Ontario’s dwindling appeal to immigrants prompts funding cut from Ottawa

STEVEN CHASE

Ontario is slowly losing its appeal for immigrants as newcomers head to more promising regions to make a life for themselves, a trend prompting Ottawa to reduce the funding it gives Canada’s most populous province to settle arrivals.

The state of affairs has Ontario’s Immigration Minister blaming the Harper government for the problem and warning the that disappearance of the cash will hurt newcomers in his province.

The federal Conservatives say Ontario has no right to demand more money per immigrant than other provinces.

For the third year in a row, Ottawa is chopping the amount of settlement funding it is giving Ontario, which has been plagued by weak economic growth as its manufacturing base struggles to recover from the 2008-2009 recession.

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced on Friday that Ontario will receive $314.9-million in the next fiscal year, 2012-13. That’s a decline from $346.5-million this year, from $390.4-million in 2010-11 and $390.7-million in 2009-10.

Settlement funding for every other province will rise or remain constant next year.

“We believe it is only fair that settlement allocations across Canada should be based on the share of newcomers that provinces and territories have,” Mr. Kenney said.

Ontario’s share of new Canadian immigrants has declined to 52 per cent in 2010 from 64 per cent in 2005, as more newcomers chose to settle in Western and Atlantic Canada. Federal officials who provided these figures say the trend has continued in 2011.

But Ontario’s Immigration Minister, Charles Sousa, is crying foul over the dwindling dollars, saying Ottawa is short-changing his province.

He points out Ontario remains Canada’s No. 1 destination for immigrants.

Mr. Sousa said the latest funding cut will deny Ontario $31-million and leave the deficit-ridden province short of what it needs to help immigrants during weak economic times.

“It will hit newcomers in Ontario especially hard at a time when the province could most benefit from the valuable contributions they bring,” the provincial minister said.

“These unfair cuts will deny thousands … access to services that will help them find jobs and learn new skills.”

The Ontario minister said Ottawa is to blame for the decline in immigrants, saying the long waits to process applications has become a bottleneck for newcomers trying to settle in his province.

“Thousands of people destined for Ontario are stuck in a huge applications backlog that forces many to wait as much as seven years before they can set foot in our province,” Mr. Sousa said.

“This system is not working.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Kenney rejected Ontario’s accusation.

“An immigrant applying under the federal skilled worker program applying today to go to Toronto would be there in under 12 months,” Candice Malcolm said.

“The fact is a lot more immigrants are choosing to go west.”

Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said he thinks Ontario’s appeal for newcomers will recover as the economic conditions change.

“It will always bounce back,” he said.

But he added that Ontario could do a better job of wooing skilled workers by building a provincial system that actively recruits and selects the immigrants it needs.

“While other provinces have fully embraced their provincial constitutional responsibility of selecting immigrants … Ontario has effectively abdicated its ability to engage in the immigration dossier in a serious way.”

Mr. Kurland said it’s logical for Ottawa to finance and promote immigration outside Central Canada as a means of ensuring that newcomers don’t simply cluster in major centres such as the Greater Toronto Area.

“If you want to send immigrants to our hinterland and retain them there, it makes common sense to shift resources outside Ontario to places where settlement services are sparse,” he said.

“Why pay federally for something that municipalities and provincial services are already doing” in places such as Ontario, Mr. Kurland said.

Canadian paycheques failing to keep pace with cost of living

JEREMY TOROBIN

The buying power of Canadians’ paycheques is eroding, as wage gains fail to keep pace with inflation at a time when domestic spending is key to countering the effects of a deteriorating global economy.

Wages are growing at the slowest rate in nearly two years, new figures from Statistics Canada show, as the most populous provinces grapple with a weak job market that is making it more difficult for workers to demand pay raises. Meanwhile, the spike in global commodity prices that started in the spring is translating into unusually high energy and food costs.

The national figures mask a widening divide between the new have and have-not regions – the resource-rich West, where more and more workers are benefiting from the commodities boom and a scramble by companies to attract skilled labour, and the old manufacturing powerhouse of Central Canada, where entire one-horse towns are dying.

Average weekly earnings in Canada are highest in Alberta, while Saskatchewan has moved up quickly, Statscan numbers showed Thursday. At $906.22, weekly earnings in Saskatchewan in September were higher than in Ontario for the first time, and well above the national average of $872.75.

Nationwide, Ontario is more indicative of the drop in the purchasing power of Canadians.

The national increase in average weekly earnings from a year earlier was just 1.1 per cent, the slowest since November, 2009, and a far cry from the 4.1 per cent pace in April. With inflation close to 3 per cent, real wages fell.

The weekly take of Saskatchewan workers was nearly 7 per cent higher in September from a year earlier. Earnings in Ontario were lower, by 1.3 per cent.

Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney says inflation will fall to as low as 1 per cent by mid-2012, as the higher food and energy prices that have vexed households since the summer ease.

But consumer spending, which accounts for about half of the economy, is already slowing because so many households are preoccupied with trimming their elevated debt loads.

The booming economy in Saskatchewan, centre of the global potash market and Canada’s No. 2 oil producer, helped Premier Brad Wall cruise to re-election this month and is forcing companies to raise salaries amid fierce competition for workers that is spreading to all sectors. Ontario, meanwhile, is losing ground against jurisdictions all over North America in terms of per capita economic output, and, last month, employment in manufacturing fell to the lowest on record.

Mr. Wall is the first to acknowledge that Saskatchewan has lucked out, as its commodities help underpin rapid growth in emerging markets like China. Still, he also touts his efforts to cut taxes, spend cautiously and provide incentives for investments in the resource sector.

“We’ve always credited a lot of good fortune for what’s happening economically in the province,” he said Thursday. “No government can claim responsibility or credit for this, but our growth agenda has sought to stay out of the way of this kind of development and facilitate it through infrastructure investments, and through competitive taxes.”

Potash and oil are undoubtedly the key drivers, he said, but the services, retail and construction sectors are surging, too. The Premier noted there are currently 10,000 openings on a provincial jobs website, underscoring Saskatchewan’s skilled-labour shortage.

Camile Baillargeon and his wife Carol operate a grain farm and tiny oil-field service company called Camcar Enterprises, about 200 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon.

Mr. Baillargeon needs two full-time employees year-round, and peaks at eight employees during harvest. Right now, those positions are vacant.

“It is hard to attract and retain talent,” he said. “The Occupy Wall Street movement doesn’t hold much water out here, because if you want to work, the world is your oyster.”

Ontario, of course, would love to have this problem.

The decline in the factory sector is a key reason why the Canadian economy shed a surprising 54,000 jobs in October – the most since February, 2009, in the depths of the recession – and the jobless rate edged up two notches to 7.3 per cent.

Mr. Baillargeon said he has posted jobs on a Saskatchewan employment site and 50 to 60 per cent of the applicants come from Ontario. Camcar, though, has to compete against oil and gas companies for labour. Large firms like Husky Energy Inc. and Devon Energy Corp., for example, operate in this northwest slice of the province, and their presence means local service outfits have also popped up, pushing the Baillargeons to pay salaries reminiscent of Alberta’s oil-sands boom.

“We’re paying close to oil field wages,” he said. “We have to be competitive.”

With a report from Carrie Tait in Calgary

Financial literacy a skill all Canadians could get better at

BY NICHOLAS GAFUIK, CALGARY HERALD NOVEMBER 27, 2011

 

 

In the last decade, Alberta's share of Canada's immigrants has almost doubled reaching nearly 12 per cent of Canada's total. And in Calgary alone there are more than 3,000 refugee claimants. Alberta and the West are increasingly a destination for immigrants.

It is no real surprise that the Canadian West is a becoming a bigger magnet for international immigration.

The relative health of our economy and strength of the job market makes places like B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan very attractive destinations. We need immigration, especially skilled workers, to help fuel continued economic growth.

To this end, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has plans for 42,000 to 45,000 people to arrive in Alberta next year through the Provincial Nominee Program.

Most Canadians think immigration is a positive force in our country. A poll released by the Trudeau Foundation earlier this month reveals that Canadians say, by a three-to-one margin, immigration is making the country a better place. The question, then, is how best to prepare and equip new Canadians to flourish in their adopted home.

Among the top challenges facing recent immigrants is money and financial literacy. Indeed, the same Trudeau Foundation poll found that six-in-10 say immigrants should be required to become economically self-sufficient in their first year in Canada.

Money and financial literacy is a big issue for a lot of Canadians, not just newcomers. The debt-todisposable income ratio has risen steadily over the last 20 years reaching 148 per cent in 2010. Momentum, a local organization that provides financial literacy programs for lower-income Calgarians, notes that more than half of Canadians say they need help with financial management skills.

Financial concerns rank even higher among immigrants. The most recent Signposts survey prepared for the City of Calgary and United Way found that while 18 per cent of Calgarians born in Canada are concerned with not having enough money for food, 29 per cent of immigrants are concerned about the same.

Recent immigrants have particular challenges when it comes to money. Earlier this year, the Minister of Finance's Financial Literacy Task Force noted that while recent immigrants are doing better keeping track of finances, they are struggling making ends meet, choosing financial products, planning ahead, and staying informed. New Canadians tend to have strong financial support from family, be resourceful, and are relatively thrifty. Recent immigrants, however, also tend to struggle with language barriers as well as with loans, credit, interest, and budgeting.

This challenge hit home a few weeks ago. A good friend volunteers her time helping a large number of refugees who arrived in Calgary over the last few years. She helps them find jobs and homes, prepare their taxes, visit doctors, figure out schools for their children, as well as deal with winter. She received a call from one of the young men recently. He excitedly told her that he bought a new truck and wanted her to come along to pick it up.

The papers were all signed and finalized; he had purchased a brand-new truck for $56,000. He now faces $800 monthly payments for the next seven years, $400 a month for insurance, and every tank of gas costs more than $100. He makes $17 an hour. This young man was frankly thrilled with his new truck, but he does not seem to understand the financial burden he has assumed.

He ultimately bears responsibility for his decision, but concepts of budgeting, loans and interest are totally unfamiliar to him, his friends, and family. He has little direct or indirect experience with buying a car, along with the options and negotiations usually associated with the process.

When my friend confronted the dealership, the salesman saw nothing wrong with the sale. The car salesman could have just as easily sold a base model or used truck, but instead was more than willing to take advantage of this young man's inexperience.

Canada needs these new Canadians, and we should want them to succeed in their new home. What, then, can be done to help improve financial literacy, especially among recent immigrants?

Minister Jim Flaherty's Task Force on Financial Literacy established a good framework. Edmontonarea MP James Rajotte has continued the effort with a motion in the House of Commons. Their efforts should be encouraged. Likewise, local organizations like Momentum should be supported in their work to encourage financial literacy.

Finally, newcomers to Canada also learn from the behaviour and example of other Canadians. Among us, there had better be more kindly volunteers teaching and modelling Canadian values than there are shady car salesmen.

Nicholas Gafuik lives and works in Calgary. His column appears the last Sunday of each month.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

 

 

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