origin are ones I have absolutely no tolerance or time for. But those who believe Canada is taking in more immigration than our economy has the capacity to handle, maybe ones who I disagree with, but at least they have a legitimate argument.

Below are my views on immigration and solely mine, which are in fact somewhere in between that of the Conservatives and Liberals. Before giving my views, I think one ought to know the facts as all too often people's opinions on immigration are based on false information. Getting into Canada is not as easy as some think, in fact most Canadians would likely not be qualified for immigrating to Canada. Canada has more people retiring than entering the labour force, so if we wish to maintain our generous social safety net without raising taxes or going into deficit, we will need to provide a larger tax base and this can only be done through more immigration. More immigration helps Canada compete better globally as understanding other cultures and countries is essential for one to be competitive in their market, so the more diverse our population is and the stronger our connections are, the better our ability to compete. At the same time Canada has by far the highest per capita rate of immigration anywhere in the developed world. Even were Canada to cut its immigration rate to the levels the Reform Party advocated in the early 90s, we would still have the highest per capita rate of immigration albeit by a smaller margin. Also unemployment is significantly higher amongst the foreign born population and has worsened considerably in the last decade. Finally those born outside of Canada make considerably less than Canadians do on average despite the fact the average level of education amongst the foreign born population is higher than it is amongst the native born.

In order to deal with these issues, I believe our current levels of immigration are quite reasonable and should not be cut. However, our selection process should change. In countries with long backlogs such as India, China, and the Philippines, we need to hire more immigration officers to process these applications. Making skilled workers wait over 10 years is simply not acceptable. We need to do a better job of recognizing foreign credentials so as those with high levels of education can get jobs at their skill level, not lower paying jobs. Those who receive a work permit or a student visa should be allowed to have their applications processed based on their skill level at the time their application is reviewed, not when submitted. For example on the question of language proficiency, they would most likely score higher under this scenario. Where backlogs exist, priority should be given to those who score highest and are in areas we have most acute labour shortages. The emphasis should be more on skilled workers and less on family re-unification. I know this goes strongly against the Liberal position, but the reality is immigration should provide a net benefit to Canada in terms of contributions, it should not cost our system more. The problem is when someone brings in their 70 year old grandmother, they will likely use our social system while paying next to nothing into it. That does not mean we should stop family re-unification, it simply means those applications should take lower priority. The points should also be altered slightly. Those with arranged employment should get greater weight than they do now as well as knowledge of one of Canada's two official languages should get greater weight. Being able to speak the dominate language in the area of one's employment is essential in order to finding meaningful employment. My weak French skills severely impair my ability to find work in Quebec and in fact I would not seek employment in Quebec without improving my French skills. Likewise I have wanted to live in Europe for a couple of years for the cultural experience, but should I do so, it would almost certainly be the United Kingdom or Ireland as I do not speak the language of most European countries and in the case of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland my French is weak enough that I probably would have an extremely difficult time finding work. Also as done in Australia and New Zealand, additional points should be given to those who wish to live in regions with labour shortages. The problem now is not so much with the number of immigrants we take, but where they go. Rural Canada and Atlantic Canada have declining labour forces, while Alberta's economic boom has led to massive shortages as there aren't enough jobs being created to sustain the demand. These areas are in desperate need of employees yet few immigrants are moving there to fill in those shortages. On the other hand, the GTA is rapidly expanding and its large population creates the normal problems such as congestion, pollution, urban sprawl, and expanding into environmentally sensitive areas that normally occur in large metropolitan areas. This does not mean immigrants who wish to go to the GTA would be denied, it simply means those that wish to move to other regions that face labour shortages would get additional points while those who choose regions that don't would not lose points, but get no additional points. If one choose to go to Melbourne or Sydney in Australia, they get no additional points, but if they go to the Gold Coast they will.

We can learn both from others successes and mistakes. At the same time we must keep in mind that Canada is quite different than the United States and Europe in terms of the situation it faces so advocating we cut immigration to their levels does not make sense. The best comparisons are Australia and New Zealand as they are both countries made up of people who have largely come in the last 200 years much like Canada and they both would have negative population growth without immigration. In the case of the United States, they may have less immigration per capita than we do, but they also have a much higher birth rate than Canada and so even without immigration their population would still be growing. Europe is a much different circumstance. Up until the 60s, Europe was a land of emigration not immigration. Since then, most have been temporary workers meant to fill jobs that locals were unwilling to take. But rather than staying temporarily, they stayed permanately, but largely lived in their segregated communities and never integrated. I am all for immigrants preserving their culture, but I don't support the idea of ghettoization. Here in Toronto, almost everyone has immigrant friends and people interact and mingle. When I was in Amsterdam, Brussels, Nice, and Strasbourg last June, I stayed out in the suburbs since hotels were cheaper and these areas were predominately immigrants. There is little interaction between the two which has lead to the tensions we saw with the French riots in 2005. Rather than living together peacefully, there has been much racism towards the immigrant community due to lack of understanding while many in the immigrant community don't feel like they are part of the country they live in. This is why I think those who use Europe's woes with immigration as a reason for calling for Canada to restrict its immigration are off base as we have thankfully avoided the problems they have due to our more inclusive and mixed society.

Regardless of what one thinks on immigration, it is important we have a proper debate and that with the exception of those who cleary intolerant, the debate be respectful. Also the facts need to be clearly understood as too many base their opinions on false information.