Business immigrants continue to take top billing in Canada

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• By David McKie

A lot of the talk about immigration recently has focused on would-be refugees trying to cheat the system to gain entry to Canada and eventually become citizens.

It got me thinking about the numbers and types of immigrants who come to Canada - just as the latest release of quarterly statistics from the department of immigration crossed my desk. The report contains year-to-year and quarterly statistics that track who's coming to Canada, why, where they're ending up.

There are too many statistics to discuss in this space. So allow me to mention a few of the numbers in the third quarter for 2010 that caught my attention.

There are three main classes of immigrants: business, family and refugees. From the chart below, you see the trend that's in play.

When comparing their numbers from the second quarter of 2010 to the third quarter (the most recent statistics), we see that the business class - represented by the red line in the chart - grew by eight per cent; the family and refugee classes dropped by 2.6 per cent and 2.8 per cent, respectively.

These trends held firm when comparing the first three quarters for 2009 and 2010. 

In a news release last summer, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Canada wouldn't increase the number of business-class immigrants at the expense of family or humanitarian immigration categories, but the numbers tell a different story.

Predictably, advocates and some Opposition MPs accuse the Harper government of favouring people who either have money or who are coming here to do certain jobs over potential refugee claimants.

The government responds by pointing out that Canada needs people who can contribute to the economy and pay taxes (or put another way, stay off welfare) while helping to increase our population by sponsoring their relatives or having kids, or both.

I recall a scrum Kenney had with reporters on Nov. 1, 2010. We asked him about numbers, which even then showed an increase in people coming to Canada through temporary work permits. While he fielded specific questions about that program, there was no mistaking his government's take on the value of business-class immigrants. 

"Within five years, there will be no growth in the Canadian labour market (workers)," he explained to reporters. "All labour force growth will be because of immigration. There are, in certain regions, significant labour-market shortages. We've also seen some recent data that show that federal skilled workers who have arrived in the last few years have seen significant improvement in their economic outcomes."

(Click here to listen to audio of Kenney talking to reporters)

There are also some interesting trends within the general numbers from those Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism spreadsheets.

For instance, within the business class, one of the largest growth areas is something called the "Provincial or Territorial nominees" program, which allows jurisdictions across the country to determine who they get to keep. It's often the case that they end up choosing individuals who are on temporary work visas. This category has grown, in part, because provinces such as Alberta have asked Ottawa to raise the cap. The "investors" category has enjoyed even more impressive growth.

In the "refugee class," even though the overall category is in decline, there are parts of it, such as "privately sponsored" refugees, that are increasing. This comes as no surprise, as Kenney has touted this as a preferred route for refugees entering the country. But "Refugees landing in Canada" and those sponsored by the government are two parts of this overall category that are declining. And these declines are responsible for the refugee category's overall downward trend.

If you have any feedback on any aspect our immigration program, please feel free to contact me at: david_mckie@cbc.ca

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Wal-Mart Canada plans 40 supercentres in next fiscal year

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The retail giant says it will open 40 new Canadian supercentres in its upcoming fiscal year starting Feb. 1 through both renovating and relocating some existing stores and constructing new ones.

While the location of the new stores hasn't been announced yet, the plan will expand the supercentre concept into Manitoba and Quebec, and represents a combined investment of nearly $500 million.

Supercentre locations in the greater Ottawa area include Lincoln Fields, Carleton Place, Rockland and Orleans.

Wal-Mart said the plan could create more than 9,200 jobs in stores and in the construction sector.

The retailer opened its first Canadian supercentres in Ontario in 2006.

At the end of this month it will have 325 stores, of which 124 will be supercentres.

– With files from OBJ Staff

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Canada’s culture of excellence in education

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Andy Hargreaves

Last year, I was driving through Toronto when I spied a bumper sticker ahead. It didn’t proclaim “God Bless Canada” or even “Proud to be Canadian.” It simply said “Content to be Canadian!” That’s Canada in a nutshell. Canada scores quite well (but not spectacularly) on a range of international indicators: 8th in human development, 25th most equal, 14th least corrupt, and characteristically half way on UNICEF’s index of child well-being.

Canada ranks in the middle of lots of things, except perhaps hockey, the Winter Olympics and now, education. Last month, the media had a feeding frenzy over the release by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the results of their Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The big story was the prominence of Asian countries on the top-10 list. What the media elsewhere overlooked was the strong performance of Canada.

Canada ranked 6th overall, and the OECD picked out Canada as one of four “strong performers” and “successful reformers.”

Strictly speaking, though, the OECD concentrated not on the whole of Canada but on just one province: Ontario. In a video promotion of PISA’s policy implications, the OECD’s change guru, Andres Schleicher, praises Canada for its positive approach to immigration that is evident in narrow achievement gaps between students from different social backgrounds. Then, without explanation, he switches to Ontario. It’s as if Ontario stands for all of Canada.

The province is praised for its urgent focus on measurable improvement in literacy and numeracy; its ability to set a clear plan and sign up key stakeholders to commit to it, including teachers; its sophisticated use of achievement data to pinpoint problems in underperformance among certain students or schools; and then its response: to “flood” these schools with resources, technical assistance and support. Bravo, Ontario!

But here’s the puzzle. Ontario isn’t the only high-performing province on PISA. On reading literacy, Alberta leads, followed by Ontario and British Columbia. On math, Quebec leads, followed by Alberta and Ontario. On science, Alberta leads, followed by B.C. and Ontario. Some of these differences are tiny — barely a percentage point or so. Yet the policies and strategies are often quite different.

Take Alberta. There, the Conservative government has supported an $80-million-per-year program spanning more than a decade to support school-designed innovations in more than 90 per cent of the province’s schools. It doesn’t have government targets and it doesn’t concentrate so tightly on literacy and numeracy. In many ways, it’s the opposite of Ontario. So perhaps we should give bigger applause to Alberta for its bottom-up approach? Or to B.C.! Or Quebec! The provinces have different policies, different relationships between government and teachers’ unions, and different parties in power — but the PISA results are pretty much the same. What’s going on?

There’s obviously something about Canada, or at least the more prosperous parts of it. Canada has some striking commonalities with Finland, the only non-Asian performer above it in the OECD ranking. Both countries value teachers and insist on a professional program of university-based training for all public-school teachers. Working conditions are favourable with good facilities, acceptable pay, wide availability of professional development, and discretion for teachers to make their own professional judgments. Both countries have a strong commitment to public schools and only a very modest private sector in education. Both countries have strong social welfare and public health systems with broad safety nets to protect the youngest and most vulnerable members of the population. Last, both nations are characterized by deeper cultures of cooperation and inclusiveness that make them more competitive internationally.

Being Canadian is not about occupying the middle ground in everything. It’s also about being cooperative and inclusive and about valuing shared community and public life. It’s not this or that province’s policy that makes Canada such a strong educational performer, but a social fabric that values education and teachers, prizes the public good, and doesn’t abandon the weak in its efforts to become economically stronger.

These are the things that make Canada educationally successful, and that it should cherish and protect compared to poorer PISA performers, like the U.S. (17th) and U.K. (24th). Let’s be content to be Canadian in most things if we must, but Canadians in general — Ontarians, Albertans, British Columbians and Québécois alike — should feel proud to be among the world’s very best in education.

Andy Hargreaves is the Brennan Chair in Education at Boston College. Although he lives in the U.S., he is content to be Canadian.

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