Familiarity Breeds Respect

Since the Government of Canada has announced its widely publicized immigration targets for 2023-2025, a great deal of debate and discussion has taken place regarding Ottawa’s plans and intentions.

But before the House of Commons adjourned for its annual Christmas break, Sean Fraser, the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, presented the government’s 2022 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration. The numbers are impressive, particularly against the backdrop of the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, a world-wide economic downturn, geo-political uncertainties in various regions, interruptions to the global supply chain, and the resulting backlog in processing applications.

In 2021, despite these unprecedented and simultaneous shocks, Canada welcomed the most immigrants in a single year in its history. Nearly 406,000 permanent residents were in the economic, family reunification, and refugee/humanitarian streams. Over 191,000 work and study permit holders transitioned from temporary to permanent resident status. Canada welcomed over 415,000 temporary work permit holders and over 445,000 study permit holders.

In his report to parliament, Mr. Fraser said the government must do better. He reported that disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have largely been resolved. However, a backlog continues, impacting processing operations across the globe, challenging its ability to finalize applications. To help address these issues, the minister promised $85 million to fix the backlog problem, which includes the hiring of an additional 1,200 new employees to support processing of applications.

The governments newly announced and much discussed immigration targets: From 405,000 in 2021, to 431,000 in 2022, to 465,000 this year, the annual intake of immigrants is projected to continue to rise to 500,000 by 2025. That does not include people in Canada on temporary work or study permits.

In absolute terms, these are record numbers for Canada. However, kept in perspective, this represents just over 1 per cent of our population, which is it is consistent – in broad terms – with Canada’s historical average. There have been periods when it was lower, but there have also been periods when it was higher, in the periods leading up to and after World War I and World War II, for example.

Some vocal critics of the governments new policy have mistakenly argued that increased immigration increases unemployment, and lowers wages, which is to say that the increase in the supply of labour through immigration will outpace the demand. Experience and real economic data points to the opposite since we live in an environment of high employment and high real wages.

Critics have also speculated that an increased in immigration will lead to a higher demand for housing and therefore higher home and rental prices. Or that our health care system will be under even more stress in the face of high demand from new immigrants.

But as Andrew Coyne points out, people seem to forget that immigrants are a source of both demand and supply. They are not just workers, but consumers. Of course immigrants will add to the demand for housing, and Canada will need to build a lot more houses for them to live in. Workers will be needed to build them – immigrants. There is also no doubt that the health care system is under great stress. But as Coyne reminds us, it was also in disarray 30 years ago when there were 10 million fewer Canadians using it. This is not the “fault” of immigrants; it is the fault of the federal government and provinces who have not been able to work together to build a sustainable health care system.

The study of economics makes clear that the unemployment rate, standard of living, level of environmental degradation, or anything else about a country is primarily a function of the number of people in it. No, the most important factor is how efficiently or not the resources in a society and economy are used.

Canada has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world. We would have a higher GDP with a larger population, but not a necessarily greater GDP per capita only because of that. Larger countries offer more opportunities in the same way that big cities offer more opportunities than small towns. They are magnets for the ambitious, the talented and the entrepreneurial.

It doesn’t mean there will not be challenges. There always are. Careful planning by governments will be critical. It is fair, then, to ask what Canada’s immigration policy is meant to achieve. The consensus is overwhelming that immigration is indispensable to national economic growth and prosperity. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that the real rate of economic growth outstrips immigration growth. Critical gaps in the labour market must be filled. Immigrants with education and skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics  will significantly improve our national productivity. So too would the acceleration of attracting entrepreneurs to Canada.

As recovery from the COVID chaos gains momentum, Ottawa has stressed that our immigration system will remain an essential factor in Canada’s diversity and prosperity, which includes supporting labour force growth and supplying in-demand skills across our broad range of programs.

The positive effects of Canada’s population growth in the past 50 years have been massive. We are a much more interesting, dynamic place than when it was half its current size. It is also a more tolerant place. Today, nearly a quarter of Canada’s population is foreign-born, and 50 per cent in our largest cities.

As Andrew Coyne wrote recently in the Globe and Mail: “Yet we seem more at ease with each other than ever. Popular support for immigration, likewise, is not only strong, but growing. The national and international data on this are conclusive: The greatest hostility to immigration is found in places with relatively little experience of it. Where people regularly encounter people from different backgrounds to their own, on the other hand, it is popular. Familiarity, it turns out, breeds respect.”

Indeed it does. And we are a far better people and country because of it.