Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts

Age, language are key to better outcomes for immigrants

McMaster University, Toronto, Canada. The Univ...Image via Wikipedia

ARTHUR SWEETMAN

Special to Globe and Mail Update
Many immigration issues transcend economics, but Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s cross-country consultation is a remarkable opportunity for an overdue national discussion regarding the role of immigration in the Canadian economy.
Economists, government analysts and others have been documenting the ongoing decline in immigrant labour market outcomes for at least two decades. In 1980, the percentage of immigrants and the Canadian-born living below the low-income cut-off (sometimes called a poverty line) was almost identical at about 17 per cent. Since then, the rate for immigrants increased to more than 21 per cent (in 2005), while that for the Canadian-born decreased to 13 per cent.
Most of the difference appears to be driven by declining labour market outcomes for subsequent cohorts of new arrivals. Immigrants who landed in the late 1970s earned at entry roughly 15 per cent less than comparable Canadians. Since then, the earnings gap has increased significantly and is now in the range of 35 per cent to 40 per cent. The gap narrows as time spent in Canada increases, but it’s not clear that the average recent immigrant will catch up in a reasonable working lifetime.
While federal and provincial governments have taken steps to improve labour market outcomes, more is needed. Research shows there are many factors at play, but two stand out: language ability and age at arrival.
It’s well understood that English- or French-language skills are important for labour market (as well as social) integration for all immigrants, but they’re especially important for the skilled workers we seek to attract.
The Canadian “points” system currently sets the same language requirements for all immigrants. But there’s some evidence that language skills are especially important in facilitating the portability of preimmigration human capital for high-skilled immigrants. Unfortunately, some appear not to have the language skills necessary to fully employ their occupational/educational skills in the Canadian labour market. Putting increased emphasis on language ability at selection for the highly skilled seems to make sense if a “fast start” is desired. Simultaneously, providing settlement resources to allow more extensive language training would be a good investment.
Demographic issues also interact with economic ones. There have been suggestions that immigration’s economic class (as opposed to family or refugee class) be employed to address the dependency ratio associated with population aging. But the actual operation of the system does not appear to have paid any attention to this goal. While those in the skilled worker category are awarded points for “age,” these don’t align with demographic needs. (Strangely, neither do they align with the observed age profile associated with positive labour market outcomes. Rather, they are flat and at their maximum from age 21 to 49.)
As a result, the demographic peak for current immigrants coincides with the peak for the baby boom and, therefore, increases rather than alleviates problems associated with baby boomers’ impending retirement. While a sensible immigration system can only influence our nation’s age structure a little one way or the other, the immigration system could start to “fill in the Generation X valley” between the hills of the baby boom and baby boom echo.
Finally, the immigrant selection system needs better/more management tools and transparency. The “inventory” (backlog) of applications is untenable and requires action. While recent changes are going in the right direction, they appear to be insufficient. One million people are currently waiting to be processed, and more are added to the list every day.
Additional measures – such as increased preliminary screening and stronger proactive management of the application process for the economic class, including adjusting the points threshold to manage the queue – would be beneficial. Coming to admission decisions more quickly and improving economic outcomes for new immigrants will be better for prospective immigrants and for Canada. Increased transparency, including regular detailed reporting of processing times, might also assist in improving system operations.
Arthur Sweetman is a professor in the Department of Economics at McMaster University. He recently presented research findings at the Institute for Research on Public Policy’s conference on Canada’s long-term immigration policy.

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Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: Welcome to Canada!

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OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - July 28, 2011) - You've made Canada your new home and are probably in the process of searching for a place of your own. Looking for a home can be a very exciting experience that can be both rewarding and challenging.
As Canada's national housing agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has been providing Canadians – including new Canadians like you – with information and tools to help you make informed homeownership decisions.
Canada's population growth is becoming increasingly reliant upon immigration. In the 2006 Census, close to six million Canadians identified themselves as immigrants, representing about 20 per cent of the entire Canadian population.
To help new Canadians make informed housing-related decisions and find safe, affordable homes for their families, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has developed a multi-language one-stop online source for housing-related information. Visit CMHC at www.cmhc.ca/newcomers.
CMHC wants to provide newcomers to Canada with relevant and culturally appropriate housing-related information. A wealth of information is available for newcomers in both official languages – English and French – as well as in Mandarin/Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog and Urdu.
This housing-related information is divided into three areas to make things simpler: Renting an apartment - for most newcomers, your first home will likely be a rented house or apartment. Renting a home should provide you with a safe place where you can begin to adjust to your new life in Canada. It can also give you the time to look for a home to buy without feeling pressured into making a quick decision; Buying a home - CMHC has created a series of guides and tools that take you through the home buying process; and Looking after your home – which will help guide you on how to take care of your home and prevent problems before they happen. Don't forget to also check out the videos on buying, renting and renovating a home.
For more information or for FREE information on other aspects of renting, buying and renovating a home in Canada, visit www.cmhc.ca/newcomers. For 65 years, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been Canada's national housing agency and a source of objective, reliable housing expertise.

Contact Information

For story ideas or to access CMHC experts or expertise
CMHC Media Relations - National Office
(613) 748-2799
media@cmhc-schl.gc.ca


 

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Immigrants need cash in hand and have to be prepared for tradeoffs, sacrifices

By: LuAnn LaSalle, The Canadian Press
 
MONTREAL - Newcomers to Canada, get ready: being mentally prepared to make sacrifices or tradeoffs when you arrive on these shores is very important, immigrants who have already made the jump told a recent Royal Bank poll.
The survey found that 58 per cent of Chinese and South Asian immigrants who responded named emotional preparedness as the key for newcomers adjusting to life in Canada.
A big part of that mental preparation is also the key for meeting financial challenges that can await immigrants, according to one recent arrival.
"When anybody comes here, I think the requirement is that they must have $15,000 for immediate expenses," said Ash Ghose, who came from India in 2004 and works in insurance at RBC (TSX:RY) in Toronto.
"The first two or three months are fine, but if you do not have any source of income coming in after four or five months then the panic sets in."
Ghose, who trained as a mechanical engineer but notes that "all my life I have been a salesperson," said he sold off everything he owned in India and came over with two suitcases and some paintings.
"I built everything from scratch here, but that is something one has to be mentally prepared for."
The RBC poll also found that 47 per cent of immigrants surveyed conducted online research to understand more about life in Canada.
Judy Sillito of the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers said any research that can be done before arriving is helpful, but added that immigrants need an "openness to the unknown." She also said immigrants aren't always prepared for the sticker shock of living in Canada.
"They get here and find out it's not so easy to make a lot of money and have enough to live on, much less send a lot home," said Sillito.
"There's absolutely no way to explain that to someone who hasn't been in Canada."
She said another surprise for immigrants is finding out how much time new Canadians can spend at work.
"When you come to a new country and you have to work and day job and a night job and do weekend work, it really takes a toll on the family," said Sillito, whose organization serves 10,000 immigrants a year.
Mikal Skuterud of the University of Waterloo said immigrants tend to be older and much more educated than Canadian-born workers, but they often have to take jobs that pay less than their education would imply they should earn.
"Their unemployment rates are not that different from Canadian-born workers," said Skuterud, assistant professor in the university's department of economics.
"They do get jobs and they get jobs quite quickly but they're not very good jobs. They're what immigrants refer to as 'survival jobs.' They appear to get stuck in these jobs. They have a very low propensity to move out of these jobs and get into the track or career they were trained for."
Statistics Canada's 2006 census found that a recent male immigrant with a university degree earned $30,332 yearly, versus $44,545 for a Canadian-born man with a degree.
Nick Noorani, a motivational speaker and consultant who helps immigrants integrate, said it's essential to have the proper language skills, especially on the job. If you're an immigrant and a sales manager, you need to have the same language skills as a Canadian-born sales manager, he said.
Immigrants need to consider what other skills they have to find work, he said, adding his background was in advertising but he turned to publishing when he came to Canada.
"You need to have a Plan B," said Noorani, chief executive of Destination Canada Information Inc.
"When we come here as immigrants we are so focused on, 'This is what I used to do and I want to continue doing only that.' That leads to a problem."
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Canada is the Third Best Place to Start a Business in the World

...according to the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index.
Canada also ranked third in the closing a business category and ranked fifth for protecting investors.
The World Bank's Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations for local firms in 183 economies and selected cities at the subnational level.
According to the detailed data on starting a business, starting a business in Canada requires only one procedure, it takes on average five days to register a firm, and the cost, as calculated in percentage of income per capita, is 0.4 percent.
Compare these figures to a country such as Greece, where starting a business requires 15 procedures, it takes 19 days to start a business, and costs 20.7 percent of income per capita, and we look really good.
The worst place to start a business in terms of jumping through hoops is Equatorial Guinea where an astounding 20 procedures are necessary to start a business. And if you have any thought of starting a business in Suriname, you better get started; it takes 694 days, just short of two years, to get one started there. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the most expensive country to start a business; it costs 735.1 percent of income per capita to set one up.
And where is it easier to start a business than in Canada? New Zealand ranked number one, followed by Australia.
Overall, Canada came in seventh for ease of doing business, following Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Denmark - perhaps because of our low scores on enforcing contracts and trading across borders.
By Susan Ward, about.com guide


 
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Each immigrant costs Canada $450 per year: report

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By: Jon Woodward, ctvbc.ca
Date: Tuesday Jul. 26, 2011 9:49 AM PT
A team of B.C. economists has cut a conservative think-tank's estimate of the cost of immigration down to size.
Two months after the Fraser Instituteestimated that each immigrant on average costs the Canadian government $6,051 per year – a total cost of as much as $23 billion – Mohsen Javdani and Krishna Pendakur of Metropolis British Columbiatook another look at their numbers.
Using a wider sample size of immigrants, correcting calculation errors, and using data where it was available rather than estimates, the pair found a far lower annual cost of about $450 per immigrant, or about $2 billion per year.
"We find that there's a significant fiscal effect of immigration," Javdani said. "But we do not conclude that immigrants are a burden to the Canadian economy."
Javdani added Canada needs to find programs that benefit new arrivals to improve immigrants' labour market potential and performance, which would inject money into the Canadian economy.
The authors are both economists at Simon Fraser University.
Taxes vs. benefits
Both studies attempted to figure out whether immigrants fully pay for in taxes the public services that they use, like health care or education.
The Fraser Institute's study was an attempt to gauge whether our system should move to select for would-be immigrants who already have job offers, according to co-author Patrick Grady.
"Canada has to develop a much better system of assessing immigrants coming in," Grady told CTV News in a phone interview. "They can't seem to tell if a person is going to be able to find a job at a good salary or if they'll find employment at their profession and skill."
The Fraser Institute study looked at immigrants arriving after 1987 – about 4 million people – and compared them to average Canadians in the same time frame. The result was a report sharply critical of immigration.
It recommended that Canada only allow immigrants with employment lined up, and keep citizenship only if the immigrants hang onto their jobs.
The Metropolis study, which was given to CTV News before it is to be publicly released, at first set out to correct calculation errors in the Fraser Institute report, which it said were "apparently typographic in origin." Corrected calculations reduced the difference to $5,473.
Where the Fraser Institute estimated property taxes paid by immigrants – 72 per cent of the Canadian average -- the Metropolis team dug up data on immigrant households to find they actually pay about 96 per cent of the Canadian average.
"We prefer data to guesses," the report noted dryly.
The pair also widened their sample size, going back to 1970, which would capture more immigrants in their prime earning years.
"If you look at the longer term, these immigrants are going to contribute through earning higher incomes and paying higher taxes," said author Javdani.
That change reduced the estimated cost to $2,470 per immigrant, the report said.
Instead of comparing the immigrants to the average Canadian – which would include immigrants as well – the Metropolis study compared the immigrants to the Canadian-born, and found immigrants took $554 less in benefits.
They also ignored "public good" government expenditures that are less directly related to the size of the population, such as national defence – a difference of $,1692 per immigrant.
The end result was a much lower annual total cost of $450 per immigrant – about seven per cent of the Fraser Institute figure, and a very different conclusion, said Javdani.
Immigrants tend to be poorer
Javdani said the lesson is that immigrants tend to be poorer than Canadians, and that means we need programs that can help them succeed.
Kanako Heinrichs runs Queensberry Flower Company located in Granville SkyTrain Station. She said when she came from Japan in 2007 with her new Canadian husband, it was difficult to get a job.
"Most immigrants can relate to that," she said, adding that the hardest part was bouncing around through low-paying, dead-end jobs. "It's tough."
She contacted immigrant services agency SUCCESS, and they helped her develop an idea of bringing a Tokyo-style flower shop into a subway station. The project has been a huge success, to the point that she is opening another shop in the Yaletown subway station, which will employ more people.
"Everybody has a different background. In my case, I brought what I know very well over here," she said. "That's what immigrants can do. Brand new ideas, brand new products, new concepts that make the city more exciting."
Javdani said her story is a good example of how difficult it is to filter immigrants. "If you limit settlement in Canada to the people who have a job offer, you limit opportunities that immigration may bring," he said.
SUCCESS CEO Thomas Tam said the $450 per immigrant is an investment that pays off in the connections that immigrants make with the world, and the ideas and opportunities they bring Canada.
"We see thousands of immigrants, they settle down, they find a job, some create jobs for other people," he said.
Grady of the Fraser Institute said the institute stands by its report, with some corrections that he said don't dramatically change the final cost.
He rejected the Metropolis team's choice to go farther back than 1987, because immigrants from before that time largely came from developed countries. Since then, a court decision has required the government to accept applications from all over the world.
"Canadian taxpayers are going to be subsidizing future generations of immigrants if they keep coming at the rate they're coming. It's going to exacerbate the problems that we're going to get with respect to the aging of the population, and it's not going to solve the problem," Grady said.
 
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Immigrants' health woes focus of new guide

Photo of Tabaret Hall with the Desmarais Build...Image via WikipediaCanadian doctors now have their largest, most comprehensive reference guide yet to use in treating immigrants and refugees.
Compiled from global data, the 100-page report published Monday by the Canadian Medical Association Journal is the first of its kind and synthesizes results from 150 investigators.
The guidebook highlights medical problems that are common among immigrants and refugees but can easily get overlooked because they're not typical in the wider Canadian population.
Dr. Kevin Pottie of the University of Ottawa, and founding director of the Immigrant Health Clinic of Ottawa, co-authored the report that recommends migrants visit a doctor more than once a year.Dr. Kevin Pottie of the University of Ottawa, and founding director of the Immigrant Health Clinic of Ottawa, co-authored the report that recommends migrants visit a doctor more than once a year. (CBC) "Immigrants are coming from 150 countries," notes Dr. Kevin Pottie of the University of Ottawa, who co-authored the guidelines. "Some of them come as refugees, some under family class. So, there's a large diversity of needs and potential preventable and treatable illnesses [that] the average family doctor just isn't thinking about."
Pottie hopes to develop an international set of guidelines in terms of treating migrants.
"We need to see health as a human right, and small interventions are all that's needed for all immigrants," Pottie said in an interview with CBC News.
The guide, titled Evidence-based Clinical Guidelines for Immigrants and Refugees, instructs physicians on how to deal with the kind of health risks faced by the 357,000 annual migrants to Canada, including refugees, international students and migrant workers.
It says the post-arrival "healthy immigrant effect" is declining and recommends that doctors get their migrant patients to visit them more than once a year.
Specifically, certain immigrant groups suffer from higher incidences of some diseases compared with people born in Canada: Southeast Asians from stroke, Caribbeans from diabetes and all immigrant men from liver cancer.
Also, the report says many immigrants are susceptible to diseases that are often preventable through vaccines:
  • 30 to 50 per cent are susceptible to tetanus.
  • 32 to 54 per cent are susceptible to measles, mumps or rubella.
  • A significant number come from countries with chronic hepatitis B infections.
The guidelines recommend that:
  • All adults without immunization records be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio.
  • Adults and children from countries with chronic hepatitis B be screened and vaccinated.
  • Adolescents and adults from places where HIV is prevalent (i.e. greater than one per cent of the population) should be screened, with informed consent.
  • All immigrants greater than 35 years of age from areas of the world at high risk, which includes South Asia, Latin America and Africa, be screened for for Type 2 diabetes
  • All women of reproductive age and children aged one to four should be screened for iron-deficiency anemia.
  • All migrants should be checked for dental pain.

A time-saver for treatment

Pottie said the guidebook can be an effective tool for time-saving and inexpensive treatment. He cites the presence of intestinal parasites in some migrants. He said most doctors would probably find, on average, 12 parasites, and most doctors wouldn't know which ones to treat.
"We've discovered, through a detailed look at evidence, that virtually all these parasites will go away except for two: strongyloides and schistosoma, which are particular to Asia and Africa. So we're able to refine it to a simple blood test."
Dr. Meb Rashid runs a clinic inside a refugee centre in downtown Toronto, A family physician for 17 years, Rashid has worked mostly with refugees and immigrants for the past eight years. He applauds the guidebook, which will help doctors intervene faster when it comes to possible illnesses in their migrant patients.
"There are physicians in rural Canada who may be just starting to see some of these diseases, and I think these guidelines will be immensely helpful to those people," Rashid told CBC News. "It's well-organized and easy to reference."

Refugees at higher risk

The guidelines say it's important to distinguish whether a person came to Canada through voluntary or forced migration, as those who have been displaced against their will face the most significant health risks.
They say refugees have experienced "past exposure to harmful living conditions, violence and trauma," and note that many experience a rapid decline in health after arriving in Canada and need more care and attention to their medical needs.
New guidelines say it's important to find out whether a migrant to Canada has been forced to leave their homeland. Refugees suffer from more health problems.New guidelines say it's important to find out whether a migrant to Canada has been forced to leave their homeland. Refugees suffer from more health problems. (CBC) Refugees, of which Canada takes in 28,000 a year, are especially vulnerable to depression and other anxiety disorders, the guidelines say. The report recommends physicians use "culture brokers," and not anyone related to the refugee, to help with treatment and to monitor progress and address the social causes of the depression. It proposes "empathy, reassurance and advocacy" and cautions against pushing for "disclosure of traumatic events," which causes more harm than good.
The guidelines include a section on AIDS. It warns that while many HIV-positive migrants may already be aware of their status, they may not be knowledgeable about treatments.
The report warns that migrants may come from countries where there is a strong stigma against HIV-positive people. It counsels health professionals to inform patients of the "risks and benefits of treatment in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner."

Tread carefully on condom issue: guidelines

On women's health, the guidelines say "culturally sensitive" contraceptive counselling should be offered to women who are or could be sexually active, and they should be given a choice as to what method they want to use. The guidebook underlines that condoms are often taboo in some cultures and seen as an indication of promiscuity, infidelity or having a sexually transmitted infection, so there needs to be careful explanation about their use.
As well, it says that females between ages nine and 26 years should be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
Migrant and refugee women are also at greater of risk of violence from their husbands and complications connected to their pregnancies, including sexually transmitted infections, chronic pelvic infections, reproductive tract trauma and psychological trauma, the guide says.
It says doctors should be aware the women may be reluctant to talk about their health problems and also unaware of their rights and of the medical services available to them.
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Project connects immigrants with small businesses

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Globe and Mail Update
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After a two-year job hunt, Richie Sanasy finally found a business looking to hire newcomers to Canada like him.
Despite a business management degree and accounting experience, Mr. Sanasy had been unable to find relevant work since arriving in Kitchener, Ont., from the tiny island of Mauritius.

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Then, last year, he met Prakash Venkataraman, president and chief executive officer of Brantford, Ont.-based Redragon Oil and Gas Systems International Inc. The manufacturer of custom utility and recycling engineering was looking specifically for bilingual newcomers with overseas connections to help the business expand internationally.
It’s the kind of fit that far too many small and medium-sized businesses and new immigrants overlook, according to an upcoming report from the Maytree Foundation, a charitable agency.
Many small business owners are in desperate need of skilled workers, but are either unaware of or don’t consider the qualified pool of new immigrants that have already arrived in Canada, says Maytree president Ratna Omidvar.
At the same time, many newcomers want to work at large companies they’ve heard of back home but either do not know of or don’t think about approaching smaller companies that could use their skills, she adds.
Maytree has set up a new project under its Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies (ALLIES) that is trying to come up with strategies to connect the two, contending it will bring benefits to both. ALLIES, in partnership with The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, began the new initiative last October; it will wrap up its consultations with small businesses this fall and use its findings to help formulate pilot projects to be later rolled out.
Canada brings in about 250,000 immigrants each year, according to Maytree. While the largest group is skilled immigrants, only one in four immigrants is able to find employment relevant to their education and experience, Maytree has found.
About 30 per cent of immigrants who have come to major cities including Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax in the last decade hold a bachelor’s degree, according to Maytree.
Ms. Omidvar points out that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) hire 64 per cent of private-sector workers in Canada, so immigrants are overlooking many job possibilities if they don’t consider them as potential employers.
But “part of our challenge is that new immigrants don’t tend to go to SMEs,” she says.
At the same time, smaller companies may lack the human resource expertise and staffing to reach out to and recruit the ready pool of immigrants that are right at their doorstep, she says.
Ms. Omidvar says it may feel daunting for a smaller business, whose owner may be in charge of hiring, to interpret overseas qualifications and check up on foreign references. Costs associated with training or making a wrong hire may make a newcomer applicant seem riskier than someone with extensive Canadian experience and education, she says.
“We understand that mitigating risk is a huge factor for any employer. No employer wants to take a risk but bigger employers may be more likely,” she says.
Existing programs that bring small businesses together with immigrants are spotty throughout the country. One, the Waterloo Region Immigrant Employment Network (WRIEN), funded by the Ontario government, helps employers connect with immigrants by running networking and internship programs.
It was through that network that Redragon’s Mr. Venkataraman met Mr. Sanasy at an event last year. Mr. Venkataraman, who is originally from India, says he understands the employment hurdles newcomers face since he’s an immigrant himself.
Before meeting Mr. Venkataraman, Mr. Sanasy spent two years searching for jobs in his field while working in manual labour jobs and attending college.
“I was ready to hit the ground running but needed this one opportunity to start my life here,” says Mr. Sanasy,. “It was quite hard.”
At the event, the two chatted about business. Mr. Sanasy was offered an interview and later hired for a shipping and receiving job at the company. Within six months, he was promoted to materials manager.
Mr. Venkataraman says initiatives including WRIEN have helped him recruit recent immigrants from India, Australia, the Philippines, Cuba, the Middle East and Sri Lanka. Those international connections and the fact that his 30 employees speak a total of 25 languages have helped Mr. Venkataraman expand his business to hundreds of clients worldwide since opening in 2005, he says.
“It’s the chicken-and-the-egg case,” Mr. Venkataraman says.”You need to give them the opportunity before you can expect Canadian experience.”
Other small-business employers have also seen opportunity in recruiting immigrants that have already arrived in Canada.
Peter Kelk, president of George Kelk Corp., says he relies heavily on LinkedIn to recruit talented newcomers. Being open to international applicants has meant the majority of his hires have been newcomers, he says.
“We’re a high-technology company and the immigrant population tends to be highly educated,” says Mr. Kelk, whose Toronto-based company produces sensors for steel rolling mills.
He says checking international references has become easier with the increasing popularity of the Internet worldwide.
“It’s simply that we’ve been open-minded,” Mr. Kelk says. “It’s not charity on our part; it’s good business.”
Despite academic qualifications, getting an interview with companies other than the likes of Redragon or Kelk may be stymied by lack of Canadian experience, says Anil Verma, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and the Rotman School of Management.
Employers are looking for professionals like engineers and electricians who already know country-specific standards and regulations, he says.
“These newcomers need some kind of investment in training and opportunity to work, let’s say, as an intern or apprentice,” Prof. Verma says. “Small businesses do not have a surplus of the manpower or the time or cost to give these opportunities to people, so this is what causes the mismatch.”
To help bridge those kinds of gaps, Maytree’s preliminary suggestions include more internship programs throughout the country that could be subject to government wage subsidies. 


 
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Safety first: Foreign investors bond with Canada

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DAVID PARKINSON | Columnist profile | E-mail
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published 
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Canadian investors have long been accused of being homers. As the rest of the world has been telling us lately, that might not be such a bad thing.
Despite the elimination of foreign-content restrictions on registered retirement savings plans six years ago, most Canadians still keep the vast bulk of their investments in domestic securities. A recent study showed that even the country’s wealthiest investors – those with more than $250,000 to invest – average only 15 per cent of their portfolios in overseas holdings.

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But while investing experts have been telling us for years that we should be looking beyond Canada, data this week from Statistics Canada highlighted that foreign investors have increasingly been flocking to Canada. Foreign buyers snapped up a net $15.4-billion of Canadian securities in May, adding to a year that is shaping up as another big one for foreign buying of Canada’s stock and bond markets.
Seeing as most of us – for better or worse – have most of our money in the Canadian market anyway, it might be worthwhile taking a closer look at what those investing tourists in our country have been buying.
Destination of choice
Warren Lovely, head of macro strategy at CIBC World Markets, broke down Statscan’s data in a report this week to get a better sense of where the foreign money has been flowing.
While equity purchases are up significantly for the year to date, bonds have increasingly replaced equities as the destination of choice for foreign buyers – punctuated by a big surge in bond buying in May, particularly in federal government and federal Crown corporation bonds.
The impetus may be the deterioration of the government debt situation in Europe and the United States, which has fuelled a flight to safe, high-quality bond markets such as Canada. At the same time, it has convinced investors to step back from so-called “risk assets,” such as equities. Canada is being perceived as a low-risk market in risky times, and government bonds are the lowest-risk option for investors.
Crowning your portfolio
One particularly interesting trend has been the sharp gains in buying of bonds issued by federal Crown corporations. Mr. Lovely said that as big foreign buyers such as central banks have become more comfortable with Canada, they have begun to move past the federal government debt to buy high-quality Crown issues such as Canada Mortgage Bonds – which carry the same top-notch credit rating but offer higher interest rates.
“It’s yield enhancement without erosion in credit quality,” he said – adding that this same logic makes sense for smaller retail investors, too.
“There is a very strong argument that this could be a diversification tool for investors of all stripes.”



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A reflection on immigration policy: two years after Adjusting the Balance.


Source: Maytree Conversations.
By Naomi Alboim, Maytree Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University
Naomi AlboimWhen I wrote Adjusting the Balance: Fixing Canada’s Economic Immigration Program, published by Maytree, I argued that the federal government was making incremental changes to immigration policy, which together represented a radical negative shift in immigration policy, without debate, without consultation and without the benefit of a national framework.
Two years later – things are worse, not better.
When we wrote the paper in 2009, the federal government had limited the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) Program to applicants with experience in 38 occupations or a job offer. We argued that Canada’s dynamic, knowledge-based economy needs a much broader range of occupations and skills. The federal government’s own evaluation of the FSW Program in 2010 (PDF) found that, historically, those immigrants chosen for their human capital have higher incomes than those selected because of their occupation.
Yet, this month the government announced that it would continue to limit applicants to those with job offers or on a list of occupations (now a shorter list of 29). A maximum of 10,000 applications will be considered for processing until July 2012. Within this 10,000 cap, each of the 29 occupations is also capped at 500 applications.
Instead of increasing the number of FSWs, the government has continued to give priority processing to Provincial Nominees and Temporary Foreign Workers, at the expense of the Federal Skilled Worker Program.
In other words, they are continuing to place limits on those selected under the FSW Program despite the fact that they have the highest incomes and best long-term job prospects of all immigrants to Canada.
To its credit, the federal government is reviewing the current point system for Principal Applicants within the FSW Program. They appear to be taking into account the findings of their evaluation, to improve labour market outcomes for these immigrants even further. This could include allotting more points for demonstrated language capacity, youth and experience in the skilled trades, as we recommended in 2009. However, these changes will be for naught if the numbers and proportion of new applicants continue to be reduced and restricted to 29 specific occupations.
As well, there are ongoing concerns with a system that continues to prioritize temporary foreign worker applications.
Most temporary foreign workers arriving to Canada are highly skilled. But, among other concerns, our 2009 report highlighted the problematic growth in the Pilot Project for Occupations Requiring Lower Levels of Formal Training, suggesting that it should be abolished. These workers are filling jobs that aren’t necessarily “temporary” but rather harder to fill, for example in meat packing plants and in hotel janitorial services. Rather than improving the wages and working conditions for these jobs, reaching out to unemployed and under-represented groups already in Canada, or bringing in more family class members and refugees to fill those jobs on a permanent basis, the government has chosen to continue bringing in significant numbers of temporary foreign workers under this “pilot” program.
While they have the right to most of the same protections as other Canadians and permanent residents under provincial employment legislation, temporary foreign workers filling low or unskilled jobs are more vulnerable to abuse because of language barriers, lack of knowledge about their rights, limited access to agencies that can help them (especially when they are working in remote parts of Canada), and inadequate enforcement of employment legislation. Further, temporary foreign workers are not eligible for federally funded settlement services.
Regulatory changes effective April 2011 introduced penalties for employers who exploit temporary foreign workers but they still do not address the root problems of this program. Instead, they rely on vulnerable workers themselves to initiate complaints who are unaware of their rights and fear loss of employment or deportation. The four-year time limit for temporary foreign workers to legally remain in Canada serves to penalize them further. It also serves to keep them in limbo for a long period of time, with no access to services or permanent residency, and the additional rights and protections that come with that status.
A dramatic sea change in Canada’s immigration system, policies and priorities is under way, including:
  • a significant reduction in the number of sponsored parents and grandparents to be admitted to Canada;
  • a delay in the awarding of permanent resident status to sponsored spouses with a concomitant withholding of rights and access to services, resulting in increased vulnerability;
  • recently re-tabled legislation proposing that refugee claimants be placed in detention for one year if they arrive by “irregular” methods to Canada;
  • the legislation also proposes the draconian treatment of claimants who are determined to be bona fide refugees despite their “irregular” arrival (including delayed access to travel documents, permanent residence status, and family reunification); and
  • a reduction in federal funding for settlement programming.
All of this suggests there is a need for real public debate about what kind of country we want to be and what kind of immigration policy best leads us there.
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