Fewer Asians immigrating to Canada

Since 2006, Canadian immigration applications from many Asian countries have dropped by more than half. Critics claim that the drop in applications from China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan is because the country's recent policy changes favour some immigrant countries over others.

Statistics show a significant drop in the annual number of Chinese, Indians, Filipinos and Pakistanis applying for permanent residency between 2006 and 2011. Specifically, applications from China fell 45 percent; India by almost 51 percent; the Philippines by 32 percent; and Pakistan by 65 percent.

While the number of Canadian immigration applications did decrease overall for the top 10 source countries, the declines of the Asian countries were bigger than English or French-speaking countries. The top 10 source countries include the US, France, the UK, China, and India. 

Additionally, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the number of immigration applications from the US has dropped by only 10 percent and applicants from France fell by 7 percent in 2011.

In recent years, Canada has been making significant changes to the immigration system by tightening language requirements, restricting eligibility to limited occupations in demand, and capping the amount of applications accepted each year.

"I really don't care where people come from as long as they are able to succeed in Canada. I think more employers have the same attitude," Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said. "One issue here is language proficiency. All of the data says the primary reason why foreign trained professionals are not hired in Canada is language proficiency, which is an indicator of people's soft social skills.

Globe and Mail tackles immigration in Canada, says we need to double it

Posted by Bethany Horne on Monday, May 7, 2012

Source: Open file

On Saturday, the Globe and Mail dedicated an entire section to immigration in Canada. “The immigrant answer: A time to lead” series calls for “a flood of immigrants” to help fill more than a million jobs that Canada’s demographers predict will go unfilled by 2021.

The newspaper suggested Canada should double its intake of “economic” migrants—“those selected for their skills,” to raise annual immigration to 400,000 by 2016.

The online version of the series includes an interactive look at the stories profiled in the paper.

Like a small town in Manitoba that actively recruited and retained immigrants who now lead productive, professional lives. (video)

The small community of Steinbach, Man., is a microcosm of Canada's dilemma: In the 1990s, it lacked the population to fill needed jobs, then a new provincial program helped it draw more immigrants.
Today, Steinbach is transformed, having grown by 60 per cent, with newcomers from 40 countries. The town has pulled together to help integrate the new residents.

Or the ways the immigration system is failing us.

There is also an interactive graph (which was a little buggy for me on Chrome this morning but worked great in Opera), plotting out Canadians attitudes towards immigration with one's responses to the the questions “How do you feel immigration affects Canada?” and “How often do you interact with immigrants?” You can rank yourself on the two axes, and then narrow the data down with drop down menus to see where others of your age group, province or gender ranked themselves.

With the data currently plotted, for example, here’s how B.C. compares to the rest of Canada:

In the “Where does your community fit in?” tab, you can enter your postal code and see immigration stats for your neighbourhood or city (the data is from Statscan, 2006). In Vancouver, for example, 42 per cent of the population are immigrants, mostly from China, India, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Most of them were children (under 15-years-old) when they arrived, mostly between 1991 and 2000.

There is more to come in this series. The Globe has put out a news release promising:

Later in the week, South Asia Correspondent Stephanie Nolen will cover why Indians are less inclined to immigrate to Canada, while the Globe's London-based European Bureau Chief Doug Saunders looks at Canada's future through the lens of Europe - and what will happen next if we don't embrace "smart immigration"

The demographics reporter Joe Friesen, who wrote the initial story, will also “examine the cost of an immigrant to Canadian taxpayers and whether geo-targeting is a strategy we should consider.”

So, what is your immigration story?

Photo by MaRS via Flickr