Does Canada really have an immigration problem? Here are the facts
Whether it’s Donald Trump praising Canada's points-based immigration system, concern over refugee numbers, or Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch insisting each applicant should get a face-to-face interview, Canada’s immigration system has been under the microscope lately.
Chatelaine spoke with Daniel Hiebert, a UBC professor of geography who specializes in immigration, about how it works.
The basics
There are two policy objectives that drive immigration: economic growth and reaffirming Canada's international humanitarian commitments.
The majority of immigrants who come to Canada are admitted based on their potential to contribute to the economy — and most of those people apply under streams that target highly skilled workers. While economic immigrants make up 58 percent of planned immigration in 2017, that number also includes family members the principal applicant is bringing along with them, who they pledge to support.
Others fall under the categories of family reunification (28 percent), refugees and protected persons (13 percent) and a small number are admitted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds (1 percent).
How many immigrants does Canada take in every year?
In 2014, the last full year of Stephen Harper's government, over 260,000 permanent residents were admitted to Canada. That number has grown under the Liberals — but not by much. The target for 2016 was 300,000 — and that same target was kept for 2017. While that number might seem high, it's not a record. In 1913, over 400,000 people were admitted, encouraged by the government’s Western settlement campaign — proportionally, that’s more than five times today’s rates.
Hiebert says people tend not to understand how the number of immigrants translates into proportion of the Canadian population — in a country of 36 million, 300,000 represents less than 1 percent of the population.
How does that number compare to other countries? The United States took in 1,051,031 permanent residents in 2015, or about 0.3 percent of their population of 320 million. One percent is pretty comparable to Australia, which admitted 189,770 permanent residents in the year 2015-2016 — 0.8 percent of their population of 24 million.
Where do immigrants come from?
Here are the top 10 countries immigrants came from in 2015:
- Philippines
- India
- China
- Iran
- Pakistan
- Syria
- United States
- France
- United Kingdom and colonies
- Nigeria
What makes the Canadian system “merit-based”?
In an address to Congress, Donald Trump lauded Canada’s “merit-based immigration system,” characterizing it as a way to ensure immigrants can support themselves and for the country to move away from “lower-skilled immigration.”
The points system for immigrants applying in the skilled worker stream was introduced in 1967 as a way to screen immigrants on merit, without discriminating based on ethnicity or nationality.
Today, those applying as skilled workers are assessed in six categories: English/French skills, education (most points for PhDs), years of full-time work experience, age (most points given to those 18-35), and whether or not they have a Canadian job offer.
The focus on acquiring highly skilled workers, however, has made it incredibly difficult for those in lower skilled professions to become permanent residents.
What are the challenges after arrival?
Hiebert says a common misconception is that because so many immigrants are selected based on their professional experience, that once they get here, everything goes smoothly for them. But the first 10 years in particular are challenging.
A large part of their initial struggle boils down to immigrants trying to acquire Canadian professional credentials, which often takes a significant investment of both time and money.
Although immigrant employment levels are high — in some cities across Canada higher than the general population — they aren't necessarily becoming high earners. In the first 10 years after arrival, immigrants are underrepresented in the top half of income brackets. After that period, however, they are overrepresented — an indication that both the individual and the economy benefits for immigration in the long run, Hiebert says.
Do we need to change the screening process?
Conservative leadership candidates Maxime Bernier and Kellie Leitch have both called for increased screening measures — Bernier is for more rigorous background checks and more face-to-face interviews, and Leitch has advocated that all immigrants get one-on-one interviews.
In Hiebert’s view, this is simply a waste of money since Canada already has “very tough” security and criminality checks. While a small percentage of applicants still get face to face interviews, Hiebert says the government has moved away from interviews not only because of the cost, but also because of the “inevitable bias” that creeps into the application process when relying on opinion of immigration officers.
“If we had great, huge numbers of first-generation immigrants who are running around committing horrendous crimes in Canada it would be very noticeable,” says Hiebert.
While he acknowledges that number isn’t zero, studies by Statistics Canada and researchers like University of Toronto professor Ron Levi looking at youth crime rates in cities have shown that rates are lower among recent immigrants, and immigration in general has been credited as one of the reasons for the continuous decline in crime in Canada.
Is the dilution of so-called "Canadian values" really an issue?
As part of their policy platforms, Leitch and Bernier have said there should be greater emphasis on the preservation of "Canadian values" when selecting immigrants. Bernier's website, for instance, it reads: "Our immigration policy should not aim to forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of Canada, as radical proponents of multiculturalism want.”
“To expect that we will admit 300,000 people per year for the foreseeable future and not have further cultural change is, frankly, preposterous,” says Hiebert. But to Hiebert, that cultural change isn't a bad thing. He points to Canadian values in the 1960s and 1970s, where “it was perfectly acceptable to denigrate Aboriginal people, to tell ‘ethnic jokes’, to ogle women.” In his view, the progress made on these fronts happened alongside immigration — and partly because of it.
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