Liberals to increase immigration to 350,000+

[Moonlight Graham]

Canadians aren't having nearly enough kids, around 1.2 kids per 2 Canadians I think.  Immigration is really the only way to sustain or grow the population long-term.  However, it's tragically foolish to raise immigration numbers without also dealing the growing problems of integration/assimilation, infrastructure, housing costs, anti-immigrant sentiment (& sometimes hate crime), poverty/crime from poorer migrants, and overall national unity etc.

As well-meaning as Trudeau and many of his supporters believe many of his policies are, they are dangerously naive.  I've rarely seen such a naive politician.  As well-meaning as he is, he just doesn't have the education/knowledge or foresight to fully comprehend the impact of his own ideological policies.

This country needs a more moderate, balanced, and fair approach to immigration.  Fair to both immigrants and Canadians.  Not ultra-conservative & ignorant like Trump, but not too left-leaning either where compassion trumps common sense.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Moonlight Graham

[-1=e^ipi]

On 11/2/2017 at 4:23 PM, Argus said:

This comes on top of census information that says Canada's foreign born population is already by far the highest in the western world at over 20%.

Wrong.

At 30 June 2016, 28.5% of Australia's estimated resident population (6.9 million people) was born overseas.

[bush_cheney2004]

41 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

....This country needs a more moderate, balanced, and fair approach to immigration.  Fair to both immigrants and Canadians.  Not ultra-conservative & ignorant like Trump, but not too left-leaning either where compassion trumps common sense.

 

Trump's America already has a bigger approach to immigration.....about 12,000,000 illegals, including Canadians.

 

 

[H10]

On 11/2/2017 at 4:23 PM, Argus said:

In a transparent attempt at getting more ethnic votes, the Liberals announced that they are increasing the immigration rate to 350,000 per year from the present 300,000 which was raised just two years ago from 250,000. This comes on top of census information that says Canada's foreign born population is already by far the highest in the western world at over 20%. The US and UK, by comparison, are at about 13%. Canada's foreign-born population was already going to rise to about 29% in twenty years according to the census, but this increase will accelerate that. So soon a third of Canadians will be foreign born - and the number will rise from there. 

The supposed justification is that Canada needs more people because of our aging population and a shortage of workers. Both are outright lies, but have been said so often they're rarely questioned. Especially since anyone who questions them gets called a racist, and because the other parties are eager for those ethnic votes too. The Fraser Institute has calculated the cost of our present immigration system at over $30 billion per year to all three levels of government based on the earnings of immigrants - who perform more poorly than Canadian born workers - vs how much government must spend on them.  Furthermore, immigration CAN NOT keep our percentage of retirees from rising. Even Stats Can says so.

A second study in less than a week has concluded that there is no labour shortage in Canada, nor is one expected to arrive in the next few decades. A study published Friday by a University of Lethbridge professor echoes results of a report by the federal government’s Parliamentary Budget Office released Tuesday — both conclude there are more than enough workers on a national basis in Canada to fill available jobs.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Study+debunks+Canadian+labour+shortage/9674478/story.html

Dire warnings of a widespread Canadian labour crisis and a “lost generation” of young workers have been overblown, according to a market analysis by TD Economics. Deputy chief economist Derek Burleton says demographic and economic shifts may be hitting young workers particularly hard, but he doesn’t believe projections of across-the-board labour shortages and skills gaps.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/10/21/skills-gap-canada-labour-shortage_n_4138487.html

Our population would be stabilized with immigration at only 100,000

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-003-x/2007001/figures/4129879-eng.htm

Canada would have to take in 2.6 million immigrants a year by 2020 and seven million by 2050 — raising its population to 165.4-million — if it wants to keep its ratio of retirees-toworkers at its current 20%, according to a study from the C.D. Howe Institute.

 

 

We do have an aging population, we also have a worker shortage right here in Toronto.  Have you ever looked at the restaurant industry?  Restaurants are opening and cannot even find enough line cooks hardly, this is why so many people are quitting because the owners are overloading the few workers they have with incredible amounts of work. The fraser institute is not a credible source, they are basically a conservative think tank who holds tea party like positions and has a pattern of researching in ways that are not credible.  While I am willing to consider there could be cost potentially from immigration (ie importing of parents who are old and sick and cannot work), you have to look at the net benefit.  What happens if the parents cannot come here is the kids go back, taking their school aged children and their labor, making the abour shortages where they exist even worse.  While it may be techniclly true that there are enough unemployed people to fill the positions of shortages, who is going to tell the unemployed med school grad who couldn't get a residency to go fill the job shortage in cleaning toilets and roofing houses and welding pipelinesor gutting fish in newfoundland?

[H10]

On 11/2/2017 at 7:02 PM, taxme said:

What Canada should be doing is putting a moratorium on all immigration for at least five years so we can get the 2 million unemployed working first. And my pet peeve about it all is that probably 90% of those immigrants will becoming from the third world countries. Whatever happened to the good old days where the majority of our new immigrants came from Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Europe and Australia? Walking around in a mall these days in Canada in places like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver one has to wonder as to what country am I shopping in today? For the past several decades approx. 85% of new immigrants have been coming third world countries. This does not make any sense at all to be doing. 

It becomes readily appearant when someone has no private sector management experience when they speak on this issue.  Those 2 million unemployed Canadians could go get floor sweeping jobs, or trade jobs, or other semi skilled and unskilled labor jobs like factory work where there is a shortage of labor.  The problem is no person born in this country would take that job unless they were down in the dumps or enjoyed do a physically demanding back breaking job.  I had to cut the lawn for my parents, shovel the snow, it was a big property and back breaking work when I was young and athletic, if I was unemployed, those unfilled jobs would be completly unviable.

We do have immigrants from Britain, many of them like Chief Saunders or Chris Spence and Lennox Lewis.  Why would someone from a rich uncrowded country like Scotland move to a poorer country like Canada away from all their family?  Why would Aussies with a stronger economy leave all their family behind and move to a poorer country with less opportunity where they know no one?  Why would someone from Switzerland, or Norway or another EU country with a higher living standard leave their entire life, friends, family, connections and lifestyle, learn a new language, get set back in their career, leave behind their wife or husband, to come to a new country, 8 hour flight from home, leave behind their kids, try to learn a new language and take a drastic drop in standard of living for at least a decade to come to Canada.  It makes no sense.  I went to school for 1 year in switzerland on student exchange.  And that was precisely the reason I never attempted to "immigrate" or get a job there.

 

No person in their right mind, would leave 1 developed country in a relatively advantaged position, to move to a 2nd developed country and be hugely disadvantaged.  It makes literally no sense.  The only person that move makes sense for, is usually someone coming from some village with nothing in a 3rd world nation.  That is why we have so many Russian immgirants but so few german immigrants.

 

On 11/2/2017 at 7:02 PM, taxme said:

Why are the majority in this country not concerned about this? They are slowly being replaced by incompatible cultures who only want to come to Canada and try to preserve their culture and then try and get as many family members and friends that they can into Canada. There is something very strange going on in this country in regards to our immigration policy, and as a taxpayer, I don't like it one dam bit. Do you? Over. 

 

Who is this majority?  You had voted for Harper, he lost, Trudeau won, the majority favor immigrantion in massive waves.  I as a property owner, like lots of immigrants pouring in because I get people to rent my property.  Have you ever seen what happens to landlords when all of the people grow up, move on and out?  NO RENTERS!

[-1=e^ipi]

I would prefer a higher proportion were economic immigrants. Only 60% economic immigrants seems too low to me.

[Jariax]

A higher minimum wage combined with a large influx of new Canadians, ensures us that we'll see rising unemployment rates and massive amounts of tax dollars doled out to support these new Canadians. 

Part of the issue is that governments are judged largely on their ability to increase the GDP. For some reason I don't understand, economists tell us we must be ever-increasing the GDP. We aren't allowed to stand still and enjoy the relative prosperity. Instead, our nation must consume more and more, to show that we're progressing environment, shmironment.

To preserve the few traditions and bit of culture that we're still allowed to celebrate, we should be looking at ways to boost the number of children born to Canadian families. I know so many people that can't afford to have children, or limit themselves to one or two due to the costs. Maybe some tax breaks along those lines would help us boost our population without further watering down our culture. 

[H10]

23 hours ago, taxme said:

So, if I say that we are bringing in way too many third world immigrants into Canada, is that considered racism to say that? Just asking. 

Pretty much, because you don't oppose "first world" immigration or 2nd world immigration, presumably because most "first and second world" nations are white majority and you are presuming you'd get more white immigrants, so having a preference for immigrants for being white is racist.  After all, you'd probably oppose a bunch of immigrants from Britain who were West Indian or East Indian or African in origin coming from france, etc?

 

9 hours ago, Bonam said:

I have seen many such articles/statements too. But the reality is they never back the supposed "need" of more people up with any hard numbers. They just rely on the "gut feel" that people have that since baby boomers are retiring, more labour must be needed. They fail to look at the actual conditions of the labour market, or consider changes in how long people work, how many and which kinds of jobs are automated, or if the people that are being brought in are filling the kinds of job opening that exist. Also, they tend to ignore the reality that the average age of immigrants is only like a year or two younger than the existing Canadian population, so it essentially does not change the age demographic pyramid at all. 

Go into factories, see the help wanted signs.  Its on the low end.  the problem is the workers, don't want to stay in these low wage, dead end jobs.  No one moves to Canada to work in a restaurant or factory for 30 years.  No government can reduce immigration, restaurants, factories are too dependent on it.  Unless you want to see almost every restaurant shut down and every factory, and every lawn care company and corporate farm and major employer dependent on unskilled labour?

 

9 hours ago, Argus said:

You would think a government concerned about an aging population would be reducing the number of immigrant seniors allowed in, not doubling them. But hey, what does billions in additional health care costs matter compared to gaining favour from west asian voters.

Also capitalist elite.

 

4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Thank you. (?)

Thank you. (?)  I think I would be great in politics but....

Replacing Baby Boomers would be great but the point of the article he has posted many times is that the "problem" is a large bulge in the population, which can't be addressed in the way they claim to with immigration.  That much I believe.

The economy is always planned around natural growth.  I think that forcing growth in the way they're doing could backfire.  They're not addressing current problems just as they are trying to bring more immigrants in.
 

There are some ways we could target immigration.  For example, if Trump is stupid enough to cancel the H1B program in the US, we could grab a bunch of tech jobs and entice US tech firms to move here.  We would have to get ahead of the curve, though by moving tech jobs out of the GTA or at least to the edges of it.

Except, you need the companies to locate here, and then they'd realize labor cost are cheaper

 

4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I can't understand why they would do this as tech/professional services is a golden calf of prosperity for the US but he has sent signals that he may do it.

I think we have arrived at a point where some of us can have a discussion of immigration on its own merits.  Just not most people.  (eg. People to whom you say 'fixed pie fallacy' more times than you say 'that's a pretty birdie !' to a parrot... and they still don't repeat it.  (the person, not the parrot))

Nope, the tech firms only hire immigrants because they are CHEAPER, and don't know their rights, there are a surplus of US tech workers who cannot find jobs.  This is where anti-immigrant resentment comes from.  There are poor immigrants coming in and working on farms, factories and restaurants.  There are also the H1-b immigrants who ARE stealing jobs from local people on the high end and they are used to drive down wages for locals.  Why hire a local engineer when you can hire an indian, pay him $90,000 a year instead of $190,000, give him no breaks, no overtime and treat him like dirt?  

 

1 hour ago, Moonlight Graham said:

It would be political suicide for Trudeau.

Not really, NDP don't oppose it.

[H10]

47 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I would prefer a higher proportion were economic immigrants. Only 60% economic immigrants seems too low to me.

Yeah, what immigrant will leave behind their wife, inlaws, family etc?

[August1991]

On 11/2/2017 at 6:34 PM, Michael Hardner said:

I agree with Argus.  As a Torontonian, I feel that the Federal Government is making very little effort to alleviate our crowding problems and this will make things worse.  I also feel that there will be a political backlash that could turn very quickly if immigration levels are increased frequently, and without addressing the problems they face.

Canada is a large country; we have space for many more people.

The question really is whether we can teach calculus to all/many of the children of these 300,000 people who arrive each year; because, make no mistake, that really is the issue.

I suspect that because of immigration, more people in the world understand Cartesian coordinates than ever before. Sadly, it requires immigration to bring many children into the 17th century.

[August1991]

2 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Canadians aren't having nearly enough kids, around 1.2 kids per 2 Canadians I think.  Immigration is really the only way to sustain or grow the population long-term....

Why should we make the population of Canada grow?

Iceland has existed for centuries - its birth rate has varied;  There is no reason that Canada should allow more foreigners into our society simply because for the past few years, our women/men have had fewer children. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by August1991

[August1991]

1 hour ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I would prefer a higher proportion were economic immigrants. Only 60% economic immigrants seems too low to me.

7 billion people in the world; about 140 million new children every year.

Every year, we have to teach about 120 million 7 year old kids how to add 4+3=7, or the multiplication table:   8x7=63.

Economic immigrants? Trudeau Jnr and you miss the larger point: We must teach about 100 million 7-year old kids, every year, how to add 3+5=8.

Children are not born with this knowledge; it is not part of our DNA.

Whether economic immigrants or not, I frankly think that having 300,000 or even 3 million arrive in Canada every year misses the larger point. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by August1991

[Bonam]

53 minutes ago, H10 said:

Go into factories, see the help wanted signs.  Its on the low end.  the problem is the workers, don't want to stay in these low wage, dead end jobs.  No one moves to Canada to work in a restaurant or factory for 30 years.  No government can reduce immigration, restaurants, factories are too dependent on it.  Unless you want to see almost every restaurant shut down and every factory, and every lawn care company and corporate farm and major employer dependent on unskilled labour?

Sorry but this is just oft-repeated BS. There are no jobs that no one is willing to do... just jobs that no one is willing to do for rock bottom wages. The way capitalism is supposed to work is when labour gets scarce, companies compete for workers by raising wages and improving benefits and working conditions. Instead, the very same people that criticize companies for paying rock bottom wages (i.e. liberals) also are in complete support of the main mechanism by which wages are kept so low... flooding the labour markets with masses of immigrants that are willing to do any job for a low price as they get settled in. 

Stop the flood of cheap labour and all those businesses that will supposedly shut down without immigration will just have to pay better wages, wages which will actually allow their workers to live reasonably in the cities they serve. And they'll have to raise their prices a bit to compensate. Boo-freaking-hoo. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by Bonam

[blackbird]

34 minutes ago, August1991 said:

Why should we make the population of Canada grow?

Iceland has existed for centuries - its birth rate has varied;  There is no reason that Canada should allow more foreigners into our society simply because for the past few years, our women/men have had fewer children. 

If there is not enough working people paying taxes to replace the existing workers that retire or pass away, there will not be enough money to pay for our health care, old age pensions, and other social services we expect.  That's the reason we need immigrants.   Our own Caucasian population in Canada is not reproducing in sufficient numbers to even survive.  We are also losing about 100,000 babies a year to abortion in Canada, likely mostly Caucasian because they  mostly the ones who go for abortions.  Any numbers of children less than about 2.1 per couple means the gradual extinction of that ethnic group.  Canadian Caucasians fall below that cutoff point.

I would prefer to see more immigrants from Europe so we could maintain our Judeo-christian civilization and culture, and less from Asia and Africa.  But I don't think the government has that in mind or cares.  Most will probably come from Asia, Africa and some from the middle east bringing their cultures with them and form enclaves in Canada.

Edited November 4, 2017 by blackbird

[Bonam]

9 minutes ago, blackbird said:

If there is not enough working people paying taxes to replace the existing workers that retire or pass away, there will not be enough money to pay for our health care, old age pensions, and other social services we expect.  That's the reason we need immigrants. 

Again, oft-repeated, but no numbers to back this up. First, there is no evidence of either a current or upcoming labour shortage. Show me the data. No, just repeating that "baby boomers are retiring" is not data. We are just one year away from being half way through the baby boomer retirement years (baby boomers reach retirement age from 2009 to 2027, given Canada's average retirement age of 63). The year by which 1/2 of baby boomers will have retired is 2018, that is, next year. There is no labour shortage now nor one forecasted for a few months from now. 

Second, the average age of immigrants that we are bringing in is hardly younger than the average age of the existing population, hence they do not reduce the average age of Canada's population or the old age dependency ratio in a meaningful way.

Third, immigrants from most countries tend to have larger families (more children, grandparents, in-laws, etc), and many of these are often dependents of just one (or at most two) income earning taxpayers, meaning they consume more government services than they pay in taxes into the system. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by Bonam

[August1991]

32 minutes ago, blackbird said:

If there is not enough working people paying taxes to replace the existing workers that retire or pass away, there will not be enough money to pay for our health care, old age pensions, and other social services we expect.  That's the reason we need immigrants.

...

Huh? Taxes?

Blackbird, your reasoning is scary: "We need immigrants to pay taxes... "

1. Norway has few if any immigrants and Norwegians are among the richest people on the planet. The Swiss too. (True, taxes in Norway are insane.)

2. If you're old and ill, who will care for you? Your one child! Maybe two kids = so that there's a better chance that one of the two is a bureaucratic pit-bull.

3. Taxes? I'm no Libertarian but I can imagine that when Bush Jnr, Trudeau Jnr,  Harper, whoever sits around the table,  it's useful to whip out the claim to a bigger tax revenue.

Edited November 4, 2017 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

5 hours ago, H10 said:

1. Nope, the tech firms only hire immigrants because they are CHEAPER, and don't know their rights, there are a surplus of US tech workers who cannot find jobs.  

2. This is where anti-immigrant resentment comes from.  There are poor immigrants coming in and working on farms, factories and restaurants.  

3. There are also the H1-b immigrants who ARE stealing jobs from local people on the high end and they are used to drive down wages for locals.  Why hire a local engineer when you can hire an indian, pay him $90,000 a year instead of $190,000, give him no breaks, no overtime and treat him like dirt?  

1. Cite ?  A surplus ?  How much ?

2. Obviously.  I'm talking about targeting high-end jobs though.

3. 'stealing jobs' isn't an apt term.  It's a market.  If they make $90K, that's a big tax surplus and a net plus to the Canadian economy.  If the US cancels H1B we will take those jobs and those people and win bigly.

[Rue]

21 hours ago, Argus said:

Your search is pretty limited, don't you think? Especially given the term was banned. People rarely say 'you are a racist'. They're more likely to say things like 'more racism' or 'that's racist' or 'your position is racist' or 'we don't care what racists think' or a variation of that. I never mention colour when I talk about immigration and I've always been accused of one variation or another of bigotry. If you do a search on 'racist' you'll find four hundred pages of it. Granted, the word is rarely used since MLW took to suspending people for using it. There are also 62 pages of 'bigot' and lately, a several dozen pages of xenophobic or xenophobia. The point is that many people take any attack on immigration policies as an attack on 'brown people' and reflexively try to smear whoever is posting.

Nothing in your comments were racist. They are based on challenging the studies we need more people to replace baby boomers. Michael H was not referring to your comments but comments that reject immigration only on the grounds of say skin colour or one's religion and no other criteria.

Neither of you is racist. Back to the issue. Also I as you know share your views that Trudeau panders to minorities and will use any excuse to make himself look good to minorities including placing a visible minority refugee Minister as Immigration Minster which was blatant tokenism at its worst.

That said the immigration issue must be dealt with by any ruling government and I do  not think any government in power Con or Lib has ever rejected immigration outright and would not for obvious reasons which only Taxme can not fathom.

The point is I have an issue with a government that has deliberately made a mockery of our refugee laws by allowing illegal migrants posing as refugees flood our border to choke the refugee system pushing ahead of genuine immigrants and refugees and being rewarded for it.

That is the disgrace. A legitimate immigrant should not be made a mockery of following the law by illegals exploiting Trudeau's not so subtle message to push on in there is plenty of room.

Without proper planning and adjusting immigration to skill sets, it becomes a recipe to set people up for social failure, poverty, marginalization, crime, substance abuse, domestic violence, even higher rates of diabetes, mental illness, cancer and heart disease believe it or not.

An immigrant or refugee that becomes marginalized in Canada is more likely to be physically and mentally ill in the areas I stated and be a burden on the state as shown in numerous studies. 

I think this current government can not be trusted to act ethically in regards to immigration or refugee policies.

That said people have to understand immigration is vital in filling skills we do not have. It is absolutely idiotic to say we should not bring in immigrants. There are brilliant professionals, artisans, tradespeople we need and would benefit from.

There is always a need in all skill trades for people with more advanced training or to fill the void.

If we simply had no immigration certain gaps in vocations needing to be filled would remain unfilled.

Some people believe immigrants take away jobs from Canadians born here.

That I leave to others to debate. I will say this. A cutting edge computer programmer, neurologist, professor, won't be taking any job from Taxme.

He has nothing to worry about.

 

[Michael Hardner]

6 hours ago, August1991 said:

The question really is whether we can teach calculus to all/many of the children of these 300,000 people who arrive each year; because, make no mistake, that really is the issue.

I'll assume you just picked 'calculus' as a random topic and are not trying to say that immigrants can't learn calculus for some reason.  Your economic understanding is low.  The taxes of a working person will cover the cost of education, and healthcare above a certain salary.  At a lower salary, the economic advantage from their activities goes to their employer.

The government needs to manage the flows and expenditures for public services - nothing is new there.

6 hours ago, August1991 said:

I suspect that because of immigration, more people in the world understand Cartesian coordinates than ever before. Sadly, it requires immigration to bring many children into the 17th century.

Do they understand 17 century math ?  Well, yes... most of us learn it as young children nowadays.

6 hours ago, August1991 said:

Why should we make the population of Canada grow?

This is a peasant's question, unless you are putting on the tweed hat of the academic or the think tank person and challenging our assumptions. 

Using your well-worn habit of taking someone's background squarely into the argument: A Quebecker usually relies on the government and the business-man to take care of such things, and resents Anglos who come to his village and bother people by building roads and power lines.

[Argus]

12 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

It would be political suicide for Trudeau.

Only if they did it all at once. It is evident they are trying to ramp it up year by year, so that, like a frog in hot water we don't quite realize how hot the water is getting...

[Argus]

11 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Canadians aren't having nearly enough kids, around 1.2 kids per 2 Canadians I think.  Immigration is really the only way to sustain or grow the population long-term. 

That's not true. The government could encourage people to have more kids through a variety of measures, from advertising to economic support for families.

[Argus]

11 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Wrong.

At 30 June 2016, 28.5% of Australia's estimated resident population (6.9 million people) was born overseas.

Australia is still the UK's warm retirement villa. By far the largest group of foreign born citizens came from the UK. The next largest group came from New Zealand. These people are foreign, but not very foreign.

[Argus]

10 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I would prefer a higher proportion were economic immigrants. Only 60% economic immigrants seems too low to me.

Even that figure is deceptive. Only about 20% of this group are actually coming here because they have a talent or skill which qualifies them. The remainder are family members. So the government might say "Hey, look, we're bringing in 180,000 skilled immigrants!" But actually it's closer to 40,000. There are also questions about how skilled they are. If you have a masters degree in engineering but can't speak English you're going to have trouble finding work as a taxi driver.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Argus

[Argus]

9 hours ago, August1991 said:

Canada is a large country; we have space for many more people.

Fine. We'll flood Quebec with English speaking immigrants then. I'm sure you won't have any issue with that.

[Argus]

9 hours ago, blackbird said:

If there is not enough working people paying taxes to replace the existing workers that retire or pass away, there will not be enough money to pay for our health care, old age pensions, and other social services we expect.  That's the reason we need immigrants.  

Well, that is the reason given. However, one of those Statistics Canada studies I posted in the OP said that we could maintain our population with just 100,000 immigrants a year. So why are we moving towards 350,000? Second, I hate to harp on this, but given our progressive tax system, in which the bottom half of Canadians only pay 3% of the income tax while the top half pay the other 97%, if our immigrants are earning poor wages they're not contributing taxes, they're consuming them. That is why we should be taking only the most skilled and capable of immigrants able to earn decent salaries.

And does anyone think those 60-70k 'refugees' we're bringing in every year, who have no job skills, little education, no language skills, etc. are going to be making high salaries?