Originally posted on LinkedIn
As this article notes, 71% of Canadians want fewer immigrants. No doubt this is due to failures by federal and provincial governments relating to international students. Too many immigration consultants here and abroad made false promises about pathways to PR, and provincial governments did not regulate public-private colleges properly at all.
But people need to understand, as noted, that “average quarterly population growth is now the lowest it’s ever been (for years for which we have data).”
As for the argument that foreign workers are causing youth unemployment, the article cites McGill Professor Fabian Lange, who says the real cause is a weak economy (tariffs) given that “youth unemployment recovered quickly after the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, even as immigration rates soared, and is only again faltering this year, as population growth has plummeted.”
In terms of housing pressures, I’ve said before that this problem predated the surge in temporary residents and other factors are involved, such as NIMBY push-back relating to zoning and other structural issues.
The author notes that we need to return to more immigration for several reasons. First, immigrants help with economic growth, given they tend to be more entrepreneurial and better educated than those who are Canadian-born. Second, social services like Old Age Security require “as many people paying into the system as there are taking from it.”
He notes that our fertility rate is 1.26 births per woman, which is lower than the G7 average. The author also argues that population size matters for geopolitical power, which helps when it comes to trade agreements, tariffs, and military strength.
There have been calls for better quality students (more for universities, less for community colleges) and higher standards for PR (higher education and/or selection based on higher income). But the author says that “from a growth and cost-of-living standpoint, cheaper labour from abroad keeps our goods affordable and actually fills much-needed gaps in the labour market.”
Given we’ve put caps on international students and effectively ended shady private colleges, it’s time to remind Canadians of why we need immigration.
🔗 Read the original Globe and Mail article here.
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