New Group wants to talk about immigration reform

[wyly]

Rich nations with lower population growth might have more or less economic growth but there is a measure of growth that comes from increased population isn't there ? I'm only asking questions.

our economic system relies on continual growth, canada's would be in serious shape without our immigration, without it our population would be shrinking...and then the obvious becomes apparent, the world cannot sustain unlimited growth and our economic system is headed for eventual collapse...

[Saipan]

I already explained to you why population growth is important for an economy...

Then countries like India or Philippines are doing real great.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Saipan

[dre]

Rich nations with lower population growth might have more or less economic growth but there is a measure of growth that comes from increased population isn't there ? I'm only asking questions.

Yes because in a growth economy youre busy building infrastructure and homes for the expanding population.

If you want to see this illustrated on a micro scale.

Go to a town where the population is shrinking... notice how theres no jobs? Not much construction going on... no roads being built... very few new businesses opening.

Now visit a town thats has a high population growth rate. Theres shit going on everywhere isnt there? New subdivisions, lots of new contruction, new businesses opening... hey look at that... a bunch of guys building a school . Another bunch of guys building a road... and those workers need services, products and homes too! And the people that provide those services products and homes need... well... services products and homes

Historically the most human development has happened in growth economies.

[Wayne McQ.]

It's tough to discuss the issues because it usually ends up with name calling, anyone opposed to unfettered immigration is usually labelled a 'racist'.save worked an

We have a right to determine who and what is best for Canada so we should be linking immigration to skills needed in Canada. We should also be cutting back on the family class or the family reunification program. An offshoot of this is Ruby Dhalla's bill which would reduce the wait time for senior immigrants to collect OAS. Aging parents are brought in by the children who don't want to be financially responsible for them, they expect us to support them.

Official multi-cult is wrong, we should not be paying for people to be different, we should be helping them to become part of our society.

Right on! We should also put an end to immigrants bringing in family members who are seniors, unless these immigrants are willing to post a bond large enough to provide for all costs of care including the full costs of health care. Pensions should also not be made available to senior immigrants unless they have worked and paid taxes in this country for a minimum of 10 years.

[justme]

It's tough to discuss the issues because it usually ends up with name calling, anyone opposed to unfettered immigration is usually labelled a 'racist'.

Everybody says there is a problem with racism. Everybody says this problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.

The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve the race problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and "assimilating" with them.

Everybody says the final solution to the race problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to "assimilate," i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.

What if I said there was this race problem and this race problem would be solved only if millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?

How long would it take anyone to realize I'm not talking about a race problem, but about the final solution to the BLACK problem?

And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn't object to this?

But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a Nazi who wants to kill six million Jews.

They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.

[CANADIEN]

Everybody says the final solution to the race problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to "assimilate," i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.

Everybody? Really? Hearing voices?

But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race

The obvious truth is that the program exists only in your imagination. Edited October 13, 2010 by CANADIEN

[justme]

Everybody? Really? Hearing voices?

So you don't have a problem with drastically reducing non-white immigration to white countries?

The obvious truth is that the program exists only in your imagination.

The government brings in 250,000 immigrants a year regardless of economic conditions, and more than 80% is non-white. Canada has about 130,000 births over deaths each year, about half the level of immigration, and white births are among the lowest in the country. On top of that, miscegenation is encouraged.

Globally, white people make up less than 10% of the population and their countries are being flooded with non-white immigration because to refuse it is considered racist.

Black countries for blacks.

Asian countries for Asians.

Muslim countries for Muslims.

Israel for Jews.

Mexico for Mexicans.

White countries for everyone.

Anti-racist is code for anti-white.

Edited October 13, 2010 by justme

[Argus]

What about the service individual that earns money from helping immigrats integrate or the store clerk who charges them for their food or the farmer who supplies their produce? Do they not get any benefit at all? Of course they do, so even the immigrant, whether on welfare or not, benefits the economy.

You clearly don't understand even the basics of economics. You're making a silly argument. There is NO economic benefit to having non-productive workers. Whatever they consume has to be paid for by taxes taken from others. They are a drain on resources.

There is no need to argue since it has been more than proven over and over during the past 150 years or more.

In other words you have no evidence whatever but are simply relying on feel-good statements and historical anectdotes which no longer apply.

If you want to try and prove the contrary, well, put simple: you haven't.

I don't think it's possible to prove an economic argument to someone who has no understanding of economics.

For what purpose? So I can debunk more of the Fraser Insitutes smoke and mirrors?

What exactly have you "debunked". I mean, the word implies disproving, and you seem to equate it with "disagreeing" without actually even reading it.

That diversity brings wealth and growth and the main engines for that growth are in urban centres including immigrant neighbourhoods. Quite simple to understand actually, but go figure you don't see the relevancy.

It's feel-good statements with no facts or statistics or evidence to back it up. Which is about all you've shown, actually.

So you are saying that people who are provided an environment of opportunity and fail are somehow less culpable than people who come from environments of much less opportunity. Hmmm...

People will go on welfare, native born and immigrants. That is the price we pay for welfare.

The price I pay. I'm getting the feeling you don't pay taxes anyway. Else you'd show somewhat more concern for the waste of resources. You clearly don't care that the immigration system is bringing in failed immigrants, shrugging it off without a second thought. Faillure seems to not bother you.

Here is what the government says:

Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration, 2009

More heavily massaged, feel-good statements without evidence or fact.

The immigration system is based almost entirely on politics, with scarely any idea of what will or will not benefit Canada or its economy.

[Argus]

Rich nations with lower population growth might have more or less economic growth but there is a measure of growth that comes from increased population isn't there ? I'm only asking questions.

From the Fraser report:

All economists agree that immigration increases the population and thus the GDP of Canada. However, the impact of immigration on per-capita GDP is a matter of much controversy both on theoretical and practical grounds. There is agreement that, in the past when tariffs and trade barriers were much higher than now, immigration was important in increasing the size of the Canadian market and realizing economies of scale, which raised the income of all. However, now with the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and globalization, it is generally agreed that there is no longer any reason to expect economies of scale. In fact, some believe that there could even be diseconomies of scale caused by urban congestion and pollution as are now evident in Toronto

Also

Growth accounting is a commonly used approach for estimating

the impact on productivity of various factors such as education and the age and sex of those who make up the labor force. It involves using earnings weights to distinguish the effects of the various factors. When applied over the period from 1990 to 2004, it suggests that immigration has lowered productivity by around 1.5% or 0.15% per year (Grady, 2006). While this is not very large, it is still significant and runs counter to the claims usually made regarding the productivity-enhancing effect of immigration.

Simply dropping unproductive mouths into the mix in order to have to supply them with services, food, housing, etc, does not increase our economy by any real margin. Our economy gets "better" in a real sense by increased productivity, not increased size of population. If we brought over 250,000 productive people very year that would certainly make us a wealthier nation in a real sense. But that's not what's happening. If you at least skim the Fraser report, especially the middle sections on economics you'll see this.

Edited October 17, 2010 by Argus

[Argus]

Without our birth rate the population would have been shrinking from quite some time now, which would be a serious problem for our economy. Less homes would be built, less businesses would operate, and there would be less demand for goods and services.

The population would not have been shrinking at all, actually. In fact, I've posted previous studies, which I will see if I can find again, which show that if we had zero immigration - none - Canada's population would continue to grow for about another 25 years, then very, very slowly begin to reduce.

Your belief that building homes helps the economy is only true to an extent - that is, that productive people are paying for those homes to be built. If the government is paying for them there is ultimately no real benefit.

[Shwa]

But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a Nazi who wants to kill six million Jews.

I highly doubt anything you have written would indicate to anyone that you are a Nazi or would want to kill six million Jews. But let me re-read your post and see...

How long would it take anyone to realize I'm not talking about a race problem, but about the final solution to the BLACK problem?

Oh my...

[Wild Bill]

Rich nations with lower population growth might have more or less economic growth but there is a measure of growth that comes from increased population isn't there ? I'm only asking questions.

The idea that economies are driven solely by consumption is really just old socialistic marxist-leninism. It may be expressed in a weaker or stronger fashion but in essence that's what it is. There's not really any success stories in the world for such a viewpoint.

Suppose we have a hundred people living on a big farm. The farm grows enough food to feed everybody and the system has a comfortable status quo. One day someone opens up the gates and adds 10 people. (Let's put aside normal population growth for the purpose of argument).

Those 10 people have to be fed! Now some would say that because the market for cooks has increased the farm economy will grow! Unfortunately, it doesn't really work like that. All jobs are NOT the same! That again is another Marxian idea. All industries are NOT the same! There are primary industries, where wealth comes from digging up and refining something, or manufacturing, or growing food or anything that generates something we didn't have before. It may come from being found or from improving something from a raw form.

Service jobs are secondary or even tertiary industries. They are inherently parasitical, in that they rely on being paid from the wealth generated by primary industries. Raising a beef cow is a primary industry. Flipping a burger doesn't in itself give us more cows.

We can create jobs with more cooks on our farm. We will need another sheap shearer for wool and someone to spin it into yarn and make some denim. However, as I said before, these are secondary. The primary problem will be that we need more food and more sheep!

If we don't increase the crop yield or breed another couple of sheep then the extra cooks will have no more food to prepare. There will be no more yarn, no matter how many weaver jobs we create.

At first we can likely improve our farming methods and enlarge the sheep pen to accommodate some more ewes. After all, we just got 10 more workers! Oh wait, some of them are grandparents and some have medical problems. There are only 4 workers. Still, that's more available labour, right? However, our farm is of a particular size. Sooner or later we will run out of room and resources. We will need to expand outside our existing system, buying or somehow acquiring more good farmland. In a national economy, this means finding export markets. More people flipping burgers for each other is not going to cut it.

Everything stems from those primary industries and we have been letting a lot of that industry die here in Canada. It gets moved to other countries or it peters out due to technological change and we don't change with the times to come up with replacements. The world today wants cell phones and iPods! How many are made in the Pacific Rim? How many in Canada? Everybody is quick to name Research In Motion. That's great! We always stop there and everyone tries to ignore the fact that they can't name another such manufacturer.

If an economy doesn't expand its primary base then what happens as demand increases due to population growth or whatever is that the GNP gets diluted among more people. There are more cooks but less food. We might produce more cars but the price goes up. Or people's incomes drop because fewer had good paying primary jobs. A car is a bigger bite for a burger flipper than a steel worker or someone working the oilsands out on the Prairies.

So consumption alone is rather simplistic. Equating all jobs as the same is simplistic as well. If an economy is to grow it needs more steel mills and aluminum smelters, more oil production, more farms, more fishing, more NEW stuff for others to process and consume! As Argus pointed out, letting immigrants purchase or rent a home with money our government gave them from our taxes is NOT a way to grow the economy! It only dilutes the wealth that the rest of us created.

The error Canada seems to have made is to assume that losing primary jobs in favour of service jobs is essentially a "wash". It's not. The numbers may look the same and politicians may use them to make things look good at voting time but a nation with only service jobs just can't maintain as high an average living standard. It's not that service jobs aren't essential. Rather, a healthy economy needs a good ratio between primary and secondary industry jobs.

If 100% of us are flipping burgers then admitting 250,000 new immigrants per year will not help us afford to buy a car!

Edited October 13, 2010 by Wild Bill

[Michael Hardner]

You clearly don't understand even the basics of economics. You're making a silly argument. There is NO economic benefit to having non-productive workers. Whatever they consume has to be paid for by taxes taken from others. They are a drain on resources.

You're referring to whom here ? The families of immigrants ? What is the overall unemployment rate among immigrants after 1 year, 5 years in Canada ?

In other words you have no evidence whatever but are simply relying on feel-good statements and historical anectdotes which no longer apply.

I don't think it's possible to prove an economic argument to someone who has no understanding of economics.

This is called arguing from authority. If you know so much about economics, then educate us in this discussion.

The immigration system is based almost entirely on politics, with scarely any idea of what will or will not benefit Canada or its economy.

So is the anti-immigration system. In fact, all economic discussions tend to descend to lower levels because the public doesn't understand economics very well.

[Saipan]

It's like saying (and many do) influx of "immigrants" from Mexico improves the US (and Canadian) economy.

If that was so why don't they improve economy in Mexico??

"immigration" from Caribbean enriched Toronto by more dope dealers and gunrunners.

[Shwa]

That is what I like about you Argus, when you can no longer attack the message, you attack the messanger. You'll make a good soldier one day since you can follow orders to a tee.

You clearly don't understand even the basics of economics. You're making a silly argument. There is NO economic benefit to having non-productive workers. Whatever they consume has to be paid for by taxes taken from others. They are a drain on resources.

What is silly is you trying to create a straw man with roughly 10% of immigrants by generalizing a limited condition to apply to them all by default. The sane position would be to realize that the non-productive element in the immigrant population is fairly small and that - by and large - the economic benefits from material consumption alone contributes to our economic well being. Only a fool misses the fact that our tiny little population is in the highest economic strata of the world and has been so for the past 30-40 years. All the while having large immigrant populations.

In other words you have no evidence whatever but are simply relying on feel-good statements and historical anectdotes which no longer apply.

Now how do you explain all that success and prosperity with such high immigration rates? Well Argus, the "evidence" you seek is all around you, take a look every once in awhile, don't take my word for it. Canada is in the G8 dude, or have you forgetten?

I don't think it's possible to prove an economic argument to someone who has no understanding of economics.

Conversely, it is difficult to form an economic argument from someone who has no understanding of economics. This you have amply proven.

What exactly have you "debunked". I mean, the word implies disproving, and you seem to equate it with "disagreeing" without actually even reading it.

I successfully debunked the 'spin' that the Fraser Institute put on their report. AS IF they had any intention of trying to prove their theory wrong or acknowledge the bias in their presentation of the data. No need to, because in the famous words of P.T. Barnum, "There's a sucker born every minute." Not everyone takes what the Fraser Institute has to say as "science" like you do Argus, come on now.

Here is a Fraser Institute like truth: an average car will cost you $20-30 thousand dollars and drag down your household budget, therefore, take the bus only. AS IF there is NO benefit to owning a car.

It's feel-good statements with no facts or statistics or evidence to back it up. Which is about all you've shown, actually.

All I have "shown?" Come off it, G8 bud. High levels of immigration, small population, G8.

The price I pay. I'm getting the feeling you don't pay taxes anyway. Else you'd show somewhat more concern for the waste of resources. You clearly don't care that the immigration system is bringing in failed immigrants, shrugging it off without a second thought. Faillure seems to not bother you.

LOL, good work soldier, but I likely pay more in taxes than you do and likely have done so over the last 30 years or so. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that I subsidize you far more than you do anyone else. You owe me. What you have failed to realize is that you are the guy that over on page seven declares "done quite a bit" of research into this problem. So I ask you again, show me the statistics that prove that there are NO benefits for our 18-20 billion yearly investment in immigrants. Surely the Fraser Institute or your quite-a-bit research has the stats to back that up.

No? Didn't think so.

More heavily massaged, feel-good statements without evidence or fact.

The immigration system is based almost entirely on politics, with scarely any idea of what will or will not benefit Canada or its economy.

And yet here we are as a nation, one of the most successful in the world that weathered the recent recession pretty good, with high levels of immigration, and the significance of this statement eludes you:

In the past five years, Canada has relied on immigration for more than two-thirds of its population growth, and within the next decade we expect that all our labour force growth will come from immigration.

That is not the fault of CIC, the politicians or even myself, it is your singluar inability to understand plain English. You wouldn't happen to be a recent immigrant too would you?

[Michael Hardner]

Simply dropping unproductive mouths into the mix in order to have to supply them with services, food, housing, etc, does not increase our economy by any real margin. Our economy gets "better" in a real sense by increased productivity, not increased size of population. If we brought over 250,000 productive people very year that would certainly make us a wealthier nation in a real sense. But that's not what's happening. If you at least skim the Fraser report, especially the middle sections on economics you'll see this.

Our productivity problems are well-known and .15 % isn't even a drop in the bucket. For us to use immigration control as a method to improve productivity is ridiculous, given that we have had chronic problems in this area and haven't made basic upgrades to improve our productivity.

That article is rather tepid, calling attention to 'controversy' and using terms like "some believe"... If you provide the link, I can start reading on it.

Some other questions:

Don't workers who can do the same work for lower wages improve productivity overall ?

Why do we enter into trade agreements if we're interested in increasing the costs of labour ?

What about the domestic market, i.e. non-export producers, services and so on ?

[bloodyminded]

I highly doubt anything you have written would indicate to anyone that you are a Nazi or would want to kill six million Jews. But let me re-read your post and see...

Oh my...

Oh my, indeed.

[Shwa]

Everything stems from those primary industries and we have been letting a lot of that industry die here in Canada. It gets moved to other countries or it peters out due to technological change and we don't change with the times to come up with replacements. The world today wants cell phones and iPods! How many are made in the Pacific Rim? How many in Canada? Everybody is quick to name Research In Motion. That's great! We always stop there and everyone tries to ignore the fact that they can't name another such manufacturer.

If an economy doesn't expand its primary base then what happens as demand increases due to population growth or whatever is that the GNP gets diluted among more people. There are more cooks but less food. We might produce more cars but the price goes up. Or people's incomes drop because fewer had good paying primary jobs. A car is a bigger bite for a burger flipper than a steel worker or someone working the oilsands out on the Prairies.

Forgetting that you completely ignore the fact of surplus or the comprehensive understanding of what constitutes the "service industry", here is some data for you:

Profit 100 - Canada's fastest growing companies

Please note this list does not include Burger King, McDonald's or Wendys.

[Michael Hardner]

The idea that economies are driven solely by consumption is really just old socialistic marxist-leninism. It may be expressed in a weaker or stronger fashion but in essence that's what it is. There's not really any success stories in the world for such a viewpoint.

Immigrants both produce and consume.

Service jobs are secondary or even tertiary industries. They are inherently parasitical, in that they rely on being paid from the wealth generated by primary industries. Raising a beef cow is a primary industry. Flipping a burger doesn't in itself give us more cows.

Primary industries aren't enough to keep an economy going. Financial services, Information Technology services, health care are all vital services. Water, energy, agriculture, mining and manufacturing aren't enough to keep us busy.

Everything stems from those primary industries and we have been letting a lot of that industry die here in Canada. It gets moved to other countries or it peters out due to technological change and we don't change with the times to come up with replacements. The world today wants cell phones and iPods! How many are made in the Pacific Rim? How many in Canada? Everybody is quick to name Research In Motion. That's great! We always stop there and everyone tries to ignore the fact that they can't name another such manufacturer.

I doubt that RIM manufactures those things entirely in Canada.

If an economy doesn't expand its primary base then what happens as demand increases due to population growth or whatever is that the GNP gets diluted among more people. There are more cooks but less food. We might produce more cars but the price goes up. Or people's incomes drop because fewer had good paying primary jobs. A car is a bigger bite for a burger flipper than a steel worker or someone working the oilsands out on the Prairies.

The GNP includes industries in another country. Did you mean GDP ? And, as long as some of the growing population are working, then GDP goes up.

So consumption alone is rather simplistic. Equating all jobs as the same is simplistic as well. If an economy is to grow it needs more steel mills and aluminum smelters, more oil production, more farms, more fishing, more NEW stuff for others to process and consume! As Argus pointed out, letting immigrants purchase or rent a home with money our government gave them from our taxes is NOT a way to grow the economy! It only dilutes the wealth that the rest of us created.

You want to turn back the clock. Many of those industries have gone away with trade agreements. If you disagree with globalized trade, then you aren't really a Conservative, as they brought these things to Canada in the 1980s.

The error Canada seems to have made is to assume that losing primary jobs in favour of service jobs is essentially a "wash". It's not. The numbers may look the same and politicians may use them to make things look good at voting time but a nation with only service jobs just can't maintain as high an average living standard. It's not that service jobs aren't essential. Rather, a healthy economy needs a good ratio between primary and secondary industry jobs.

If 100% of us are flipping burgers then admitting 250,000 new immigrants per year will not help us afford to buy a car!

It sounds like you're definitely against Globalized Trade. Are you ?

[Saipan]

Don't workers who can do the same work for lower wages improve productivity overall ?

No. If that was so countries like Mexico or Philippines would be very productive, i.e. increasing their standard of living.

Working harder, longer hours for little money AND working smarter and more efficiently are two very different things.

Also lot of immigration here only increased the welfare line.

[justme]

I highly doubt anything you have written would indicate to anyone that you are a Nazi or would want to kill six million Jews. But let me re-read your post and see...

Oh my...

If it affected other people, you'd quickly, and rightly, find it abhorrent, but white people don't matter.

Black countries for blacks.

Asian countries for Asians.

Muslim countries for Muslims.

Israel for Jews.

Mexico for Mexicans.

White countries for everyone.

[Shwa]

If it affected other people, you'd quickly, and rightly, find it abhorrent, but white people don't matter.

Black countries for blacks.

Asian countries for Asians.

Muslim countries for Muslims.

Israel for Jews.

Mexico for Mexicans.

White countries for everyone.

Well Tonto just called. He wants his country back.

[Molly]

Zzzz-i-i-n-ng!

[Wild Bill]

Immigrants both produce and consume.

Primary industries aren't enough to keep an economy going. Financial services, Information Technology services, health care are all vital services. Water, energy, agriculture, mining and manufacturing aren't enough to keep us busy.

I doubt that RIM manufactures those things entirely in Canada.

The GNP includes industries in another country. Did you mean GDP ? And, as long as some of the growing population are working, then GDP goes up.

You want to turn back the clock. Many of those industries have gone away with trade agreements. If you disagree with globalized trade, then you aren't really a Conservative, as they brought these things to Canada in the 1980s.

It sounds like you're definitely against Globalized Trade. Are you ?

Yes, immigrants both produce and consume. So what? What's important is the ratio. If one immigrant produces and 100 consume is that as positive as the other way around?

Primary industries of course keep an economy going! They provide the need for the secondary ones. If someone produces oil then someone has to make oil cans. If someone makes cars for us to buy then they also provide jobs for licence examiners. If someone raises a cow then they create a job for someone else to produce excessive amounts of styrofoam for packaging.

As for RIM, I've seen the production lines myself and sold them parts to go into their products. Don't bother demanding a cite. I've touched them! That's enough proof for me.

GNP/GDP was indeed my error. Doesn't change my point, though. Both acronyms end in PRODUCT and not just JOBS!

As for trade agreements and turning back the clock, I have nothing against Free Trade agreements for Canada. When are we going to get some? The ones so far all have seemed to be rigged deals where our negotiators got "snookered". Mulroney killed much of our manufacturing in favour of import warehouses, where the terms were not equally favourable for a Canadian country to do the same down South. Chretien and his gang gave all the Northern Telecom manufacturing to China, for intangible political gains and for large sums of money that no longer were used for Canadian payrolls.

As for being a Conservative, I've stated many times that I am not! Folks like you keep insisting on calling me one. I guess the modern definition of a Conservative is someone who doesn't agree with everything that's modern liberal.

Once again, for lack of a better definition, I'm more of a Libertarian with a streak of rational anarchist. Although I differ in some areas, I can get along with a Randite. (Thanks to Bob Heinlein for educating me!)

Edited October 13, 2010 by Wild Bill

[Michael Hardner]

No. If that was so countries like Mexico or Philippines would be very productive, i.e. increasing their standard of living.

Productive means increasing their standard of living ? How is that ? I think productivity is a measure of how much output we generate for certain costs. As such, then lower wages do equal more productivity, though labour productivity compares apples to apples.

Productivity in economics is the ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce.