Feds must tread carefully with immigration targets

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/09/2016 (3622 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There appears to be a rather serious disconnect between the public’s perception of immigration into Canada, and the federal immigration minister’s belief that we need even more newcomers than we currently take in.

A survey conducted by Harris/Decima — and paid for by the federal government to the tune of $83,487, according to a recent Globe and Mail report — found that Canadians are generally fine with current immigration targets.

Over the last few years, about 250,000 new immigrants have come to Canada per year. When survey participants were told that number, of more than 3,000 participants, 59 per cent said that was the right amount, 25 per cent said that was too many, and eight per cent said that wasn’t enough.

Friday’s Globe and Mail article also noted a Nanos Research survey of 1,000 Canadians conducted for that paper last August, which found that 39 per cent said the government should accept fewer immigrants in 2017 than the previous year, slightly fewer — 37 per cent — thought Canada should accept the same number next year, while 16 per cent believe we can accept even more.

And yet, Immigration Minister John McCallum has been pushing for a substantial increase to the number of immigrants that Canada welcomes to our shores.

“I think we need immigrants because we’re aging, because we have labour shortages,” McCallum said recently. “And so that is the direction in which we are heading now.

“I think with our mindset of welcoming newcomers in the beginning, with the facts of the labour shortages, aging population, we have a good case to make, and I think we will be able to convince a higher proportion of Canadians that this is the right way for Canada to go,” he said.

There are, of course, good reasons for Canada to rely on immigration. As we have seen in Brandon, at least, a decade of immigration to our city has made our community more multicultural, with many newcomers starting up businesses as well.

These workers have been brought in to fill jobs that Canadians seem not to want, and they keep our working-age population at strong levels, even as the aging baby boom generation moves into retirement age.

As we have documented over the last several years, the rise in newcomers to Brandon has also put a strain on government services and our education system. There is now, more than ever, a need for English as an additional language training in our schools and our community generally, and our classrooms are bursting at the seams with an influx of students.

However, immigration proponents argue that the strain on public resources is offset by increased taxation revenues from having higher populations and increased property values.

A darker perspective on immigration tends to be that our federal government is inviting immigrants from countries with different values than those of the vast majority of Canadians, and that this is creating a great deal of animosity between naturalized citizens and those seeking a better life. This is especially poignant considering the tens of thousands of new refugees coming from Syria into Canada, and the problematic rise of Islamic terrorism around the globe.

There are also concerns that at least some of the newly arrived Syrian refugees have resorted to using food banks in parts of the country due to a lack of money — in part because the federal government has failed to put enough resources toward housing refugees, even as it looks to bring in more.

McCallum’s stated beliefs on immigration fit well with this version of the Liberal party, which rode into power last year by being much more moderate than the former Conservative government that espoused Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Muslim policies.

But the Liberal party needs to tread carefully as it plans immigration targets for 2017. And not merely because increased immigration may provoke a negative reaction from a percentage of the general public.

Yes, arguments can and should be made for strong immigration targets — we should never close our borders for fear of the “other.” But this government also needs to ensure that safeguards are in place so that our new citizens — and potential citizens — don’t overburden a public system that is already under strain.