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Immigrants cost Canada $30 billion per year


Argus

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A new study done by the Fraser Institute shows the fiscal burden imposed on Canadians from its high immigration rate is now up to $30 billion  per year. That is because immigrants have lower wages and thus pay less tax than other Canadians, while making use of more government resources. They also have a higher unemployment rate and, on average, more children, so receive more in benefits.

Estimating the fiscal burden immigrants impose on Canadians requires data on the average taxes paid and government benefits received by immigrants. Data from the 2016 Census also cited by Gatehouse shows that the average income of recent immigrants aged 25-54 continues to fall short of that of non-immigrants, which means they continue to pay less in taxes on average.

In our most recent study we used basic statistics from the previous census and the National Household Survey to estimate that because of Canada’s progressive income tax system, recent immigrants paid much lower income taxes than non-immigrants. We added to this amount other taxes related to income and wealth, such as the GST and capital gains taxes, and concluded that in 2008-09, recent immigrants on average paid $13,100 in tax compared with $18,000 paid by other Canadians, yielding a shortfall of $4,900 per year.

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-benefits-and-heavy-costs-of-immigration-to-canada

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17 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

I don't really believe that article just like I don't believe the CBC article they're trying to fact check.  Researchers with ideological agendas can suck it.

You are truly a good man to rely only on the Government of Canada for all your information.

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On 8/20/2019 at 2:33 PM, Argus said:

A new study done by the Fraser Institute shows the fiscal burden imposed on Canadians from its high immigration rate is now up to $30 billion  per year. That is because immigrants have lower wages and thus pay less tax than other Canadians, while making use of more government resources. They also have a higher unemployment rate and, on average, more children, so receive more in benefits.

Estimating the fiscal burden immigrants impose on Canadians requires data on the average taxes paid and government benefits received by immigrants. Data from the 2016 Census also cited by Gatehouse shows that the average income of recent immigrants aged 25-54 continues to fall short of that of non-immigrants, which means they continue to pay less in taxes on average.

In our most recent study we used basic statistics from the previous census and the National Household Survey to estimate that because of Canada’s progressive income tax system, recent immigrants paid much lower income taxes than non-immigrants. We added to this amount other taxes related to income and wealth, such as the GST and capital gains taxes, and concluded that in 2008-09, recent immigrants on average paid $13,100 in tax compared with $18,000 paid by other Canadians, yielding a shortfall of $4,900 per year.

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-benefits-and-heavy-costs-of-immigration-to-canada

Those people from the third world countries are not as stupid as we may think they may be. I think that it is the Canadian people that are the dumb ones here. Those third world people know a sucker country when they see one especially one where it's dumb leader told them that if you can make it too Canada we will try and help you to get to stay. 30 billion tax dollars a year could possibly mean abolishing the GST which could save Canadians thousands of their hard working dollars every year. But for that to happen is for our stunned politically correct and pro third world politicians to think about Canada first and not the rest of the world for a change. Legal and illegal immigration is killing Canada and costing Canadians big time tax dollars but yet there are some stunned people out there who still have been brainwashed into believing that more immigration is better. These Canadians need to shake their heads a bit and think about what more immigration is doing to Canada and Canadians and what it is costing us all. This is all just due to liberalism at it's worse. Liberalism must go now. Works for me. 

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On 8/21/2019 at 12:39 PM, Shady said:

That's enough to balance the budget.

Maybe with that 30 billion that we can save from stop bringing in new immigrants we could get rid of the GST. Think about that for a minute. More money in your pockets which will not be going to foreigners who do not deserve it. I like that idea of having more money in my pockets. . :)

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5 minutes ago, taxme said:

Maybe with that 30 billion that we can save from stop bringing in new immigrants we could get rid of the GST. Think about that for a minute. More money in your pockets which will not be going to foreigners who do not deserve it. I like that idea of having more money in my pockets. . :)

Dream on, there will be no respite from the fake work economy and associated bringing immigrants in to keep even the fake jobs scarce, in order to control people, unless and until the masses reject the overall premise that work is the meaning of life and thus the best way into Heaven, or in secular terms, virtuous in of itself.

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33 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Dream on, there will be no respite from the fake work economy and associated bringing immigrants in to keep even the fake jobs scarce, in order to control people, unless and until the masses reject the overall premise that work is the meaning of life and thus the best way into Heaven, or in secular terms, virtuous in of itself.

I would think that more members here would have a comment on this waste of 30 billion tax dollars very year? But sadly, it seems that too most Canadians that waste of 30 billion tax dollars appears to be not on their radar or could careless about how their tax dollars are being blown. Why Canadians do not appear to have a problem with how their tax dollars are being blown is beyond me. This should be the number one topic here but sadly it is not. Fake global climate crisis seems to be more important to them than their tax dollars being stolen from them. And even supporting the many outfits out there that want the taxpayer's to donate their money to help fight global warming is wasting even more of their hard earned money. A double whammy as far as I am concerned for them. Aw well. 

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22 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

I don't really believe that article just like I don't believe the CBC article they're trying to fact check.  Researchers with ideological agendas can suck it.

Yes, absolutely.  The OP makes an error immediately in implying that the economic value of an immigrant is encompassed by their wage.

I have re-jettisoned myself into reading about economics and although I am a plain neophyte, I don't see much of anything online in the way of real analysis of economic trade-offs.

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16 minutes ago, taxme said:

I would think that more members here would have a comment on this waste of 30 billion tax dollars very year? But sadly, it seems that too most Canadians that waste of 30 billion tax dollars appears to be not on their radar or could careless about how their tax dollars are being blown. Why Canadians do not appear to have a problem with how their tax dollars are being blown is beyond me. This should be the number one topic here but sadly it is not. Fake global climate crisis seems to be more important to them than their tax dollars being stolen from them. And even supporting the many outfits out there that want the taxpayer's to donate their money to help fight global warming is wasting even more of their hard earned money. A double whammy as far as I am concerned for them. Aw well. 

Most of the government spending is boondoggles, but as it is a blatant in your face criminal government now,  not even making any bones about it, I see no point in ceaselessly complaining about it.  The elites in Canada seem to be quite sure that there will be no counterrevolution against them, hence why they are so blatant in their criminality.  If you ceaselessly complain while never doing anything about it, that I believe is called whining, and I learned from a young age that it serves no particular purpose in the end.

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21 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Most of the government spending is boondoggles, but as it is a blatant in your face criminal government now,  not even making any bones about it, I see no point in ceaselessly complaining about it.  The elites in Canada seem to be quite sure that there will be no counterrevolution against them, hence why they are so blatant in their criminality.  If you ceaselessly complain while never doing anything about it, that I believe is called whining, and I learned from a young age that it serves no particular purpose in the end.

So, pointing out that 30 billion of our Canadian taxpayer's tax dollars that are being blown on legal and illegal immigrants and refugees per year should just be forgotten about and not mentioned because it won't get we the people anywhere talking about it?  So, in the next ten years it will cost the taxpayer's of this country 300 billion tax dollars or possibly even more, and allow the politicians to just write off all those wasted tax dollars as just a part of the cost of running the government.

On the contrary, fella, it needs to be reported every day about where and how and why our tax dollars are being stolen from we the people by the bunch of thieves in Ottawa. I am doing something about it. Just by exposing the many programs and agendas that are costing the taxpayer's billions of tax dollars every year here is doing something. So, what are you doing about it except to maybe knock people like me down for trying? I would love to see a tax revolt in this country, but I cannot see that will happen anytime soon because I do not see most Canadians giving a crap all that much about how their tax dollars are being wasted.The only ones that I know of who are trying to expose the waste of our Canadian tax dollars is the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation. Probably no one here or most Canadians have never heard of them which would be nothing new. Most Canadians do not know much about much anyway. 

A quote: "For evil to exist is for good men to do nothing" or in this instance not say anything. I will never stop attacking your politicians who refuse to stop treating the Canadian taxpayers, their boss, with contempt and keep blowing our tax dollars on so much useless leftist/liberal/communist programs and agendas bull shit. Live free or live under tyranny. Our choice. 

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Just now, taxme said:

So, pointing out that 30 billion of our Canadian taxpayer's tax dollars that are being blown on legal and illegal immigrants and refugees per year should just be forgotten about and not mentioned because it won't get we the people anywhere talking about it? 

There is no we the people in Canada, we the people is public rule, res publica, but Canada is not actually a republic.

Moreover, because Canada is a fractious federation with no unified national interest, none of the people in Canada ever take responsibility for the whole.

Hence why Confederation is a failed state of Ontario bribing Quebec with Alberta's money to keep the vested interests in power and everybody else down.

Canadians are docile sheep by nature now, what is the point of discussing a problem which would require a counterrevolution to solve, when most Canadians don't even vote never mind revolt?

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How much of the immigration into Canada is due to Canada belonging to the British Commonwealth meaning immigration from fellow-Commonwealth countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Uganda to name just four but there are many others? 

The most controversial immigration to Canada has lately been from China and China is not in the Commonwealth. 

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24 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

There is no we the people in Canada, we the people is public rule, res publica, but Canada is not actually a republic.

Moreover, because Canada is a fractious federation with no unified national interest, none of the people in Canada ever take responsibility for the whole.

Hence why Confederation is a failed state of Ontario bribing Quebec with Alberta's money to keep the vested interests in power and everybody else down.

Canadians are docile sheep by nature now, what is the point of discussing a problem which would require a counterrevolution to solve, when most Canadians don't even vote never mind revolt?

This is why Canada must separate from and leave the country of Quebec because Quebec does own and does run this country. Ontario is just the spokesperson for Quebec. I cannot argue with you when you say that most Canadians appear to be nothing more than a bunch of docile sheep. A tea party appears to be out of the question. The only time most Canadians will get involved with politics is during an election. After the election it certainly does appear as though most go docile once again and could careless as to what the hell goes on in Canada for the next four years. Then they will get involved again. How this country has lasted this long and survived is beyond me. It certainly is being held together by bull shit tape. But hey. 

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Just now, taxme said:

This is why Canada must separate from and leave the country of Quebec because Quebec does own and does run this country.

Agreed, but that only has one lawful path, peaceful self determination by democratic means under the Clarity Act.

The rest of Canada will not bring this corrupt regime down, but the Pequistes will, thus helping them to help us is the only way; vive le Quebec libre is the escape hatch.

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18 hours ago, -TSS- said:

How much of the immigration into Canada is due to Canada belonging to the British Commonwealth meaning immigration from fellow-Commonwealth countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Uganda to name just four but there are many others? 

The most controversial immigration to Canada has lately been from China and China is not in the Commonwealth. 

Citizens of commonwealth countries do not have any special rights in regard to immigration to Canada.  And I would say the most controversial immigration is from the Muslim world.

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I see. I still haven't figured out what the purpose of the Commonwealth even is if it doesn't grant rights or privileges to the citizens of the member-countries.

IWith the controversial immigration I  was thinking about the news that most of the property-market in the western parts of Canada have been taken over by the Chinese mega-rich tycoons. 

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10 hours ago, -TSS- said:

I see. I still haven't figured out what the purpose of the Commonwealth even is if it doesn't grant rights or privileges to the citizens of the member-countries.

Originally the Commonwealth existed within the British Empire as mechanism for consultation on matters of war, just to give the Dominions and Colonies a voice in the war room, they didn't have authority, but to keep them onside and in line the British created a Imperial Commonwealth.

Once the Empire collapsed and the countries had independence is just carried on as a debating club, it's voluntary, informal, ceremonial.

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On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 5:33 PM, Argus said:

A new study done by the Fraser Institute shows the fiscal burden imposed on Canadians from its high immigration rate is now up to $30 billion  per year. That is because immigrants have lower wages and thus pay less tax than other Canadians, while making use of more government resources. They also have a higher unemployment rate and, on average, more children, so receive more in benefits.

Estimating the fiscal burden immigrants impose on Canadians requires data on the average taxes paid and government benefits received by immigrants. Data from the 2016 Census also cited by Gatehouse shows that the average income of recent immigrants aged 25-54 continues to fall short of that of non-immigrants, which means they continue to pay less in taxes on average.

In our most recent study we used basic statistics from the previous census and the National Household Survey to estimate that because of Canada’s progressive income tax system, recent immigrants paid much lower income taxes than non-immigrants. We added to this amount other taxes related to income and wealth, such as the GST and capital gains taxes, and concluded that in 2008-09, recent immigrants on average paid $13,100 in tax compared with $18,000 paid by other Canadians, yielding a shortfall of $4,900 per year.

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-benefits-and-heavy-costs-of-immigration-to-canada

This is based on a Fraser Institute Study of 2011 based on a 2006 census and a SAMPLE of tax filing for immigrants between 1987 and 2004. In fact there is no statistical  info to prove or draw a connection between how immigrants or for that matter any other demographic group benefits from  social programs. This study was quoted by Maxime Bernier. What this study does not show or discuss is the report on labour trends among immigrants that found 2/3rds of them were responsible for national employment gains in 2016-2017. In fact the unemployment rate for immigrant men who have been in Canada 5-10 years was 4.8% lower than Canadian born males who were at 5.6%

The Conference Board of Canada estimates economic growth would slow from about 1.9 to 1,3 oer cent annuallyw ithout immigrants and if Taxme had his way and we had no immigration at all,  by the year 2040 26.9 percent of the population would be over 65.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has stated  that  we have to address a job vanacy rate of 3.2 percent for the last 4 consecutive quarters, 429,000 private sector jobs need to be filled. So that busts the myth about immigrants stealing jobs.

Legitimate immigrants coming in on the express entry system as federal skilled or federal skilled trade workers, entrepreneurs or provincial nominee categories have to show in a point system they speak English or French, have adequate skills, a job waiting for them and are not taking the job from a Canadian and no matter what government has been in power, this immigration system does the same thing because we need people to generate our economy and grow it. This is why no business interest group or anyone who knows anything about economics would quote a 2006 census and a sample of tax filings to make such statements and conclusions,.

Legal immigrants are needed and have never been the issue. In the anger over certain people jumping the legitimate immigration entry systems thanks to the Liberals, it enables anti immigration people who are anti immigrant period to like Bernier pick up on the sentiment. It doesn't help when Trudeau deliberately calls anyone who questions what he has done on our borders with illegals a racist. It further polarizes the debate and fuels people like Taxme who hate any immigrants and then could the issue.

I would say to Argus he needs to read up to date studies and understand the assumption immigrants simply come and take more than they provide is bullshit. The sample of tax filings does not provide an accurate analysis or basis to extrapolate any of the assumptions he has made. It also does not take into consideration that illegals and frauds who misuse our medical system may be US citizens. As for his assuming people make less money then they take from OHIP would Argus have us believe that does not happen with people born in Canada?  Let him provide the statistics of Canadians awaiting citizenship versus rejected refugee applicants versus born in Canada people who use OHIP plus Americans with fake OHIP cards. Until he has such stats, the above article reported by Bernier is a joke and this is why I call Bernier a flatulent moron. He spews negativity to try get votes. He tries to exploit any emotion he thinks will whip up anger. He appeals to people who want to complain and be angry about others because it reflects his own petulant feelings he was unfairly treated by the Tory party. He needs to take his bottle and go home to Mama.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Rue said:

1.  In fact there is no statistical  info to prove or draw a connection between how immigrants or for that matter any other demographic group benefits from  social programs. This study was quoted by Maxime Bernier. What this study does not show or discuss is the report on labour trends among immigrants that found 2/3rds of them were responsible for national employment gains in 2016-2017. In fact the unemployment rate for immigrant men who have been in Canada 5-10 years was 4.8% lower than Canadian born males who were at 5.6%

The Conference Board of Canada estimates economic growth would slow from about 1.9 to 1,3 oer cent annuallyw ithout immigrants and if Taxme had his way and we had no immigration at all,  by the year 2040 26.9 percent of the population would be over 65.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has stated  that  we have to address a job vanacy rate of 3.2 percent for the last 4 consecutive quarters, 429,000 private sector jobs need to be filled. So that busts the myth about immigrants stealing jobs.

2. Legitimate immigrants coming in on the express entry system as federal skilled or federal skilled trade workers, entrepreneurs or provincial nominee categories have to show in a point system they speak English or French, have adequate skills, a job waiting for them and are not taking the job from a Canadian and no matter what government has been in power, this immigration system does the same thing because we need people to generate our economy and grow it. This is why no business interest group or anyone who knows anything about economics would quote a 2006 census and a sample of tax filings to make such statements and conclusions,.

3. Legal immigrants are needed and have never been the issue. In the anger over certain people jumping the legitimate immigration entry systems thanks to the Liberals, it enables anti immigration people who are anti immigrant period to like Bernier pick up on the sentiment. It doesn't help when Trudeau deliberately calls anyone who questions what he has done on our borders with illegals a racist. It further polarizes the debate and fuels people like Taxme who hate any immigrants and then could the issue.

4. I would say to Argus he needs to read up to date studies and understand the assumption immigrants simply come and take more than they provide is bullshit.  

 

 

1.2.  A substantive pair of retorts.

3. Yes, you have succinctly stated why we can't have discussions on immigration.  I will say that Bernier's criticism of the state of affairs is spot-on.  But then again, he does an absolutely shitty job of weeding racists out of his team so he is - DISQUALIFIED.

4. The thing is: a Frasier Report and a Postmedia article (and a shitty CBC 'fact check' done by a journalist with a BA in poly-sci (!)) will get repeated in the public sphere more than ACTUAL papers will.  " The impact of immigrants on Canada's treasury, circa 1990" for example has been cited 43 times.  I found fewer citations to the Fraser Institute study.  The former study found:

"
 Across the country this means that immigrant households contributed $2.6 billion more than their share to the public purse"

Again, the original article seems to ignore economic effects outside of the immigrant's personal contributions/benefits - even if those are correct, which you and others content they're not.

 

---------------

Lots of people feel that immigration policy needs to be looked at and I agree, if only because lots of people feel that way.  The huge amount of disinformation makes it seem that Canadians are much further apart than they are.  As evidenced by the similarities in the approaches of Liberals and conservatives we are not far apart.

 

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3 hours ago, Rue said:

This is based on a Fraser Institute Study of 2011 based on a 2006 census and a SAMPLE of tax filing

All statistical studies are samples. All polling is sampling. And they clearly cite the 2016 census.

Quote

What this study does not show or discuss is the report on labour trends among immigrants that found 2/3rds of them were responsible for national employment gains in 2016-2017. In fact the unemployment rate for immigrant men who have been in Canada 5-10 years was 4.8% lower than Canadian born males who were at 5.6%

Cite? From the study quoted above: Data from the 2016 Census also cited by Gatehouse shows that the average income of recent immigrants aged 25-54 continues to fall short of that of non-immigrants, which means they continue to pay less in taxes on average.

Quote

The Conference Board of Canada estimates economic growth would slow from about 1.9 to 1,3 oer cent annuallyw ithout immigrants and if Taxme had his way and we had no immigration at all,  by the year 2040 26.9 percent of the population would be over 65.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has stated that  we have to address a job vanacy rate of 3.2 percent

The Conference Board of Canada and Canadian Federation of Independent Business are lobbyists for corporate Canada. Their position has always been that the more immigration the better, as it depresses wages and brings in more customers. Nothing they say bears much relation to reality. There have been a number of studies which show that we have no labour shortages and that none are foreseen, among them by the parliamentary budget office. There have also been a number of reports over the years questioning what, if any impact immigration really has on our economy other than to increase the overall size of GDP. Note that increasing overall GDP does nothing to improve the lives of Canadians.

A few are cited  here and  here.

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Legitimate immigrants coming in on the express entry system as federal skilled or federal skilled trade workers, entrepreneurs or provincial nominee categories have to show in a point system they speak English or French,

And they generally do well. However, they are only a small percentage of our immigrant stream. And they are the only ones tested for language, skills and education. Their immediate families, who also come in under the skilled program, are not. Nor are those coming in under the family sponsor program nor of course, refugees, who now make up 9% of our immigrant stream.

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This is why no business interest group or anyone who knows anything about economics would quote a 2006 census and a sample of tax filings to make such statements and conclusions,.

The data was from the 2016 census.

Quote

Legal immigrants are needed and have never been the issue.

You say that like you have evidence to prove it. You do not. You see, despite its national importance, size, and cost, and despite how much impact it has on Canada and its future, the federal government does no studies on what impact immigration has on our economy and society. There are no goals for immigration to reach, and thus no point in trying to see if they're reaching them. What impact has mass immigration had on the economic well-being of individual Canadians, or of Canada as a whole? The Canadian government has no interest in determining this. Thus the only studies we have are from interested parties, mostly from Corporate Canada or from activists and the Immigration industry on the Left.

It's true, however, that it's never been an 'issue' because the central Canada elites in media, politics and academia engage in groupthink and will not permit any questioning of immigration. The media floats endless stories of happy immigants and refugees, and how much they're helping our economy, but never presents anything to support that but some soothing swill doled out by corporate lobbyists or the immigration industry. And they certainly don't go into public housing projects to see the legions of impoverished immigrants and refugees living on welfare, nor comment on the fact almost all the street gangs shooting it out in our urban centres are composed of immigrants and refugees.

Quote

As for his assuming people make less money then they take from OHIP would Argus have us believe that does not happen with people born in Canada?

That's an intellectually silly argument. It's like asking why we should be so picky about letting child molesters and rapists into Canada when we have a lot of child molesters and rapists here. Yes, indeed we do. And we don't need more. Likewise we have a lot of poor people. There is no need to import more.

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2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I will say that Bernier's criticism of the state of affairs is spot-on.  But then again, he does an absolutely shitty job of weeding racists out of his team so he is - DISQUALIFIED.

Any party which calls for less immigration will automatically attract racists. I think they do a decent job of weeding out real ones, and probably less of a job in removing those that progressives think are racists because progressives think anyone who questions immigration is a racist.

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

4. The thing is: a Frasier Report and a Postmedia article (and a shitty CBC 'fact check' done by a journalist with a BA in poly-sci (!)) will get repeated in the public sphere more than ACTUAL papers will.  " The impact of immigrants on Canada's treasury, circa 1990" for example has been cited 43 times.  I found fewer citations to the Fraser Institute study.  The former study found:

"
 Across the country this means that immigrant households contributed $2.6 billion more than their share to the public purse"

You agree with his criticism of the Fraser report, including it being dated (it's not) then cite a paper from 1990 which would be based on the previous census of 1986. Almost all immigrants to Canada prior to that period were from Europe. Even Immigration Canada's own internal studies show that immigrants from Europe earn drastically more than Immigrants from other areas of the world, and most immigrants now are from Asia. See here and here.

 

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It is true that we need an improved immigration policy and in particular be more SELECTIVE as who we admit into Canada (rather than stopping immigration altogether as we do NEED immigrants for future economic growth and secured pensions) but what is not true is the hidden fact from some anti-immigration members posted in this thread that there are also many immigrants who contribute positively to Canada and Canadian society, They arrive and though some initially may depend on assistance (like subsidized tuition fees for college and education) but in the long term they become contributing members of the society which has welcomed them and tax payers for decades to come. They become doctors and engineers and teachers and nurses and workers of many types and help the nation to grow while paying taxes and pensions securing the social programs and future pension plans.That said we may choose immigrants who are more adoptable to Canadian society.

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On 8/22/2019 at 12:21 PM, Argus said:

You are truly a good man to rely only on the Government of Canada for all your information.

I certainly don't.  I also don't rely on what i want to hear.

What's sad is that it's very difficult to get an unbiased assessment on the costs and/or benefits of immigration because everyone has an agenda to prove it's either good or bad, so they'll stack the stats with ones they want while ignoring inconvenient ones.

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1 hour ago, CITIZEN_2015 said:

It is true that we need an improved immigration policy and in particular be more SELECTIVE as who we admit into Canada (rather than stopping immigration altogether as we do NEED immigrants for future economic growth and secured pensions) but what is not true is the hidden fact from some anti-immigration members posted in this thread that there are also many immigrants who contribute positively to Canada and Canadian society, They arrive and though some initially may depend on assistance (like subsidized tuition fees for college and education) but in the long term they become contributing members of the society which has welcomed them and tax payers for decades to come. They become doctors and engineers and teachers and nurses and workers of many types and help the nation to grow while paying taxes and pensions securing the social programs and future pension plans.That said we may choose immigrants who are more adoptable to Canadian society.

I agree that skilled immigrants add positively to the Canadian economy.  However, they are moving to the parts of the country with the greatest population density and bypassing the parts of the country that need economic development the most.  7 out of 10 immigrants move to the Greater Toronto Area.  With 90% of Canada's population tucked within 100 miles of the U.S. border, this pattern of settlement will soon lead to overcrowding and is already a strain on city services and housing.  Even the highly desirable skilled immigrants can be problematic, because they often arrive to cities like Toronto and Vancouver with enough wealth to outbid Canadian born residents on housing.  This phenomenon has made Vancouver the most expensive housing market in North America, with Toronto not far behind.  It's caused a housing affordability crisis and a housing shortage.  Governments are responsible first and foremost to their own citizens in providing the best possible living standards and quality of life.  It's essential for governments to plan settlement responsibly.  There are many small northern communities that don't have enough residents to have hospitals, roads, and schools.  There are lands full of natural resources that can't be developed because there isn't a large enough local workforce available to make such projects viable.  

What's more, when considering climate change and environmental protection from pollution, a balance must be struck between the amount of development and the available carbon sinks (forests and underwater plant life), aquifers (marshes, rivers, lakes, and water systems), and the amount of people they can sustain.  A certain level of population density is also needed to make transportation services such as transit and roads economically viable.

Finally, there's the 1000 pound elephant that always stirs controversy, which is the cultural conflict that can arise when too many immigrants from very different cultures than the local home population settle in one area too quickly.  If immigration was more evenly distributed across the country, the impact of the influence of these cultural differences would be less concentrated.  The local population could better adjust to newcomers because they wouldn't come as a large society-altering wave.  It would also mean that we would have less regional disparity (economically and culturally), less racism among the local home-born population, and less of a divide between rural and urban attitudes.  

When you start reading the posts on this forum, it soon becomes abundantly clear that the real divide is between the urban cosmopolitans who tend to embrace the variety and anonymity of the city with its high immigrant population versus the smaller more Canadian-born settlements where social change happens more slowly and the scale and intensity of the cultural differences found in large cities are often perceived as threats to the Canadian way of life.

It's also why many city residents would support more gun control and more rural residents would not, because guns are used very differently in the country than they are used in the city.  The Two Solitudes in Canada are no longer English versus French and probably not even liberal versus conservative.  It is the new Canada of recent immigrants in large urban areas versus a more traditional, usually more rural way of life.  That divide is mostly the result of settlement patterns, which can only be altered in a politically acceptable way through policy changes that impact newcomers wishing to acquire Canadian citizenship rather than existing Canadians.  I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't continue to allow highly skilled immigrants and their families to immigrate to Canada and live where they choose, but we should have a second category that perhaps lowers the skills requirement but has a geographic residency requirement for a finite period, say of 3-7 years.  

If we don't manage immigration more carefully, we will see a greater strain on municipal services, more cultural conflict and racism, more congestion on transit and highways, a more polluted environment with more rapid climate change, higher home prices, and probably a surge in support for far-right political parties.  We would probably also see drastic cuts to immigration levels overall, which is counter-productive if we want our economy to continue to grow in a healthy way and to provide the pensions and services we value to Canadians.  

Edited by Zeitgeist
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