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

[Argus]

2 hours ago, Smallc said:

That and most of Europe doesn't need a visa to come here as a tourist, unlike all of China.

I was speaking about the immigration visas that are issued by our visa centres. It doesn't matter if a million Spanish and Portugese tradesmen might want to come here, they all have to apply at the Paris office and Paris only has so many visas in their quota. And I assure you that quota is much less than Pakistan.

[Smallc]

Can you give me proof with your assurance? I can fine a VAC for Spain.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Smallc

[Argus]

1 hour ago, ?Impact said:

China has 2-3 time the population, twice the geographical area, and a single Embassy. Europe has about 30 Embassies, Consulates, and High Commission. There are way more opportunities in Europe to get a visa than in China. You must have a visa if you are a Chinese citizen to travel as a tourist or business in Canada, no such requirement for Europeans. Your premise that the visa centres make it easier for China is completely wrong.

Not every embassy or consulate has visas to grant, or can conduct any of their businesses of interviewing and processing visa requests. Most, in fact, do not. For example, there are none in the Nordic countries. Those citizens would have to apply in London. And London only has so many visas in their quota, and they have to be spread around to others who also have to apply there, like the Irish. Vienna is another center. They accommodate a variety of potential immigrants, including those from the Netherlands, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, etc.

And while China has more people they also produce the least economically successful immigrants to Canada - according to the government's own study.

Guess where the MOST successful come from.

[Smallc]

Guess how many people are clamouring to get to Canada from the Nordic region.

[?Impact]

3 hours ago, Argus said:

And London only has so many visas in their quota, and they have to be spread around to others who also have to apply there, like the Irish

 

I just went online as a 22 year old Norwegian that wanted to move permanently to Canada without any family here and settle in B.C. I got back the following response:

Express Entry

You might be eligible for Express Entry, which includes the following federal economic immigration programs:

• the Federal Skilled Worker Program
• the Federal Skilled Trades Program
• the Canadian Experience Class

 

I continued on to the official languages test. It asked what test I took, and listed 3. I have no clue what those tests were so I selected None. Unfortunately our great Services Canada web application then proceeded to crash so I couldn't continue.

 

I picked the above answers because I thought, other than age, they would be the most restrictive. There were other options, like join family, etc. that I could have tried. I did search if there were any quotas by country of origin, but could not find any. 

[carepov]

On 22/10/2016 at 10:55 AM, Argus said:

It's more because we have a very tightly knit group of artistic, media, political and academic elites who have a similar groupthink which will not tolerate any opposition to immigration. They're very left of centre and highly intolerant of anyone who varies from their joint political/social message. No politician who opposes immigration dares to speak up because they will instantly be attacked as a racist and xenophobe.

The 14 members of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth do not fit your description

http://www.fin.gc.ca/n16/16-031-eng.asp#notes

 

On 22/10/2016 at 10:55 AM, Argus said:

In fact, many people oppose our current immigration system, and many think the quality of our immigrants could be greatly enhanced with a little common sense - which the above group completely lacks. For example, they would far and away prefer to have an immigrant who is a Somali nomad from the high desert who speaks no English and has a grade four education than a white college educated man from Finland.

You are confusing economic immigrants with refugees.  The proposal is to increase economic immigration.

[?Impact]

3 hours ago, carepov said:

The 14 members of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth do not fit your description

2 academics from McGill, someone from the World Economic Forum, a first nation representative, someone from Wynne's MaRS project, a federal and a Quebec pension plan board member

 

I think Argus will be all over this.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2016 by ?Impact

[carepov]

9 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

2 academics from McGill, someone from the World Economic Forum, a first nation representative, someone from Wynne's MaRS project, a federal and a Quebec pension plan board member

I think Argus will be all over this.

Sure, I can cherry-pick too - seven top corporate people and plus one economist from the CD Howe Institute - just your average lefty crowd...

[Argus]

15 hours ago, Smallc said:

Guess how many people are clamouring to get to Canada from the Nordic region.

Not the point. Guess how many are clamouring to get to Canada from Ukraine or Italy, or Greece or Spain or Portugal or Ireland.

[Argus]

12 hours ago, ?Impact said:

 

I just went online as a 22 year old Norwegian that wanted to move permanently to Canada without any family here and settle in B.C. I got back the following response:

Nothing stops you from applying, wherever you are. My point is that each visa processing centre is given a quota at the start of the each year, and they can't go over it. So no matter how many apply, and how many pass all the tests and qualify, that visa processing centre can only give out X number of immigration visas.

[Smallc]

2 minutes ago, Argus said:

Not the point. Guess how many are clamouring to get to Canada from Ukraine or Italy, or Greece or Spain or Portugal or Ireland.

Spain and Ukraine have visa application centres.  The other counties are quite small, just like those in the Nordic region.

[Smallc]

1 minute ago, Argus said:

Nothing stops you from applying, wherever you are. My point is that each visa processing centre is given a quota at the start of the each year, and they can't go over it. So no matter how many apply, and how many pass all the tests and qualify, that visa processing centre can only give out X number of immigration visas.

And this is where you provide proof.

[Argus]

3 hours ago, carepov said:

The 14 members of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth do not fit your description

http://www.fin.gc.ca/n16/16-031-eng.asp#notes

They fit it perfectly. They are all members of the liberal elites, many of them academics, and none seems to have any sort of qualifications which would allow them to suggest what level of immigration Canada should have. None has any experience or made any studies of immigration policy or its impact on Canada's economy. There are no demographics experts among them. Most seem associated with big business, which likes big immigration generally since it provides them with lots of cheap, obedient (desperate) workers.

I want our immigration numbers to be decided by statisticians and demographics experts, with some throw-in from experts in the field of what job skills are going to be needed, not politicians or their lackeys. And I want the source and type of immigrants to be decided by what actually works - as in focusing on skills and source countries which produce the top economic results.

[Argus]

7 minutes ago, Smallc said:

And this is where you provide proof.

Proof of what? Of how the immigration system works? Every visa centre is given an allotment of visas for the year in January, based on whatever criteria Ottawa thinks makes sense. Given the immigration numbers from the last few years we can see how high (or low) those allotments are based on the results.

[Argus]

9 minutes ago, Smallc said:

Spain and Ukraine have visa application centres.  The other counties are quite small, just like those in the Nordic region.

Whether a country has a visa application center is less important than the quota that visa application centre is given by Ottawa.

For example, we can figure that Chinese visa centres had a quota of about 20,000 in 2015, and Pakistan about 12,000. But we only had about 2300 immigrants from Ukraine. Does anyone really think there aren't tens if not hundreds of thousands if not millions of Ukrainians who would like to immigrate to Canada? We also have seen lots of stories in the last few years of Irish coming to Canada and working here illegally because they can't find a way to immigrate. How many people immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 2015? About a thousand. 

[Smallc]

In other words, you don't have proof.

 

Also, what makes uneducated Ukrainian immigrants more desireable than educated Iranian ones?

Edited October 24, 2016 by Smallc

[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.

 

What should be done here is for our elected politicians to ask the people first when it comes to bringing in hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. The taxpayer's will pay for most of this immigration because many will come here as refugees or people with no skills. And from what we have seen in the past, it has cost the taxpayer's of Canada billions of their tax dollars to feed,clothe and house many of them for years after. As a taxpayer, when do I get to have a say? It's my tax dollars too. 

[carepov]

3 hours ago, Argus said:

They fit it perfectly. They are all members of the liberal elites, many of them academics, and none seems to have any sort of qualifications which would allow them to suggest what level of immigration Canada should have. None has any experience or made any studies of immigration policy or its impact on Canada's economy. There are no demographics experts among them. Most seem associated with big business, which likes big immigration generally since it provides them with lots of cheap, obedient (desperate) workers.

I want our immigration numbers to be decided by statisticians and demographics experts, with some throw-in from experts in the field of what job skills are going to be needed, not politicians or their lackeys. And I want the source and type of immigrants to be decided by what actually works - as in focusing on skills and source countries which produce the top economic results.

If I understand you correctly, you are looking for "right", non-business, non-academic statisticians and demographers and you've ruled out "lefties", business people and academics?

I have no reason to suspect that this group: http://www.fin.gc.ca/n16/16-031-eng.asp#notes does not have the best interests of Canada in mind when making their recommendations.

[Moonlight Graham]

4 hours ago, taxme said:

What should be done here is for our elected politicians to ask the people first when it comes to bringing in hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. The taxpayer's will pay for most of this immigration because many will come here as refugees or people with no skills. And from what we have seen in the past, it has cost the taxpayer's of Canada billions of their tax dollars to feed,clothe and house many of them for years after. As a taxpayer, when do I get to have a say? It's my tax dollars too. 

It all depends the types of immigrants coming in.  The different classes of immigrants, like are the economic/skilled immigrants, spousal applicants (a foreigner who met a Canadian and married them and now wish to become a permanent resident), refugees, humanitarian & compassionate applicants (somewhat similar to refugees), family reunification etc. The Liberals I guess are saying they want to raise the economic classes of immigrants...so they say now.  That could be easily changed later without much notice.

[CITIZEN_2015]

I have changed my views on immigration. Canada already suffers from unemployment and rising housing prices in certain regions. Have you taken a ride in major and even smaller Canadian cities, It is bumper to bumper and crowded with traffic jam everywhere. Not to mention that Canada will lose its cultural identity being swamped by people of different cultures especially certain cultures who believe in inequality of women and violence. The current level should be reduced and selection made and focused on skilled workers, As Argus said somewhere Immigration is to benefit Canada not Canada to benefit immigrants. So elected officials should react to what Canadian want (lower immigration quota and selectivity) and not decide on their own to increase the current high level further.

[Smallc]

Canada has always been 'swamped' by people of different cultures.  That's why Canada exists.

[Argus]

21 hours ago, Smallc said:

In other words, you don't have proof.

If basic logic is beyond you - as it appears to be - then I suppose it will not be possible to convince you of anything.

21 hours ago, Smallc said:

Also, what makes uneducated Ukrainian immigrants more desireable than educated Iranian ones?

Europeans finish first in terms of economic success. Middle east people finish last. This is not the first study which says as much. On top of that we know that Ukrainians assimilate very well here. ME people not so much.

[Argus]

19 hours ago, carepov said:

If I understand you correctly, you are looking for "right", non-business, non-academic statisticians and demographers and you've ruled out "lefties", business people and academics?

Right and Left should not even enter into it. The only reason it does is because the Left is obsessed with race politics. If all the immigrants coming to Canada were White most of the Left would be opposed to immigration on a variety of grounds. Certainly the unions would be opposed.

Demographics experts say that high immigration will do little or nothing to solve the issues McCallum says we face. It will not affect our aging or our declining birth rate. And there are no labour shortages. In fact, we face an impending crisis in employment as self-driving vehicles begin to push many mostly male workers out of their jobs. 

There was a test the other day of the first self-driving truck making a delivery in Colorado. Eventually there will be no jobs for truck drivers, messengers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, backhoe operators, etc. And by eventually I mean within the next ten to twenty years. What are all these lower skilled workers going to do? And we're going to flood Canada with yet more lower skilled workers? Why?

Edited October 25, 2016 by Argus

[Argus]

16 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

It all depends the types of immigrants coming in.  The different classes of immigrants, like are the economic/skilled immigrants, spousal applicants (a foreigner who met a Canadian and married them and now wish to become a permanent resident), refugees, humanitarian & compassionate applicants (somewhat similar to refugees), family reunification etc. The Liberals I guess are saying they want to raise the economic classes of immigrants...so they say now.  That could be easily changed later without much notice.

And yet what the Liberals have done is to deliberately lower the skill level by bringing in more family class, more refugees, and more senior citizens. 

And, in fact, even the Tories hopes that focusing on 'skilled' immigrants would improve their economic prospects has been a failure. The economic success of immigrants continues to deteriorate largely because having a degree from some obscure university in Asia or the Middle East avails you little in Canada given the differing educational criteria used and given that most of our immigrants have very limited language skills. Bricklayers and welders from Italy and Portugal would do much better than people with masters degrees from China who can barely make themselves understood in English.

[carepov]

2 hours ago, Argus said:

Right and Left should not even enter into it. The only reason it does is because the Left is obsessed with race politics. If all the immigrants coming to Canada were White most of the Left would be opposed to immigration on a variety of grounds. Certainly the unions would be opposed.

You brought up left/right and I am more than happy to drop it.

2 hours ago, Argus said:

Demographics experts say that high immigration will do little or nothing to solve the issues McCallum says we face. It will not affect our aging or our declining birth rate. 

If properly managed, increased immigration will help our economy long term.

"Increasing immigration flows by 150,000 per year would add 0.3 percentage points to population growth in Canada, bringing annual population growth to 1.2 percent. This proposed increase in population growth is moderate when compared with immigration policy trends in other advanced economies... The boost in population growth from increasing Canada’s annual immigration levels by 150,000 would reduce the old age dependency ratio (the ratio of seniors to working-age Canadians) by 1.6 percentage points below where it is projected to be in 2030 (specifically, from the forecasted ratio of 37.3 percent to 35.7 percent), reducing fiscal strain on the system and the need for tax increases or benefit cuts."

http://www.budget.gc.ca/aceg-ccce/pdf/immigration-eng.pdf

2 hours ago, Argus said:

And there are no labour shortages. In fact, we face an impending crisis in employment as self-driving vehicles begin to push many mostly male workers out of their jobs. 

There was a test the other day of the first self-driving truck making a delivery in Colorado. Eventually there will be no jobs for truck drivers, messengers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, backhoe operators, etc. And by eventually I mean within the next ten to twenty years. What are all these lower skilled workers going to do? And we're going to flood Canada with yet more lower skilled workers? Why?

The plan is to increase skilled immigrants that will benefit our economy:

"For increased economic immigration to add to average living standards, new entrants should have the qualities that determine successful economic integration. Education, age, skills, and language proficiency are all important determinants. With the ultimate goal of increasing economic growth in Canada, the recommendation is for a targeted increase in permanent economic immigration specifically. The subsequent two sections outline ways to accomplish such a targeted increase – first, among top talent and specialized roles, and second, among young and educated international students. Recommendation 2: Facilitate entry for top talent and high-demand roles Canada has a strong culture of entrepreneurship, ranking 2nd among the Group of Seven in strength of entrepreneurship climate.10 However, this country faces restrictive talent gaps which inhibit small and medium sized companies from successfully scaling, cause some companies to move their headquarters out of Canada, and prevent larger companies from innovating in certain areas where talent in Canada is lacking. For example, three quarters of owners of high-growth firms in Canada say the most important impediment to growth is a lack of managerial talent.11 "

Here is an example: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lululemon-temporary-foreign-worker-pressure-on-growth-1.3814436