JOHNSON: A nation of migrants

Sailboat passes in front of the Toronto skylin...Image via Wikipedia
> SOUTHERN INDIANA — As far as we know, the only true natives living in America today are the Indians. Columbus gave them that name. He was wrong...this isn’t India. In Canada, they are called the “First Nations;” this better describes those who were here long before a single European set foot on the continent. So, unless you have “First Nations” blood flowing in your veins, you are an immigrant, or a descendent of immigrants.

Immigrants built this nation; from the earliest days, people have come here looking for a better life, and worked hard to find it. Many fled poverty, persecution, and despotism. They came to experience the freedom to worship as they chose, and to live in a country where inalienable human rights were recognized.

Every new wave of immigration in our history has been met with suspicion and hostility by the people already here. The First Nations certainly didn’t want their land taken away...but it was, with the exception of a few reservations that the French, the Spanish and the English didn’t want.

When the Irish began to arrive on our shores in the early 1800’s, they were stigmatized by those already here as a whiskey-loving people incapable of little more than getting drunk and brawling. To a predominantly Protestant population, the fact that most Irish immigrants were Roman Catholics made them especially undesirable as neighbors. It wasn’t all that long ago when signs that read “No Irish Need Apply” could be seen on the doors of prospective employers everywhere, but especially in Boston, New York and other great cities of the northeast.

About the same time the Irish were coming from the east, the Chinese began to come from the west. The attitude of those who felt threatened by these new immigrants was that as bad as the Irish were, at least they were white. Since their language, customs and culture seemed especially alien, the Chinese were hated, feared and treated with considerable brutality.

In spite of their uncertain welcome, the Irish and Chinese kept coming ... and thank God they did. These two peoples built much of this country’s infrastructure, especially our railroads, bridges, and canals. As some still say today, they took the jobs that no one else wanted ... and did them well.

Later immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe; the Italians, Poles, Slavs, Greeks and others. These in their turn were met with hostility and suspicion by the people already here ... including the Irish and Chinese.

In recent years, our nation has been enriched by the arrival of legal immigrants from every nation, including the Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians; Indians, Africans ... the list is too long to publish. Most arriving on our shores have suffered the same suspicion and rejection as their predecessors ... but have stayed, worked hard and become law-abiding, contributing citizens.

Then there are the immigrants that came here against their wills; Africans who were kidnapped and sold into slavery here in America. Of all the immigrants to reach these shores, their treatment by those already here has been the most brutal; and they have suffered discrimination for the longest period of time ... generations.

In spite of these circumstances, no other immigrant group has contributed as much as they have to the success and culture of our nation. Someday Martin Luther King’s dream will come true; we will no longer classify people by their color or ethnicity, but judge them by the content of their character.

Today, some are concerned about people of Latin descent coming from Mexico and Central/South America. It’s the same old story; just the name of the immigrant group has changed. Latinos have already contributed much to our nation, and will continue to do so, just as immigrants who came before them have done.

Today’s issue is not about immigration, as some would have us believe; it is about illegal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants ... but we are a nation of legal immigrants. We are also a nation of laws. It’s not good to start a new life in a new country by ignoring the law.

Arizona has it right; leaving our borders open and unprotected is dangerous ... and foolish. Illegal drugs are flowing into our country from Mexico almost unimpeded. If our Federal government is unwilling to enforce its own immigration laws, then the states will have to step in out of self-defense.

The Mexican drug cartels are well financed, well-armed, and well-organized; and they are taking full advantage of our government’s inaction. If nothing changes, we can expect a continued escalation of violence on both sides of the border. Crime loves a vacuum. Law enforcement needs more help.

Drug money is a major source of funding for many of the terrorist organizations that have declared war on our freedom. Whether it’s heroin from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, or cocaine from South America, some of that money is buying bombs to be used to blow up innocent people.

Let’s not forget the Canadian border, either. Just because we don’t hear much about it in the news, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be paying closer attention.

In the end, we are a nation of immigrants. Immigration has made us the freest and strongest nation in the world ... the envy of those who desire to live here, and the bane of those who hate our freedom and want to take it away. We are all best served, citizen and immigrant alike, if our borders are secured, and those who desire to live and work in our country come here legally.
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Indian doctor makes to the top in Canada

The Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (l...Image via Wikipedia
Source: hindustatimes
With most Indian doctors in Toronto driving taxis because of non-recognition of their degrees, few have established themselves in their medical profession in Canada. But Amritsar-born physician Birinder Ahluwalia has made it to the very top of his trade, with his BSA Diagnostic Medical Imaging Centre in Toronto rated as one of the biggest and best in this country.
"Last year, we treated a record 70,000 patients and the numbers will be even higher this year. I don't know of any other medical centre in Canada treating more patients than us," Ahluwalia, who is equally well known in cultural circles as one of the founders of the city's Spinning Wheel Film Festival, said in an interview.
For his professional and cultural accomplishments, he was chosen among the top 25 immigrant achievers and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper invited him to accompany him to India in 2009.
"It was so kind of the Prime Minister to invite me to India. Since we are one of the largest medical centres in Canada, they thought it fit to invite me. Maybe I was included because Canada and India also to increase medical tourism," said the alumnus of Amritsar Medical College where his illustrious father Balbir Singh Ahluwalia also taught.
Like all immigrants, Ahluwalia too began his life at the bottom after reaching Toronto in 1985.
"Yes I was a qualified doctor from India, but I started here as a courier boy. But that didn't last long as I made quick moves, becoming assistant to the chief of the RDS Diagnostics as well as training as a diagnostic imaging specialist," he recalled.
Luckily for him, diagnostic imaging was just taking off and the young Indian saw a huge opportunity in this field.
"I set up a small facility under the name of BSA Diagnostic Imaging Centre in 1989 and have not looked back since. We have grown many times over to become one of the biggest in Canada. I was lucky to enter this field at the right time and become financially successful very quickly," Ahluwalia said.
With Toronto earning the dubious distinction of having more immigrant doctors turned taxi drivers than any city in the world, Ahluwalia is angry about the the plight of his fellow professionals.
"Canada is making its system inaccessible to foreign trained doctors on the false grounds that their skills may not be up to Canadian standards. It is bigotry. I have hired more foreign trained professionals and we have become one of the best diagnostic centres in Canada. I tell these people: put immigrant doctors through 6-12 months of training, and they will be wonderfully okay," he said.
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Governments boost training for immigrants

Clark Hall of Brandon University in Brandon, M...Image via Wikipedia
By: Bruce Owen

OTTAWA will spend more than $2 million over the next two years to help immigrants to Manitoba hone their skills and credentials so they can find work more quickly.
Minister of State for Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher and Manitoba's Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford announced the post-secondary programs on Friday.
The money can't come soon enough for Zaheer Ahmad, a student at the University of Winnipeg's internationally educated IT professionals bridge program.
"This will fill in gaps to help us polish our skills," Ahmad said, adding the program will include work placement so students such as him can get work experience. He immigrated from Pakistan three years ago.
"This program will help show you how to get into your related field," he said, adding he's "100 per cent" confident he'll find a job through the program.
The federal funding helps pay for two programs, Fletcher said.
The first pays the province more than $1.2 million to expand programs to upgrade the credentials of skilled foreign-trained professionals through Manitoba's universities and colleges. The province's contribution is $950,000.
"What we're trying to do here is to allow individuals to be masters of their fate and the captain of their souls, and the best way to do that is through education," he added, paraphrasing English poet William Ernest Henley.
The province's bridge-to-work programs are a response by government that many immigrants can't find work in their chosen fields because they don't meet Canadian standards.
The second part of the federal funding will see $942,000 go to the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC) for a project that helps integrate internationally trained immigrants into the workforce more quickly. The project will make the portability of their training and vocational assessments more consistent across Canada.
McGifford, chair of the CMEC, said these programs are needed as immigration to the province continues to grow.
Last year, 13,520 people immigrated to the province, an increase of 263 per cent over the past decade, she said.
The federal funding also expands the bridge-to-work program to include accountants at the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba and the financial-services sector through a new program at Assiniboine Community College. A trades-related program is under development at Red River College. It will focus on construction and industrial electrician trades.
Similar programs already exist at the U of M for foreign-trained doctors, dentists, engineers, teachers and agrologists.

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Canada high on list for Chinese planning to travel, invest abroad

Chinese tourists at their bestImage by Scalino / On The Road Again via Flickr
by Al Campbell
VANCOUVER, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Only a few weeks after finalizing its Approved Destination Status (ADS), Canada has already ranked the third most popular tourist destination among Chinese looking to travel abroad, according to a survey released Monday.
In a telephone poll of 1,080 people living in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the "Research Report on China's Outbound Tourism Market" found Australia the most desired destination of prospective Chinese travelers, followed by Singapore and Canada.
The report was conducted jointly by the Vancouver-based SUCCESS Foundation, EMR International and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada,
Japan ranked fourth, just ahead of the United States, South Korea and New Zealand. Europe (16 percent), currently the most popular Western destination with Chinese travelers after Asia (67 percent) according to the Chinese Tourism News Association, surprisingly ranked 11th on the list of 13 countries and regions. The Middle East was last with only about 2 percent showing interest in visiting the region.
Unlike Australia which has had ADS since 1999, Canada, which only had its status finalized late last month during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the country ahead of the G20 summit in Toronto, was a desired destination of about 13 percent of travelers. Last year, Canada received 160,833 Chinese visitors out of the 47.6 million who traveled abroad.
Historically, countries that have been granted ADS, a designation which allows Chinese tourists to visit in organized, pre-sold tourist groups, have experienced a 40-percent jump in Chinese visitors the first year, increasing to more than 50 percent after two years.
With China forecast to have 100 million outbound tourists by 2020, Yuen Pau Woo, head of the Asia Pacific Foundation, said Canada was uniquely positioned to capitalize on the increasing number of travelers because of the "deep and profound" relationship shared by the two countries.
Currently, Canada and China are marking the 40th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.
"It is this unique connection that we have because of immigration, because of tourists, because of students, because of business ties, that puts Canada, I think, in a unique competitive position to build stronger relations with China. If we have more tourism traffic and Chinese visitors have a better understanding of Canada, in turn Canadians have a better understanding of China and Chinese visitors, suspicions go down, trust goes up," he said.
Other findings listed Canada as the most popular place for emigration among Beijingers, while Shanghai and Guangzhou residents both preferred Australia. Overall, Australia was the most popular destination for emigration among those polled, just ahead of Canada, the United States, Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
While America was the unanimous choice for studying abroad among all three cities polled, Canada ranked first (22 percent) as the favorite country or region for investment. the United States was second (18 percent), followed by Australia (13 percent).
Tung Chan, head of SUCCESS, a non-profit group which helps new immigrants start their lives in Canada, said Chinese investors liked the country for its political stability and that it was seen as a "comfort zone" for its large Chinese community numbering about 1.4 million people.
The survey also found Chinese perceived Canada as a place to lead a relaxed life with its beautiful scenery, fresh air, skiing and maple syrup. About 15 percent of respondents said they would like to travel to the country to ski, while another 15 percent wanted to go for the food and wine.
Last year was historic in terms of Chinese tourism as it was the first time in 30 years the country had a trade deficit. Chinese tourist spent more abroad than what foreign visitors spent in China.

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A few reasons why Canada’s economy is better than the U.S. economy

The United States has long prided itself as being a global superpower, and consequently, celebrating all the things that come with that title. Which is namely, being able to claim you’re the best at most things.
But it looks like Canada can now confidently say it is finally better than the U.S. at one thing (besides winning gold medal Olympic hockey games): economic management.
On Monday, the LA Times ran a piece on why Canada’s economy is defying the nearly ubiquitous trends of economic malaise afflicting the developed world. And it explains why the U.S. is still struggling to recover from the global recession while Canada has almost shrugged off its effects.
“We did a lot of things right going into the financial crisis,” Glen Hodgson, senior vice president at the Conference Board of Canada, told the Times.

It all started in the 1990s, when Canada could have easily been a contemporary member of Europe’s “PIIGS” — an acronym referring to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, countries with bloated debts and sputtering economies. Canada too had a bloated debt in the early ‘90s. It also faced credit rating cuts across the board, and saw borrowing costs spike as a result.
But Canada responded with deep spending cuts to fix what many economists saw as a ticking economic time bomb. The federal government introduced harsh austerity measures that every Canadian felt — social programs were gutted, civil service pay was cut — as Canada attempted to decrease its massive 70% debt-to-GDP ratio.
In the end, after slowed growth and thousands of lost jobs, it worked. By 2008, Canada went into the global recession with a debt-to-GDP ration of just under 20%.
That meant Canada was better prepared than the rest of the developed world to face the effects of the recession. This year, for example, the country’s fiscal deficit is forecasted be $33 billion, well below the 3%-of-GDP threshold that economists consider manageable. Compare that to the U.S.’s 9.2%.
But that’s not the only thing Canada has done better than the U.S. The Times for instance points out that Canada’s banks were heralded as beacons of stability after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the credit crisis in 2008. Banks here are relatively conservative compared to their American counterparts — exposure to sub-prime loans was low and home equity lines, which contributed to the credit crisis in the U.S., are recent offerings in Canada.
Another interesting facet of Canada’s economic success is attributed to the handling of immigration. The Times says that while Canada admits 60% of its immigrants as “economic immigrants” — that is skilled workers, entrepreneurs and investors — only one in seven such immigrants to the U.S. match that criteria.
And that might not change anytime soon. Because illegal immigration is such a dominating topic in the U.S., making changes to the country’s immigration system tend to take a back seat in policy discussion. That means Washington will likely continue to emphasize bringing in family members of current immigrants over targeting highly-skilled workers. Which is simply counter-intuitive, since such people are so crucial to today’s knowledge-based economy.
So will the U.S. wake up and adopt Canada’s best practices? Although all of the above issues have been discussed (and extensively debated) in Congress, it seems unlikely. The immigration issue doesn’t look like it will be tackled anytime soon, considering Arizona’s new immigrant law has pushed illegal immigration to the forefront now more than ever before. Meanwhile, austerity measures haven’t gained much traction in the U.S., and banking reform faces significant opposition in Congress.
Whatever the U.S. ends up doing, one thing is for certain: when it comes to economic management, Canada reigns supreme. And that doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon.
jshmuel@nationalpost.com
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Canada's economy can teach the U.S. a thing or two

Source: Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington — —
Whatever else they've thought about their much smaller neighbor to the north, Americans have almost never looked to Canada as a role model.

Indeed, during the long, bitter push to revamp the U.S. healthcare system, opponents repeatedly warned that, if we weren't careful, we could end up with a medical system like Canada's.

But on healthcare, as well as on such critical issues as the deficit, unemployment, immigration and prospering in the global economy, Canada seems to be outperforming the United States. And in doing so, it is offering examples of successful strategies that Americans might consider.

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While the United States, Japan and much of Europe are struggling with massive fiscal deficits, Canada's financial house is tidy and secure. Most economists say it will take years for the United States to make up the 8 million-plus jobs lost during the recession, but Canada — despite its historic role as a major supplier for the still-troubled U.S. auto industry — already has recovered essentially all of the jobs it lost.

Meanwhile, as Americans continue their grueling battle over immigration, Canadians have united behind a policy that emphasizes opening the door to tens of thousands of skilled professionals, entrepreneurs and other productive workers who have played an important role in strengthening the Canadian economy.

Granted, Canada's problem with illegal immigration is smaller, and its economy does not match the scale and dynamic productivity of the world's largest. But on the most troubling issues of the day, the U.S. is locked in near-paralyzing political and ideological debates, while those same issues are hardly raising eyebrows in Canada.

"We did a lot of things right going into the financial crisis," said Glen Hodgson, senior vice president at the Conference Board of Canada, a business-membership and research group in Ottawa.

One of the most important, he said: Back in the 1990s, it cleaned up the fiscal mess that most every developed nation is now facing.

Earlier that decade, Canada too was straining from years of excessive government spending that bloated the nation's total debts, to 70% of annual economic output — a figure the U.S. is projected to approach in two years.

As with Greece, Portugal and Spain this year, Canada's credit rating was downgraded in the early 1990s, sharply raising its borrowing costs. With its economy suffering and pressure mounting from international investors — Wall Street bankers in particular — Canadian officials slashed spending for social programs and shifted more of the cost burden to provincial governments, which almost everyone in Canada felt.

"I had to share a phone line with another professor. Can you believe it?" recalled Wenran Jiang, who joined the University of Alberta's political science faculty in 1993. Professors there and elsewhere also took salary cuts.

It would take several years of such tough medicine, but as Canada headed into the new millennium, the government's total debts were shaved nearly in half, and then whittled down to a little more than 20% of gross domestic product just before the global recession began in 2008 — by far the lowest ratio among major developed countries.

With the economic downturn, Canada pumped up public spending to stimulate growth, as other nations did. Even so, its fiscal shortfall this year is projected at $33 billion, comfortably below the 3%-of-GDP threshold that economists consider a manageable level of debt.

Washington's deficit this fiscal year is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at $1.35 trillion — or 9.2% of projected GDP.

The United States' larger size — its population and economy are roughly 10 times those of Canada — makes direct comparisons difficult. And many Canadians readily acknowledge that American entrepreneurship and productivity are enviably stronger.

But having learned to tighten their belts in the 1990s, Canadians such as Michael Gregory have little sympathy for U.S. consumers who pile debt onto their credit cards and homes.

"We've been taught: You don't buy what you can't afford," said Gregory, a senior economist at the Bank of Montreal.

Similarly, Canadian banks have been more conservative than American ones. So they made few subprime loans, and home equity lines are relatively recent offerings in Canada.

Yet their solid if unexciting product lines and financial results mean Canadian firms can now expand lending. This as U.S. banks continue to refrain from extending credit, thus restraining spending, investment and job growth.

Canada's stricter banking regulations and bankruptcy rules certainly have played a role too, but Gregory attributes part of the difference to cultural factors. When he worked for now-defunct Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. in New York in the late 1990s, Gregory drove a Ford minivan or a Toyota Camry, while many of his colleagues tooled around in BMWs and other luxury brands.

"It was consumerism. People spent more money, ate out more, bought more stuff," Gregory said. "I felt awkward."

Canadian firms weren't unscathed by the credit debacle and the global economic retreat. And Canada's strong currency — the loonie is worth just a few cents less than the U.S. dollar — is sure to pinch Canadian exports, much of which head south.



But unlike the United States, where the financial crisis turned into the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, the hit to Canada was fairly mild.

In the final quarter of last year, Canada's GDP surged nearly 5%, rising even higher in this year's first quarter. Growth in the U.S. slowed sharply early this year, heightening fears of a double-dip recession.

"U.S. businesses are certainly looking at lessons learned from Canada," said Bart van Ark, chief economist at the Conference Board in New York. "In a nutshell, Canada has been very pragmatic in dealing with the economy."

Its approach to immigration is one example. With one of the highest immigration rates in the world, Canada has been receiving about 250,000 permanent residents annually. About one-fourth of the new arrivals gain entry through family relations, but more than 60% are admitted as "economic immigrants" — that is, skilled workers, entrepreneurs and investors.

In the U.S., it's basically the reverse: Most of the 1 million-plus permanent residents received annually have been family-sponsored; only about one in seven are admitted on the basis of employment preferences.

That is, Washington emphasizes bringing in family members of immigrants already in the United States. Ottawa put the emphasis on admitting those who can contribute to the economy.

Many Americans, of course, don't see that as the key difference. The estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. are what dominate public discussions of immigration policy.

"The thing about the U.S. is you have a border with Mexico, which Canada doesn't," said Jeffrey Reitz, a sociologist and immigration expert at the University of Toronto.

He figures that as many as 300,000 illegal immigrants reside in Canada, not a small number for a country of its size. But there's no really good estimate, which Reitz views as a reflection of just how little the subject weighs on the nation.

"The big issue is how immigrants, though highly skilled, aren't getting jobs as easily," Reitz said.

As for most Canadians' attitude toward immigration, he said, they seem to know that their country needs new arrivals because of Canada's small population and a birth rate that is lower than in the U.S.

"The vast majority of Canadians accept that immigration is essential to the economic and demographic future of the country, and that openness is a Canadian value," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. "I know that sounds terribly crazy to us."

Even as some economists in the U.S. have pushed for a Canadian-style system that gives points for higher education, work skills and experience, the policy discussion almost always seems to hinge on illegal immigrants.

"That sucks all the oxygen from the debate," Papademetriou said. As a result, he said, not much policy attention is given to important concerns — increasing visas for skilled workers, enabling people with advanced degrees to obtain residency, adding greater flexibility to the system to better compete in a global economy.

Over the years, Canada in fact has adapted some of the strengths of the U.S. immigration policy, such as the H1B work visa program, to shore up its weaknesses, he said. The H1B program allows employers to bring in foreign workers in specialty occupations on a temporary basis. The U.S., on the other hand, has dealt with its immigration policy like a political hot potato.

"Canada has really outshone the United States," he said. "That's a reality."
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Record number of workers in Saskatchewan: Statistics Canada

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A record number of people are working in Saskatchewan.
According to Statistics Canada, 539,700 people were working in the province in June, and increase of 4,100 from June 2009.
Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent is the second lowest in Canada. Manitoba holds the lowest at 5.3 per cent. The national average is 7.9 per cent.
Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration Minister Rob Norris says record population and employment shows Saskatchewan is still the place to be for people looking for work.
“Looking forward, we continue to see economic forecasters placing Saskatchewan among the nation’s leaders this year and beyond,” Norris said in a news release.
Regina’s unemployment rate of 4.3 per cent is the lowest among major Canadian cities. Saskatoon is fourth-lowest at 5.8 per cent.
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Canada's economy added 93,000 jobs in June

Bank Of Canada Building - Ottawa 11 08Image by Mikey G Ottawa via Flickr
Statistics Canada reports the Canadian economy added 93,200 jobs in June. Almost all of the jobs added are in Ontario (+60,000) and Quebec (+30,000). The large number of jobs added dropped Canada's unemployment rate to 7.9%. The current unemployment rate in the US is 9.5%. The statistic indicates the strength of the domestic economy in Canada.

The addition of 93,200 jobs is five times more what many economists were predicting for the month of June. About half the jobs added are part-time, the other half are full-time positions. Since July 2009, most of the employment gains have been in full-time work, up 355,000 or 2.6, while part-time work rose by 1.5%.

The private sector was responsible for 51,900 of the new positions. Notable employment increases in June were in service industries including business, building and other support services; retail and wholesale trade; health care and social assistance; and other services such as personal care services and automotive repair. Employment in construction increased by 11,000 jobs. The construction industry has had the fastest growth rate of all major industry groups since July 2009 (+8.3% or +94,000).

In less than one year, Canada has almost made up all the jobs lost during the recession that began towards the end of 2008. The economy has added 246,200 jobs in the last four months alone.

Canadian employers are actively seeking foreign skilled workers to join their workforce. Skilled workers that settle in Canada on a permanent basis are especially valuable to the Canadian workforce. Those with a job offer from a Canadian employer may qualify for fast-track Canadian immigration application processing under the Federal Skilled Worker (Professional) category of immigration.

Source: Canadavisa.com
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Immigration policies must improve to meet economic needs: Report

Pier21 : Museum of Canadian ImmigrationImage by Loutron Glouton via Flickr
OTTAWA — Immigration policies need to be modernized to avoid a stifling of economic growth in the future caused by labour shortages, according to a new report from the Conference Board of Canada.
The Ottawa-based think-tank suggests, among other things, placing more importance on the skills of prospective immigrants and whether they match the labour-force needs of Canada.
The report, written by the Conference Board's chief economist Glen Hodgson, said the recent recession provided some relief from tight labour markets.
However, he predicted the supply of workers will soon become an issue for the country's economic development with steady job growth once again the norm, and the large baby-boomer generation either at or approaching retirement age.
Hodgson wrote: "A country's long-term potential for economic growth, or at least sustainable economic growth, is essentially driven by three factors: growth in the labour force (and total hours worked), investment in physical capital and increased productivity."
He said that while Canada has generally outperformed other industrialized countries in labour-force growth in recent decades, it has lagged in capital investments and improving productivity.
Hodgson reasoned that, without improved immigration policies, Canada will hit a wall in terms of growing the workforce, given that the current birthrate of 1.66 children per woman is far from the level of 2.1 that's considered enough to sustain a population.
The Conference Board report recommends: more weight be given to immigration applicants' skills in relation to Canada's needs: that immigration processes and policies be streamlined between different levels of governments; an expansion in the use of temporary foreign workers to fill short-term needs; involving employers more in the immigration decision-making process; making it easier for temporary foreign workers and foreign students to become permanent residents; and improved recognition of foreign professional credentials.
While promoting more consideration of economic elements in immigration, Hodgson doesn't recommend doing away with other factors such as family unification, humanitarian reasons and protecting refugees.
"An easy way to achieve the economic objective would be to maintain the number of annual immigrants meeting social objectives or criteria and steadily increase the number selected by economic factors," he said.
The Conference Board's report assumes the rate of immigration will grow to about 350,000 per year by 2030 from the government's current target of as much as 265,000.
Despite urging more co-ordinated immigration programs between different levels of government, the Conference Board is not recommending the federal government have a monopoly on this area of public policy.
"Since provincial governments tend to be closer to the ground in terms of their interface with business, their engagement is essential," the report said.

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Why good jobs are going unfilled

Welcome to Canada!Image by Cria-cow via Flickr
By David Frum, CNN Contributor
July 6, 2010 1:27 p.m. EDT
Washington (CNN) -- We're getting to the point where even good news comes wrapped in bad news.
Good news: Despite the terrible June job numbers (125,000 jobs lost as the Census finished its work), one sector continues to gain -- manufacturing.
Factories added 9,000 workers in June, for a total of 136,000 hires since December 2009.
So that's something, yes?
Maybe not. Despite millions of unemployed, despite 2 million job losses in manufacturing between the end of 2007 and the end of 2009, factory employers apparently cannot find the workers they need. Here's what the New York Times reported Friday:
"The problem, the companies say, is a mismatch between the kind of skilled workers needed and the ranks of the unemployed.
"During the recession, domestic manufacturers appear to have accelerated the long-term move toward greater automation, laying off more of their lowest-skilled workers and replacing them with cheaper labor abroad.
"Now they are looking to hire people who can operate sophisticated computerized machinery, follow complex blueprints and demonstrate higher math proficiency than was previously required of the typical assembly line worker."
It may sound like manufacturers are being too fussy. But they face a real problem.
As manufacturing work gets more taxing, manufacturers are looking at a work force that is actually becoming less literate and less skilled.
In 2007, ETS -- the people who run the country's standardized tests -- compiled a battery of scores of basic literacy conducted over the previous 15 years and arrived at a startling warning: On present trends, the country's average score on basic literacy tests will drop by 5 percent by 2030 as compared to 1992.
That's a disturbing headline. Behind the headline is even worse news.
Not everybody's scores are dropping. In fact, ETS estimates that the percentage of Americans who can read at the very highest levels will actually rise slightly by 2030 as compared to 1992 -- a special national "thank you" to all those parents who read to their kids at bedtime!
But that small rise at the top is overbalanced by a collapse of literacy at the bottom.
In 1992, 17 percent of Americans scored at the very lowest literacy level. On present trends, 27 percent of Americans will score at the very lowest level in 2030.
What's driving the deterioration? An immigration policy that favors the unskilled. Immigrants to Canada and Australia typically arrive with very high skills, including English-language competence. But the United States has taken a different course. Since 2000, the United States has received some 10 million migrants, approximately half of them illegal.
Migrants to the United States arrive with much less formal schooling than migrants to Canada and Australia and very poor English-language skills. More than 80 percent of Hispanic adult migrants to the United States score below what ETS deems a minimum level of literacy necessary for success in the U.S. labor market.
Let's put this in concrete terms. Imagine a migrant to the United States. He's hard-working, strong, energetic, determined to get ahead. He speaks almost zero English, and can barely read or write even in Spanish. He completed his last year of formal schooling at age 13 and has been working with his hands ever since.
He's an impressive, even admirable human being. Maybe he reminds some Americans of their grandfather. And had he arrived in this country in 1920, there would have been many, many jobs for him to do that would have paid him a living wage, enabling him to better himself over time -- backbreaking jobs, but jobs that did not pay too much less than what a fully literate English-speaking worker could earn.
During the debt-happy 2000s, that same worker might earn a living assembling houses or landscaping hotels and resorts. But with the Great Recession, the bottom has fallen out of his world. And even when the recession ends, we're not going to be building houses like we used to, or spending money on vacations either.
We may hope that over time the children and grandchildren of America's immigrants of the 1990s and 2000s will do better than their parents and grandparents. For now, the indicators are not good: American-born Hispanics drop out of high school at very high rates.
Over time, yes, they'll probably catch up -- by the 2060s, they'll probably be doing fine.
But over the intervening half century, we are going to face a big problem. We talk a lot about retraining workers, but we don't really know how to do it very well -- particularly workers who cannot read fluently. Our schools are not doing a brilliant job training the native-born less advantaged: even now, a half-century into the civil rights era, still one-third of black Americans read at the lowest level of literacy.
Just as we made bad decisions about physical capital in the 2000s -- overinvesting in houses, underinvesting in airports, roads, trains, and bridges -- so we also made fateful decisions about our human capital: accepting too many unskilled workers from Latin America, too few highly skilled workers from China and India.
We have been operating a human capital policy for the world of 1910, not 2010. And now the Great Recession is exposing the true costs of this malinvestment in human capital. It has wiped away the jobs that less-skilled immigrants can do, that offered them a livelihood and a future. Who knows when or if such jobs will return? Meanwhile the immigrants fitted for success in the 21st century economy were locating in Canada and Australia.
Americans do not believe in problems that cannot be quickly or easily solved. They place their faith in education and re-education. They do not like to remember that it took two and three generations for their own families to acquire the skills necessary to succeed in a technological society. They hate to imagine that their country might be less affluent, more unequal, and less globally competitive in the future because of decisions they are making now. Yet all these things are true.
We cannot predict in advance which skills precisely will be needed by the U.S. economy of a decade hence. Nor should we try, for we'll certainly guess wrong. What we can know is this: Immigrants who arrive with language and math skills, with professional or graduate degrees, will adapt better to whatever the future economy throws at them.
Even more important, their children are much more likely to find a secure footing in the ultratechnological economy of the mid-21st century. And by reducing the flow of very unskilled foreign workers into the United States, we will tighten labor supply in ways that will induce U.S. employers to recruit, train and retain the less-skilled native born, especially African-Americans -- the group hit hardest by the Great Recession of 2008-2010.
In the short term, we need policies to fight the recession. We need monetary stimulus, a cheaper dollar, and lower taxes. But none of these policies can fix the skills mismatch that occurs when an advanced industrial economy must find work for people who cannot read very well, and whose children are not reading much better.
The United States needs a human capital policy that emphasizes skilled immigration and halts unskilled immigration. It needed that policy 15 years ago, but it's not too late to start now.
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