Tories to increase immigration levels for election year

[jbg]

The election date is fixed and know. A few weeks under a year from now.

No it isn't. A majority government can call a snap election at any time. Pending a GG rubber stamp, they could call one next week.

I suppose legally they could since the fixed date law wasn't amended into the Charter. I think this is where the unwritten Canadian constitution comes in. The law is one that people expect a minority government to observe.

[Argus]

Our wages are high on a global scale. If you can compete with lower wages, at least the work (and money) will stay onshore.

Not going to happen.

I posed an example of this a couple of years back. One of he eastern european countries Romania, I think, paid a fortune to a cell phone manufacturer to set up shop there. It hired locals at probably $10 a day, and a couple of years later closed up shop and moved to China. We will NEVER be able to compete with low wage centers, not unless our economy is destroyed anyway.

I meant to communicate that he's the least "politician like". Go back a bit... who is less likely to kiss a baby than Harper ? He's got the charisma of a roll of scotch tape.

He's an introvert, which is rare among politicians. Most are extroverts. But everything he does from how he ties his shoelaces to where and when he goes to the bathroom seems to have been planned for political benefit.

[jbg]

Not going to happen.

I posed an example of this a couple of years back. One of he eastern european countries Romania, I think, paid a fortune to a cell phone manufacturer to set up shop there. It hired locals at probably $10 a day, and a couple of years later closed up shop and moved to China. We will NEVER be able to compete with low wage centers, not unless our economy is destroyed anyway.

Actually in the U.S. factories in the Rust Belt of Pennsylvania and Ohio are being reopened and re-purposed.

He's an introvert, which is rare among politicians. Most are extroverts. But everything he does from how he ties his shoelaces to where and when he goes to the bathroom seems to have been planned for political benefit.

And unlike Chretien and Mulroney he's not drowning in kickback and payoff schemes.

[Argus]

Actually in the U.S. factories in the Rust Belt of Pennsylvania and Ohio are being reopened and re-purposed.

There is a point where wages get depressed enough, in combination with other factors like a large nearby market to make such industries locally proitable, especially if they have a protectionist minded government willing to put up a lot of trade barriers to imports.

And unlike Chretien and Mulroney he's not drowning in kickback and payoff schemes.

Yes, as far as I'm aware Harper is personally honest. I'm not saying he's irredeemable, only that we could do a lot better.

And no, I don't actually think Trudeau or Mulcair would be better.

[Topaz]

I, also agree with the voting issue plus the fact these people will become Canadians and therefore, not foreign workers, so that problem will go away for the government.

[Moonlight Graham]

I suppose legally they could since the fixed date law wasn't amended into the Charter. I think this is where the unwritten Canadian constitution comes in. The law is one that people expect a minority government to observe.

A year and a half after the minority Harper gov passed the fixed-date law, the Harper gov called an election. So the law has no teeth in that regard:

When introducing the legislation, Harper stated that "fixed election dates prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage. They level the playing field for all parties and the rules are clear for everybody." ^[7] However, despite the new legislation, the prime minister is still free to request an election at any time. As the Bill C-16 amendments to the Canada Elections Act clearly states "Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Governor General, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General's discretion", the change effectively altered only the maximum duration of a parliament by ensuring that it ends no later than October of the fourth calendar year after its commencement, while leaving the possibility of an earlier end unaffected.^[4]

This situation was illustrated by the dissolution of parliament at Harper's request on September 7, 2008. This led Democracy Watch to initiate proceedings in federal court against the Crown-in-Council, the Prime Minister of Canada, and the Governor General of Canada, challenging the decision to call an election prior to the fixed election date. ...The court effectively found that the fixed election dates were not binding on the prime minister or legally enforceable by the courts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_election_dates_in_Canada#Federal

[Michael Hardner]

Not going to happen.

I posed an example of this a couple of years back. One of he eastern european countries Romania, I think, paid a fortune to a cell phone manufacturer to set up shop there. It hired locals at probably $10 a day, and a couple of years later closed up shop and moved to China. We will NEVER be able to compete with low wage centers, not unless our economy is destroyed anyway.

I lost my career years ago due to the first wave of globalization - IT offshoring. The Gartner group declared offshoring dead two years ago as the relative advantages vs. cost evened out. This will happen with all industries over time.

He's an introvert, which is rare among politicians. Most are extroverts. But everything he does from how he ties his shoelaces to where and when he goes to the bathroom seems to have been planned for political benefit.

Point 1 - he's an introvert. Point 2 - he's a politican. Agreed on both points.

[Shady]

But what kind of immigrants and how many? Shouldn't the government be engaging in a detailed economic study before it decides on such things?

Since they're only opening up high calibre immigrants, I'm guessing that they know of which types of professions/immigrants they're targeting.

[jbg]

Yes, as far as I'm aware Harper is personally honest. I'm not saying he's irredeemable, only that we could do a lot better.

And no, I don't actually think Trudeau or Mulcair would be better.

has Canada actually ever done better? It seems both of our countries are great in spite of rather than because of our leaders.

[Big Guy]

So I guess we are looking for two kinds of folks from other countries; Those uneducated folks ready to work for the summer or fast food joints for wages that would not attract nationals and those very educated folks needed in their own countries who we will poach and give them good wages to work in parts of the country that our nationals will not work.

The problem with those uneducated tens of thousands of off shore temporary workers is that lots of them don't want to go home. The smart ones impregnate somebody here and get to stay. The not so smart ones disappear into the big cities.

We need about 200,000 immigrants a year into Canada who will work for peanuts in jobs that Canadians will refuse to do.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Big Guy

[marcus]

You can't make up for an age bulge with immigration. Numberous experts in demographics have already said so.

It's about replacing the work force. Someone is going to need to do the work and pay the taxes. Since we are not reproducing at the same pace as we were when the baby boomers were being born, we need to make up for the lack of people.

Every economist outside of the Fraser Institute understands that without immigration, Canada will be in trouble.

The Harper government understands this and is responding to a glaring need.

Edited November 2, 2014 by marcus

[overthere]

But don't worry, even more of them will be 'economic immigrants'! Which is good for Canada eh!? Except a long series of repors from the government itself has detailed the deteriorating economic performance of recent immigrants, notwithstanding the focus on 'economic immigrants'. In fact, some suggest that's only made things worse. These 'high caliber' immigrants come with credentials and skills and education and expect a high level job. Unfortunately most of them don't have the language skills to get a high level job. As demonstrated by the taxi driver who once complained to me he was a 'photoelectric engineer', whatever the hell that is. An immigrant bricklayer, on the other hand, doesn't need high level communications skills.

Imagine, not every person hits the economic jackpot on the road in from the airport. It's a Gawdam crime is what it is, and the Tories are to blame. Do any of those reports ask the immigrants if they want to go home?

THanks for bringing us the horrible and disturbing news that the immigration quotas are being bumped up 1.5%.

[Bonam]

So are any of you actually immigrants? Because to me, as an immigrant, promising to bring in more immigrants is hardly a vote-winning proposition. Now sure, an immigrant family might be happy if they are allowed to bring over gramma. But that's family class immigration, which is not being increased. As an immigrant, my family moved to Canada to be in Canada. Not to be in a little duplica of the country we came from. Do you think a typical immigrant in Vancouver cares if next year, 50000 or 55000 more immigrants move to the Vancouver area? In fact, they probably prefer if it was less, so the already over-priced housing doesn't continue to become even more over-priced even more quickly.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Bonam

[marcus]

40% of luxury homes in Vancouver are being bought by wealthy foreigner or immigrants. Mostly from China but also from India and Iran as well.

It's a way to park their money and to spread their investments. Many of these homes are being left vacant because they can afford to do so. I think the housing prices are something that cannot be controlled. One thing that might help a bit is to introduce a tax to those who are not occupying the homes they are buying.

[peoples advocate]

This idea that the Conservative party needs to do this to reach out to immigrants approaches conspiracy theory in my mind. Why would the same party deny healthcare to refugees if these topics are so politically sensitive ?

The answer is that immigration provides lots of cheap labour to Canadian business, increasing productivity and growing the economy. That's all I can think of.

Called Harper job creation , when you can't come up with a way to create real viable jobs bring in cheap labour , Job creation numbers look good for him and the large companies bottom line looks better .

It is modern day smoke and mirrors most of the jobs are not full time , There are no benefits.. which on the back end cost taxpayers in other ways.

[Argus]

Since they're only opening up high calibre immigrants, I'm guessing that they know of which types of professions/immigrants they're targeting.

Really? How do they know? Given that their own data shows modern immigrants' economic performance is deteriorating I question just what they're basing this 'knowledge' on.

[peoples advocate]

It's about replacing the work force. Someone is going to need to do the work and pay the taxes. Since we are not reproducing at the same pace as we were when the baby boomers were being born, we need to make up for the lack of people.

Every economist outside of the Fraser Institute understands that without immigration, Canada will be in trouble.

The Harper government understands this and is responding to a glaring need.

Please ...He is trying to build numbers to reflect good on his party

Listen if he was worried about labour there is a skilled work force of people willing to become citizens , people that would expand this countries experienced force but guess what ..They are not allowed in so your theory does not hold water.

It makes perfect Tory sense.

[Argus]

It's about replacing the work force. Someone is going to need to do the work and pay the taxes. Since we are not reproducing at the same pace as we were when the baby boomers were being born, we need to make up for the lack of people.

This is a common fallacy not backed up by any statistician or demographics professional. I repeat, you cannot make up for an age bulge by increasing immigration, not unless your immigrant stream is so heavy that you are basically replacing your population with foreigners and you lose all cultural cohesion. I mean, you can bring over forty million Chinese, I suppose, but then this will no longer be Canada.

The noted French-Canadian demographer Jacques Henripin (1988) examined the consequences of such a plan, that is, to build up the population of Quebec through high levels of immigration. His conclusion was simple. The plan would not work! His reasoning was straightforward. At the level of immigration necessary to restore population growth to past rates, the effect would be to change the composition of that which its proposers sought to protect. By the early decades of the twenty-first century, he predicted that at these levels of inflow the foreign-born arrivals would dominate the population. For example, at levels of inflow that would eliminate the fertility deficit, the population of Montreal Island by mid twenty-first century would be 60% foreign-born. It was his contention that such inflows would have a profound effect on the cultural or ethnic or language composition of the host region/country.

http://immigrationreform.ca/CMFiles/Research/Immigration%20and%20an%20aging/what-is-the-role-of-immigration-in-canadas-future-alan-g-green-mcgill-queens-university-press.pdf

Even so, immigration rates equal to 1% of the already resident population would not prevent workforce growth in Canada dipping to historic lows in the 2020s, and the immigration that would be needed—even with major efforts to attract a larger share of younger people—to maintain workforce growth at its recent rate would be well outside the realm of economic or political feasibility. Aging is more difficult yet. Increasing immigration to 1% of population a year without varying its age distribution would slow the rise in the OAD ratio only marginally. And raising immigration to this level while trying to select only very young immigrants with children, so as to lower dramatically the average age of immigrants, would still not prevent a historic rise in the ratio. Only extreme and unpalatable policies, such as rapidly increasing immigration from less than 1% of the population to well over 3% for decades, could come close to stabilizing the OAD ratio.

http://www.diversityintheworkplace.ca/newsletters/feb_2010/EffectsofMassImmigration.pdf

A study by the RAND Corporation (Grant et al., 2004), for example, looked at the demographic consequences of low fertility in Europe and reached conclusions broadly similar to ours on the question of whether immigration could compensate for the demographic challenges faced by EU nations. Schertmann (1992) shows that a constant inflow of immigrants, even relatively young ones, does not necessarily rejuvenate low fertility populations, and may in the long term actually contribute to population aging. Specific studies on Canada (United Nations, 2004; Denton and Spencer, 2004; Guillemette and Robson, 2006) have found that the dynamic of aging among the resident population is so strong that immigration’s ability to affect it is remarkably small.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/display.aspx?id=13504

Edited November 3, 2014 by Argus

[Argus]

THanks for bringing us the horrible and disturbing news that the immigration quotas are being bumped up 1.5%.

It's more like 10% but don't be embarrassed. Not everyone can do arithmetic.

[overthere]

It's more like 10% but don't be embarrassed. Not everyone can do arithmetic.

I was comparing to the last highest levels, in 2010.

Alberta could take all 10% right now and save you an aneurysm.

[eyeball]

This is a common fallacy not backed up by any statistician or demographics professional. I repeat, you cannot make up for an age bulge by increasing immigration, not unless your immigrant stream is so heavy that you are basically replacing your population with foreigners and you lose all cultural cohesion. I mean, you can bring over forty million Chinese, I suppose, but then this will no longer be Canada.

How could it possibly be otherwise in a One World Market? The global economy trumps and subsumes culture, nationalism...everything...and we apparently chose to be led down this path years ago. We're not replacing Canadians with foreigners, we're replacing cogs on a wheel - getting with the program in other words.

[Argus]

I was comparing to the last highest levels, in 2010.

Alberta could take all 10% right now and save you an aneurysm.

You mean the year just before the LAST federal election?

And it seems to me Alberta has been struggling and failing to make ends meet without bringing in tens of thousands more unskilled labourers who speak no English.

Oh, you didn't mean that? You meant people with the correct skillset? I know reading is as hard for you as arithmetic, but that's what I've been suggesting.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Argus

[overthere]

At this point we'd take anybody with a pulse.

Well, we would not take you since your resume includes working for the government while making 25,000 posts on taxpayers time.

[marcus]

This is a common fallacy not backed up by any statistician or demographics professional. I repeat, you cannot make up for an age bulge by increasing immigration, not unless your immigrant stream is so heavy that you are basically replacing your population with foreigners and you lose all cultural cohesion. I mean, you can bring over forty million Chinese, I suppose, but then this will no longer be Canada.

What do you mean by common fallacy? Where are YOUR stats? YOUR research disproving that we do not need immigrants?

I'm not sure how you're calculating all of this in your head. Bringing in 250K+ a year of immigrants will not result in losing your cultural cohesion. What absolute nonsense.

Nothing worse than people who try to pass off their delusions as facts. Here is your chance to learn something:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and the highest levels of the public service are immersed in a flurry of closed-door talks aimed at tackling the rising costs of health care and retirement benefits in the face of a shrinking number of working-age taxpayers available to foot the bill.

Internal government documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show Canada’s aging population is no longer a problem on the horizon, but rather one that will impact the federal government this year. It's a challenge Ottawa is now discussing more openly and with added urgency.

...

Canada, currently the 27th oldest country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is on track to become the 11th oldest within 20 years. It’s a challenge that will spark debate over Canada’s retirement age, fertility rates and immigration, while risking generational tension between a growing population of older voters and a shrinking pool of younger taxpayers.

...

“The oldest baby boomers start to turn 65 in 2011, meaning the dependency ratio will start to increase significantly in a matter of months,” states the draft report, which was obtained in redacted form by The Globe under Access to Information.

Prepared by officials at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Finance Canada, the report is full of alarming statistics. It also lays out several measures the government could take to limit the impact, including incentives to boost fertility rates, bring in younger immigrants and encourage Canadians to work longer.

“A Canada where seniors outnumber children is uncharted territory,” the report states.

Globe and Mail - 2011

[eyeball]

Meaning, we the people. I'm interested in what is good for the people, not for corporations.

I'm afraid the dory in which culture might have trumped economics was run over by a super-tanker called globalization years and years ago.

And you're forgetting that corporations are people too - albeit immensely more powerful and influential, they're seemingly just like folks with rights, freedoms even beliefs if you can believe it.