Is increasing immigration by 50% to 450k too high?

[Argus]

Just now, ?Impact said:

I not defending any policy, just pointing out the fact that your theory on it being a Liberal policy holds no water. I think it is nonsense to pretend we can solve economic problems, especially long term, with immigration. I'm not against immigration, and I also believe we have a responsibility to help refugees, but we need to rethink our approach.

I have never said it was just the Liberals who have abused immigration for political purposes. I've been very clear that the Tories have done the same thing. As someone who has spent some time in government I can tell you that every program, even the minute aspects of it, has to be justified with business cases which contain documentation on expected returns and benefits of that program, milestones for measuring the success, and justification for the need. Except Immigration. Immigration numbers are not decided by experts in demographics and economics, nor are the targets of source countries. Instead politicians make these decisions based purely on selfish, short-term political benefits they expect to accrue.  What do we expect to get out of immigration? What studies have been undertaken to justify that whatever that is we are doing it correctly? This has never been done. And the closest anyone has gotten to measuring the actual cost to Canada was that big Fraser Institute study a few years back.

In an intelligent system designed to benefit Canada, a study which shows the most economically successful immigrants come from certain countries, and the least successful come from other countries would see a shift in approaches, and an attempt to increase the numbers from successful countries and decrease the numbers from unsuccessful countries. The Liberals are doing the exact opposite.

[dre]

32 minutes ago, Argus said:

Why are you asking me to explain Tory immigration policy when I've long opposed it? Maybe you should instead explain Liberal immigration policy, since that's what we're talking about.

This isn't conservative or liberal policy, its driven largely by the business and banking sectors. 

[Army Guy]

Quote

A high-powered group of external advisers is calling for a dramatic increase in Canada's immigration levels, but Immigration Minister John McCallum says that might be too ambitious. McCallum said Wednesday he's read the report by the Advisory Council on Economic Growth that calls for a 50-per-cent increase in targets to 450,000 people a year. The measure would target skilled, entrepreneurial newcomers in an attempt to stimulate economic growth.

What does it cost Canada today for immigration, I can not find an official government web site that gives a detailed costing for each immigrant, or refugee...I remember the Frasier Institute study giving an estimate of 27 bil based on 250,000 immigrants and 50 refugees..... 

Quote

The 14-member panel, chaired by Dominic Barton of the firm McKinsey and Co., is to deliver a set of recommendations to Finance Minister Bill Morneau on Thursday. McCallum said meeting the target suggested by Barton's group would be costly and might not find broad national support. "The figure he gives is a huge figure,

The numbers are to huge to even say in the media .....WOW.....is every one else getting a warm fuzzy feeling......in a time when we are trying to get the economy going, and I might add the liberals have already said they are going to spend 30 bil dollars in trying to kick start the economy.....and now we are going to spend roughly another 30 bil to bring in 50 % more immigrants, does that make sense to any one......They are going to try and target Skilled, entrepreneurial newcomers....Because and i'm just guessing here that we have NONE of those available in Canada already.....I hope these new Comers are already financed, or this cost is going to balloon even more......

Just another question.....lets say this does happen, and the liberals pump an estimated 54 bil dollars into immigration, plus what ever else it costs....every year.....where does that money come from.....I mean we are talking about 27 additional billion dollars added to the Budget.....which leaves 2 options cuts in other dept's ......or tax increases.....

What if , and I say if.....we took that 27 bil.....and turned off the immigration taps off all together....down to zero...and we invested in Canadians, increasing family allowance or call it what ever you like , but make it so that Canadians begun having more children.....to boast our own population......invest in our families....so that it is feasible for young families to have 3 or 4 children.....  if the Liberals pass this through their will be 54 Bil dollars invested in bringing in immigrants from other nations.....and we are counting on this people not to increase our unemployment numbers, to put additional strain on Medicare systems, housing costs in major city centers.....Yup.....lets not give some of those tax dollars back to Canadians, "that would be un Canadian" instead invest on immigrants....who may or may not contribute to our nation.....what if during those long winters instead of making those long trips through the huge snow bank streets of our towns and cities for condoms.....we skip a few trips and end up with a few extra dollars in our pockets.....    

 

 

 

[dre]

28 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

What does it cost Canada today for immigration, I can not find an official government web site that gives a detailed costing for each immigrant, or refugee...I remember the Frasier Institute study giving an estimate of 27 bil based on 250,000 immigrants and 50 refugees..... 

That study only looked at a small part of the picture. Its extremely hard to calculate an exact number because there are so many factors in play. For example, population growth is what drives growth in the real property market, and the entire services sector sits on top of that. Immigrants need things like shelter for example, so every time a new immigrant or family comes to Canada some realestate developer borrows a few hundred thousand dollars to build another dwelling. This is new money added to the economy... created out of thin air. That money gets spent hiring other Canadians, buying goods and services from other businesses, etc. And the money stays in the economy until the loan is payed off, so it will swirl around and be spent thousands of times over and over.

[dre]

36 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

What if , and I say if.....we took that 27 bil.....and turned off the immigration taps off all together....down to zero...and we invested in Canadians, increasing family allowance or call it what ever you like , but make it so that Canadians begun having more children.....to boast our own population......invest in our families....so that it is feasible for young families to have 3 or 4 children.....  if the Liberals pass this through their will be 54 Bil dollars invested in bringing in immigrants from other nations.....and we are counting on this people not to increase our unemployment numbers, to put additional strain on Medicare systems, housing costs in major city centers.....Yup.....lets not give some of those tax dollars back to Canadians, "that would be un Canadian" instead invest on immigrants....who may or may not contribute to our nation.....what if during those long winters instead of making those long trips through the huge snow bank streets of our towns and cities for condoms.....we skip a few trips and end up with a few extra dollars in our pockets.....    

 

 

 

 

The trend towards having less children is a universal trend in wealthy countries, even countries that have a huge amount of programs designed to support children and families. Its probably not possible to reverse it with government policy. Our culture just doesn't value large families anymore.

And like I said, that 27 billion figure is bogus. If you take into account all factors immigration has a net positive effect on GDP, and only a tiny negative effect on per capita GDP which could be corrected by tweaking immigration policy to be a bit more focused on economic migrants.

[eyeball]

3 hours ago, Goddess said:

 

 

A report on the news last night from Edmonton about the food banks in the area cited that in addition to the influx of those who needed food banks during the Fort Mac wildfires, the number of Syrian refugees using the food banks increased dramatically.

I think it's sad that we brought all these people over and they have to use food banks.

You'd be happier if refugees had been left to get by in the rubble of Syria?

 

[?Impact]

Fraser institute likes to emphasize certain number but totally ignore others. They talk about immigrants paying less tax on average to other Canadians (to be expected because average income is lower) and what they cost to the system. They totally ignore their own number however point out that they add more in taxes than what they cost to the system. This is a net benefit to the public purse that the Fraser Institute likes to gloss over.

[Goddess]

37 minutes ago, eyeball said:

You'd be happier if refugees had been left to get by in the rubble of Syria?

 

No.  That's why I said it made me sad.

[Argus]

2 hours ago, dre said:

That study only looked at a small part of the picture. Its extremely hard to calculate an exact number because there are so many factors in play. For example, population growth is what drives growth in the real property market, and the entire services sector sits on top of that. Immigrants need things like shelter for example, so every time a new immigrant or family comes to Canada some realestate developer borrows a few hundred thousand dollars to build another dwelling. This is new money added to the economy... created out of thin air. That money gets spent hiring other Canadians, buying goods and services from other businesses, etc. And the money stays in the economy until the loan is payed off, so it will swirl around and be spent thousands of times over and over.

This is not new money. It's money which already existed and could have been spent on expanding production of something we could export (for example). You also ignore the fact that an increase in jobs + an increase in people looking for jobs (immigrants) does not necessarily mean a decrease in unemployment. And if the immigrant isn't earning enough to pay income taxes to support himself and his family then the government has to tax people more in order to support them and also pay for their health care and other services. That also damages the economy.

[?Impact]

28 minutes ago, Argus said:

And if the immigrant isn't earning enough to pay income taxes to support himself and his family then the government has to tax people more in order to support them and also pay for their health care and other services. That also damages the economy.

 

Yes, certainly individual immigrants have fallen on need of support from the State. Look at the Fraser Institute numbers however, no not their politicized summary but the real data, and you will see that immigrants as a whole contribute more to the public purse then they take away.

[dre]

43 minutes ago, Argus said:

This is not new money. It's money which already existed and could have been spent on expanding production of something we could export (for example). You also ignore the fact that an increase in jobs + an increase in people looking for jobs (immigrants) does not necessarily mean a decrease in unemployment. And if the immigrant isn't earning enough to pay income taxes to support himself and his family then the government has to tax people more in order to support them and also pay for their health care and other services. That also damages the economy.

It IS new money. Loans made by commercial banks is the means by which our money supply grows. Almost all of the money loaned out by commercial banks does not exist until the borrow signs the loan. Economic growth is inextricably tied to the amount of synthetic money in circulation, which explains the governments position on interest rates, credit availability, and population growth.

Its also why banks and the business community are the biggest proponents of immigration. Every new immigrant causes hundreds of thousands of dollars to be injected into the economy. They create demand for  housing which stops our real-estate market from imploding. They increase consumer demand which causes new businesses to spring up and existing businesses to invest.

Simply looking at the difference between what the government pays out directly and what it collects directly from immigrants is only one small part of the picture.

[Bonam]

4 minutes ago, dre said:

It IS new money. Loans made by commercial banks is the means by which our money supply grows. Almost all of the money loaned out by commercial banks does not exist until the borrow signs the loan. Economic growth is inextricably tied to the amount of synthetic money in circulation, which explains the governments position on interest rates, credit availability, and population growth.

Its also why banks and the business community are the biggest proponents of immigration. Every new immigrant causes hundreds of thousands of dollars to be injected into the economy. They create demand for  housing which stops our real-estate market from imploding. They increase consumer demand which causes new businesses to spring up and existing businesses to invest.

Simply looking at the difference between what the government pays out directly and what it collects directly from immigrants is only one small part of the picture.

Businesses like immigration because it creates downward pressure on wages as there are always more people looking for jobs. The "money created" to build houses for more people isn't a benefit to the economy, in fact, it creates part of the affordability crisis that is plaguing many Canadian cities (you call it "not imploding", I call it pricing Canadians out of a house). Your thinking is along the same lines as the "broken window" fallacy (where one argues that if you break a window, that will create work for someone to fix it and is therefore a net economic benefit - it ignores that the money spent to repair the window could instead have been spent on something more productive). 

[?Impact]

8 minutes ago, Bonam said:

it ignores that the money spent to repair the window could instead have been spent on something more productive. 

 Like the latest model iPhone - built in China.

[dre]

30 minutes ago, Bonam said:

Businesses like immigration because it creates downward pressure on wages as there are always more people looking for jobs. The "money created" to build houses for more people isn't a benefit to the economy, in fact, it creates part of the affordability crisis that is plaguing many Canadian cities (you call it "not imploding", I call it pricing Canadians out of a house). Your thinking is along the same lines as the "broken window" fallacy (where one argues that if you break a window, that will create work for someone to fix it and is therefore a net economic benefit - it ignores that the money spent to repair the window could instead have been spent on something more productive). 

 

Its nothing like the broken window fallacy at all. You are ignoring the fact that for a country who's services sector makes up almost the entire economy, economic growth is based on growth in demand for domestic services. Population growth is an important part of that. 

And its not immigration growth that has depressed wages. We have maintained roughly the same immigration quotas and targeted the same population growth for nearly a century. Wages stopped following increases in productivity in the mid seventies after Bretton Woods collapsed, and the corporate lobby exploded, and governments started to help companies bust unions, and we started making "free trade" deals with slave states. 

If you look at immigration on a graph between 1940 and now, and smooth out the peaks and valleys you'll see a more or less a straight line. Immigration has grown along with the economy and population.

If you expect any government, conservative OR liberal to adopt policies that would stop or significantly slow population growth you are kidding yourself. We would be in a recession almost immediately.

[Bonam]

Economic growth per capita is what matters. If your economy is growing slower than the population, people are getting poorer. Just raising population and saying the absolute size of the economy grew is not relevant. And indeed, for the last few years, the population growth rate has exceeded the GDP growth rate, meaning we are getting poorer. 

Next, population will stop growing whether politicians like it or not. Birth rates are falling all around the world and many of our source countries of immigrants now have (or will soon have) falling or stagnant populations themselves and increasing rates of people returning to them or immigrating to them. We need to have an economy that can deal with a stable or declining population, and we might as well start figuring it out now rather than waiting until we're trapped in a cycle like Japan. 

Further, your argument that we need immigration to grow the economy might hold more water if we were actually actively recruiting skilled workers, but these comprise only 20% of our immigrants. 

[?Impact]

40 minutes ago, Bonam said:

EWe need to have an economy that can deal with a stable or declining population, and we might as well start figuring it out now rather than waiting until we're trapped in a cycle like Japan. 

 

If we can maintain a growing export economy then the population decrease is not a problem. That means widgets, not services.

[taxme]

On 10/19/2016 at 4:18 PM, Moonlight Graham said:

Immigration Minister John McCallum says it may.  An external advisory panel is recommending Canada increase its immigration levels from 300,000 per year to 450,000, mainly highly skilled immigrants, they say, to "stimulate economic growth".  It's no secret McCallum and the Liberals have publicly said they would like to raise immigration levels in Canada.  Is this too much? 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-system-increase-mccallum-1.3812749

Is this for "economic growth"?  A grab for more immigrant voters (more likely to vote Liberal than CPC)?  Both?  Something else?  Are these proposed numbers too high?  Are the current numbers too high or too low?  It seems McCallum would probably like to increase them to these levels, but is worried of a backlash from Canadians, so maybe he's putting "feelers" out there through the media to gauge reaction.

 

No doubt 80% of those new immigrants will come from third world countries. The white people of this country are on a racial suicide course. As far as I am concerned this is a conspiracy plain and simple against the white people of this country and being pushed by a certain ethnic group that hate white people. This has nothing to do with creating more jobs and getting the economy going. It is all about votes and destroying Canada's British heritage,culture and traditions for a pile of hog wash and multiculturalism bull. But hey.  

[?Impact]

7 minutes ago, taxme said:

and destroying Canada's British heritage,culture and traditions

What about our French and Aboriginal heritage? Oh yeah, you have already destroyed them.

[betsy]

On 10/19/2016 at 7:18 PM, Moonlight Graham said:

Immigration Minister John McCallum says it may.  An external advisory panel is recommending Canada increase its immigration levels from 300,000 per year to 450,000, mainly highly skilled immigrants, they say, to "stimulate economic growth".  It's no secret McCallum and the Liberals have publicly said they would like to raise immigration levels in Canada.  Is this too much? 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-system-increase-mccallum-1.3812749

Is this for "economic growth"?  A grab for more immigrant voters (more likely to vote Liberal than CPC)?  Both?  Something else?  Are these proposed numbers too high?  Are the current numbers too high or too low?  It seems McCallum would probably like to increase them to these levels, but is worried of a backlash from Canadians, so maybe he's putting "feelers" out there through the media to gauge reaction.

 

Of course it's high!  To say that the number is high is an understatement!  Look at our healthcare as an example....what's happening with it?  And we're bringing in more?

It's not good for the economy!  It's bad, bad, bad! 

 

Trudeau didn't listen to majority of Canadians in Nov 2015.......why would he listen now? 

Yes of course, it's just like Hillary Clinton - it's for more votes.  That's all it is.  They don't care.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2016 by betsy

[Army Guy]

21 hours ago, dre said:

That study only looked at a small part of the picture. Its extremely hard to calculate an exact number because there are so many factors in play. For example, population growth is what drives growth in the real property market, and the entire services sector sits on top of that. Immigrants need things like shelter for example, so every time a new immigrant or family comes to Canada some realestate developer borrows a few hundred thousand dollars to build another dwelling. This is new money added to the economy... created out of thin air. That money gets spent hiring other Canadians, buying goods and services from other businesses, etc. And the money stays in the economy until the loan is payed off, so it will swirl around and be spent thousands of times over and over.

Your pretty quick to dismiss the Frasier report or study, and yet you have not provided any real link to back your theory, Nor has our own government laid it all out in black and white what immigration costs and what benefits it brings to our nation....The Frasier report est it costs around 27 bil tax payer dollars every year to up keep our immigration system.....your say this is false.....Their have been studies that have proven that sustained immigration do not work, brushed aside by those in favor of the immigration process....I am willing to concede that I know very little about our immigration systems and their processes.....However, I do understand that the government is paying a huge price to bring in immigrants from around the globe, that some/ most do not fit into the category described by the immigration minister.....And I am stating I think it could be spent better here in Canada.....after all we are not talking about chump change here, we are talking almost 54 bil if the new plan goes through every year......that's 54 Billion dollars of our tax money.....every year.....

[Army Guy]

22 hours ago, dre said:

 

The trend towards having less children is a universal trend in wealthy countries, even countries that have a huge amount of programs designed to support children and families. Its probably not possible to reverse it with government policy. Our culture just doesn't value large families anymore.

And like I said, that 27 billion figure is bogus. If you take into account all factors immigration has a net positive effect on GDP, and only a tiny negative effect on per capita GDP which could be corrected by tweaking immigration policy to be a bit more focused on economic migrants.

You brush it off like it is mission impossible, History has already proven you can move mountains if you have enough cash......And I get you said it is bogus.....without a link to prove other wise.....So why can't the answer by Canadian driven....currently the average family is 1.9 according to https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011003_1-eng.cfm . And what are the main reasons why family size have decreased over the years, number one reason is they can not afford it.....by providing a financial aid or tax relief for growing families this could remove some of that financial pressure and increase family size....providing the same effects as bringing in immigrants.....

Look who the government is saying they want to target " The measure would target skilled, entrepreneurial newcomers in an attempt to stimulate economic growth"....Because we don't have these people already in Canada.....is that what you and the government are suggesting.....if that is the case what are we doing wrong.....despite the millions of immigrants we have already taken in to our country....we can never find skilled, entrepreneurial  Canadians ... I call BS on that one.....

[Argus]

21 hours ago, ?Impact said:

Fraser institute likes to emphasize certain number but totally ignore others. They talk about immigrants paying less tax on average to other Canadians (to be expected because average income is lower) and what they cost to the system. They totally ignore their own number however point out that they add more in taxes than what they cost to the system. This is a net benefit to the public purse that the Fraser Institute likes to gloss over.

If they show that immigrants add more than they cost then how can they say they cost nearly $30 billion more than they provide? Perhaps you can show where their information says otherwise.

[Argus]

19 hours ago, ?Impact said:

 

Yes, certainly individual immigrants have fallen on need of support from the State. Look at the Fraser Institute numbers however, no not their politicized summary but the real data, and you will see that immigrants as a whole contribute more to the public purse then they take away.

Every study I've seen in the last ten years has stated that the economic success of immigrants continues to deteriorate as compared to Canadians, and that this deterioration is continuing. If you have a cite which shows otherwise I'd be interested in seeing it. Merely suggesting that somewhere in the Fraser study is information which contradicts their summary is not an adequate answer.

[Argus]

18 hours ago, dre said:

It IS new money. Loans made by commercial banks is the means by which our money supply grows.

This is an absurd statement. Do you think banks grow money on a money farm somewhere in accordance with demand? The money banks have is the money they are given by depositors or earn through various other means, including interest on loans, all of which already exists in the Canadian economy.

18 hours ago, dre said:

Its also why banks and the business community are the biggest proponents of immigration. Every new immigrant causes hundreds of thousands of dollars to be injected into the economy. They create demand for  housing which stops our real-estate market from imploding. They increase consumer demand which causes new businesses to spring up and existing businesses to invest.

This is again an absurd argument which would only be true if immigrants brought with them hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign countries. For the most part, they almost never do. A third world resident who is worth hundreds of thousands of Canadian dollars is unlikely to want to move here and waste it all on a bungalow when he could be a wealthy man in his own country. No, the money immigrants spend is money immigrants earn here. It is already existing money. It is not new.

[Argus]

Tony Keller makes the same point I have been making for years with these 'let's grow Canada' types.

Bringing in more immigrants can boost overall economic growth, simply by making the population larger. It will expand the pie – but it will also increase the number of forks in the pie, and at the same pace. The goal of economic policy is not about baking a bigger pie, by whatever means. It’s about expanding the pie in a way that ups the size of each individual slice.

So we get a more crowded country, with more third world residents, most of whom will be poor, competing with our own low skilled workers, and for what? Where is the benefit to the people here now?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/increasing-immigration-wont-fix-canadas-growth-challenge/article32463961/