Is Canada Accepting Too Many Immigrants?

I debated Martin Collacott (of the Fraser Institute and the Centre for Immigration Reform) earlier this week. 

 

A recent release from the Centre for Immigration Reform argues that we accept far too many immigrants to this country. It does not however propose what the right number should be. 

Collacott relies on a study from Professor Grubel (his colleague at the Fraser Institute) that states that immigrants cost Canadians $23 billion a year.

The study has been reviewed and been found to contain inconsistencies and errors by SFU economists (countervailing information is provided by Mohsen Javdani and Krishna Pendakur). Collacott of course defended the Grubel study and stands by the numbers (which if true, would lead to the conclusion that Canada should not accept any immigrants since they cost us too much money). 

My point: there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Studies regarding fiscal transfers to immigrants have to be taken with a grain of salt. Such studies depend greatly on what is measures (indeed, what can be measured, or can be quantified) and involve therefore, a subjective judgment call on the part of the author. 

Immigration policy should work both for the new and prospective immigrant as well as for Canadian taxpayers. This is a nation of immigrants but it's ironic that once we arrive here we demand protection from new immigrants. A bit like pulling up the ladder behind us. What is troubling is that recent immigration policy changes by this current government are in line with the flawed prescriptions written by Collacott, his Centre for Immigration Reform and the Fraser Institute. 

Transcript:

Michael:	The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, a non-profit organization advocating for changes to Canada's immigration policies, says the country is letting in too many newcomers. The group argues that those new to Canada pay less in taxes than they cost in taxpayer-funded services. However, critics of that position argue the value of a new Canadian is more than monetary. Does Canada need to scale back immigration levels? And, at what point are those levels sustainable?
	Joining us this evening, Raj Sharma, an immigration lawyer with Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, and on the phone from Vancouver, Martin Collacott, Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform. Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to you both.
M. Collacott:	Good evening.
Raj Sharma:	Good evening. Good evening.
Michael:	Martin, I'd like to start with you. In reviewing immigration policy performance for 2013, your organization credits the federal government with making some significant improvements, but on the flip side, says Canada is still letting in too many immigrants. How so?
M. Collacott:	Basically, for this reason. There are a lot of Canadians unemployed, whether it's young people, whether it's aboriginals, people laid off from the manufacturing sector, or recent immigrants. We are not making full use of our existing human resources, but we're bringing in what amounts to probably the highest per capita immigration levels in the world, and a lot of temporary foreign workers on top of that.
	Canadians ... While the economy does get larger because of the immigrants coming in, the population gets larger, there is no per capita GDP benefit. Canadians don't benefit from this larger economy. So, we should be concentrating on training, getting more Canadians into the work force, and use immigration. We're not against immigration, but that should complement, it shouldn't replace, best use of our existing human resources.
Michael:	Martin, are there, though, the Canadians to fill those vacant positions, especially here in Alberta?
M. Collacott:	No, it's a challenge, and Canada has to do a number of things. We've got to encourage more people to take training. We've got to have a program of apprenticeships, because one of the things that Alberta has a problem with is trained tradesmen, so we've got to sort out a number of problems, but we're not doing that.
	Jason Kenney, as Employment Minister, his new portfolio, is starting to work on some of these things, but we shouldn't continue to make it easy just to bring in very large numbers of people overseas, rather than try to plan to make better use of Canadians. We'll still want some immigration, but we don't need anywhere near the current numbers if we made better use of the people already in the country.
Michael:	Raj, how much of an argument do you see here for scaling back on the number of newcomers we're welcoming into Canada?
Raj Sharma:	Well, I don't take any position with Martin's point that immigration has to work both, obviously, for the immigrant or prospective immigrant, but also for Canadians. That being said, the person who advances an argument kind of bears the onus of establishing or proving his argument, and in this case, The Centre for Immigration Reform has put out this bold statement that we're taking in too many immigrants, but it doesn't actually put or posit any contrary number, so we don't actually know what their position is. We're just taking in too many immigrants, period, and the number should be lower, so it's kind of hard to argue or difficult to take a position on that kind of vague statement.
Michael:	Martin, how much of a fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers is immigration?
M. Collacott:	Well, the fiscal burden is another issue. The analysis by the Fraser Institute shows that because recent immigrants have not, on average, some have done very well, but on average, they've earned much less than earlier immigrants or Canadians. It costs Canadian taxpayers about 23 billion dollars a year in terms of the benefits they get over what they pay in taxes.
	Now, the government has taken measures to try and improve the selection of permanent residents so they'll be more successful and earn more money, so that might be rectified to some extent, but the overriding question is, why do we need to bring in such large numbers?
	The Bank of Montreal and the Toronto-Dominion Bank both issued studies, within the past year, saying that there are no overriding shortages of labor that the private sector keeps claiming there is, that there are shortages in specific sectors, but these shortages could be met by normal market forces. If there's a shortage of labor, wages go up, more Canadians get training, and the shortages are filled. They said the shortages are no more severe than they were 16 years ago, or 15 years ago, and they're not going to be any more severe in the future.
Michael:	Raj, how much of a balance has yet to be struck by the federal government, in terms of protecting taxpayers, when it comes to immigration costs?
Raj Sharma:	Michael, if I can go back and address one of the premises of Martin's argument, is that there's this fiscal transfer from Canadians to new immigrants of about 23 billion a year. I believe that Martin is relying on the paper by Professor Grubel, and that paper has been reviewed by Javdani and Pendakur, and that figure of 23 billion, or approximately 6,000 per immigrant, that's been whittled down to about a couple hundred dollars per immigrant, so instead of 23 billion, there's economists from Simon Fraser University that peg the number more like two billion, so I would have to take issue with Martin's argument, because it's predicated on, perhaps, a flawed premise.
Michael:	Well-
M. Collacott:	Could I just comment quickly on that? Raj is quite correct about this being challenged by the two economists from Simon Fraser. Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady then reviewed all the data that the other two had presented, and came back and showed that their criticisms weren't valid. This was a paper that came out about 10 months after the two Simon ... So, those figures, the latest figures of 23 billion, haven't been challenged by anyone.
Michael:	But still, that's a big difference between a couple billion and 23 billion.
Raj Sharma:	Well, I guess ...
M. Collacott:	Well, I can tell you why, actually, why there was a difference. The two, Pendakar, and I forget the name of the other gentleman, went back to immigrants who came in as early as the early 1970s, when immigrants were doing well. Those that came in after 1980 have not been doing well, which is the period encompassed by the Grubel Grady study. Also, there was an issue over what constitutes public goods, whether things like national defense, policing, and so on, should be factored into this, and I think the Grubel Grady second ground pretty well contradicted what Pendekar and his colleague had said.
Michael:	Raj, did you have a follow up to that?
Raj Sharma:	I guess there's lies, there's down lies, and there's statistics, so ultimately, I guess my concern is this, is that Canadian immigration policy and the numbers of immigrants that we should be accepting, should be set by accountable, elected representatives of the people. They shouldn't be set, necessarily, by think tank individuals, or individuals of a particular ideology.
	I appreciate that Martin's been doing this for a very long time. I have a great deal of respect for him, and kudos, of course, to him, for bringing more ... Immigration debate has always been a lot more heat than light, but at the same time, I think I'm a little bit more comfortable with accountable, elected representatives setting our immigration policy and deciding in terms of numbers.
	I mean, let's face it, in terms of statistics or these studies, it depends on what you measure, and there's always going to be a decision by the particular individual, or the researcher, or the author as to what to study, and what to quantify, and what not to quantify, and the reality is, is that individuals and immigrants are more than just integers on a balance sheet. There's a lot of factors that can't be quantified.
	Now, for example, immigrants impact on the housing market. Now, that may or may not be a benefit to Canadians, but again, it's difficult to quantify, and that's why it's not in those particular papers, so we have to take, I think, those papers with a grain of salt.
Michael:	Martin, what is, then, a sustainable level of immigration, and how do you determine that?
M. Collacott:	Well, I think that what we need is an informed national debate. Raj is perfectly correct that it's the elected officials who've got to decide on numbers and immigration policy. The fact is, though, that none of the political parties, from right to left, are dealing with some of the major issues of concern to Canadians, and what's happened in Europe is you've got anti-immigration parties resulting, because the mainstream parties haven't been dealing with these issues.
	We don't want to see that happen in Canada. We need a national debate. A lot of Canadian ... Very few Canadians are against immigration, and they'll always say, "Oh, it's a good thing," but when you scratch deeply, you find that they have a lot of reservations about the numbers of people coming in, the impact on the economy, and I want to see a debate take place rather than having anti-immigrant ... My parents are immigrants. My wife's an immigrant from Asia, and I want to see us remain an open and welcoming country, but I don't think we're heading that way unless we have a serious, open, and informed national debate on these issues.
Michael:	Raj, do you agree? Is this how many Canadians feel?
Raj Sharma:	I think I have to agree with Martin's point. The reality is, is that whenever you start talking about immigration, there's always these labels of xenophobia or racism that's thrown about, and that doesn't add anything to the debate. I would have to agree, having discourse and debate about this very, very important issue that affects all Canadians is important. There's the elephant in the room has to be eventually tackled at some point or another.
Michael:	Well, Martin, what, then, is the biggest change that you would like to see in immigration policy moving forward?
M. Collacott:	Well, I'd like to see a review of levels, and based on a long-term national strategy for getting more Canadians into the work force, and only then look at complementing it with immigration. We didn't talk about the temporary foreign workers, incidentally, which is another huge problem.
	I said back when the program was enlarged in 2006 that this was a mistake, that you're going to raise all sorts of problems. Interestingly, the left of the political spectrum is critical of the temporary foreign worker program, I think, for very good reasons, but they're supportive of high immigration levels for very bad reasons, because the regular immigration has a lot of the same impact on the work force and Canadians that temporary foreign workers do.
	So, we need an informed national debate. Our group, The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, has been trying to get out some of the information that's relevant, and look at the basic issues, and we'll continue to do that. We need support from the public if they're concerned about these issues. Our website is ImmigrationReform.ca, in case anyone wants to know what we stand for.
Michael:	Well, Raj, is there that appetite out there to conduct this debate?
Raj Sharma:	Well, I think the debate has been going on, and in fact, I think the former Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, has taken several pages from Martin's book, or various books, on the issue of immigration reform. Jason Kenney attempted to implement a Just In Time immigration policy. He suspended the parent and grandparent class, family class sponsorship. We've done massive refugee reform, instituting disincentives in the form of limiting benefits and work permits for claimants from certain countries. There's been a C change in immigration, in policy, especially in the last few years, so clearly, Martin may be preaching to the choir in terms of this particular government.
Michael:	Gentlemen, I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there, but appreciate your insight this evening. Thank you kindly. That's Raj Sharma, an immigration lawyer in Calgary, and in Vancouver tonight, Martin Collacott, who chairs the Advisory Board for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform.