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The federal government justifies large-scale
immigration on the basis that it is essential to economic growth
as well as to offset the aging of the population and the
increasing proportion of retired persons to workers. These
rationales, however, are not based on facts. The government's own
research indicates that immigration and population increases play
a role at best in economic growth. It is equally clear that only
overwhelming levels of immigration would have any significant
effect on reducing the aging of the population and avoiding
higher dependency ratios and that there are much more practical
ways of dealing with these issues than through immigration.
Similarly, the government's claim that we require immigration in
order to cope with an anticipated shortage of skilled workers is
of questionable validity.
While Ottawa has not released any figures on the overall cost of
immigration to the Canadian taxpayer, it is likely that they are
high, particularly during the past two decades when the overall
economic performance of newcomers has fallen significantly below
that of both earlier immigrants and people born in Canada. A
major reason for this decline has been the priority given to
family class immigrants, none of whom is required to bring with
them either marketable skills or a knowledge of one of our
official languages.
The government's principal reason for promoting high immigration
levels is the belief that most newcomers will vote for the
Liberal Party in federal elections. This is particularly true of
family class immigration, which is the least successful category
in terms of economic performance and should be significantly
curtailed.
In addition to the lack of economic and demographic justification
for current immigration levels and priorities, there are
indications of social problems arising from the difficulties many
immigrants encounter in adapting to the Canadian workforce and
society. The important progress Canada has made in becoming a
more tolerant and welcoming country to people from all over the
world will be placed at risk if we fail to bring immigration
levels and priorities in line with our economic and demographic
needs and absorptive capacity.
To achieve this, it will be necessary to raise public
consciousness of immigration issues through informed debate and
discussion. Only when Canadians are aware of the extent to which
current immigration policies fail to serve the interests of the
country and are prepared to demand that the government make
fundamental reforms are we likely to see a significant
improvement in the situation.
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