Immigration Canada

Canada must actively recruit the best and brightest immigrants

McMaster University, Toronto, Canada. The University later moved to Hamilton, Ontario, and the Royal Conservatory of Music now occupies the building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Published Friday, May. 04, 2012 7:30PM EDT

The world has changed, and when it comes to its immigration system, Canada is not changing fast enough to compete in it. It is no longer possible to sit back languidly, as the best and the brightest queue on its doorstep. The global market for human capital is voracious. There may always be migrants wanting to come to Canada, but they may not be the ones that Canada needs. People with options are less and less likely to tolerate hidebound and cumbersome immigration process, waiting as long as eight years to have their applications processed. If you are ambitious, if you are skilled, if you are entrepreneurial, if you are educated, if you are impatient for success, you will look elsewhere. Increasingly, elsewhere is looking better.

Countries like Australia can now fast-track applications for permanent residency in less than a year. Nor is the competition coming only from developed countries. With growing prosperity at home, not every upwardly mobile citizen of China, India and Brazil sees re-locating overseas as the only path to success. In fact, the Chinese and Indian governments are using investment, tax and visa incentives to draw the highly educated children of Chinese and Indian immigrants to their ancestral homelands.

To ensure Canada remains attractive to the sharpest minds, the keenest entrepreneurs and greatest innovators, the country must move beyond an inefficient selection system and long waits. Why should people put their careers on hold, in order to come to Canada? “International competition is starting to heat up for the best immigrants, the Frank Stronachs, the people who will drive the economy,” notes Arthur Sweetman, an economist at McMaster University.

A new Gallup poll shows that Canada is the third most popular destination for people looking to relocate, with the U.S. first, and the U.K. second. Some might say that top three isn’t bad. But Canada fell a spot from 2010, the global survey of 452,199 adults in 151 countries shows. Despite the recession, the U.S. remains by far the world’s most desired destination for prospective migrants. Why isn’t Canada in first place?

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has enacted long-overdue reforms to streamline the selection system for economic immigrants. More points will be given for younger people with language proficiency who have prearranged employment.

He also plans to tackle the backlog by closing 100,000 files involving 300,000 people. This is a necessary measure – but one with consequences. It puts a stain on Canada’s credibility, and more reforms are necessary to ensure the problem doesn’t recur.

There is a need for a different kind of immigration officer to be sent to Canada’s missions around the world: not someone with a shiny badge, armed with a long list of bureaucratic time-consuming checks that may end up impeding people with desirable educations, entrepreneurial instincts and in-demand skills from immigrating to Canada. Instead they should be people whose job it is to find and recruit talent. Canada needs headhunters.

Canada needs to open the doors for the right kind of migrant. Faster processing times would enable Canada to take advantage of global cyclical downturns. The current unemployment rate for Spaniards under age 25 is 50 per cent, the overall rate in the country is 25 per cent. Spain has an army of highly literate, technologically savvy people sitting idle, people who could, in some cases, literally walk in and fill vacant jobs here in the hi-tech, telecommunications, mining and petroleum sectors.

Instead of having a system flexible enough to seize on such opportunities, we have immigration lawyers with stories of clients – such as a couple from South Africa with MBAs – who become so frustrated, they simply give up on Canada.

Mr. Kenney is trying. Ottawa has expanded the provincial-nominee category, which favours immigrants with prearranged employment. However, the model has some weaknesses: Newcomers entering through the nominee stream are also less educated, and have lower salaries over the long term, than those who enter through the federal points system. This category of workers remains crucial to Canada’s overall program, but it will not suffice.

Ottawa must do more to ensure newcomers can convert their foreign credentials and job experience. It must address discrimination in the labour market, and gate-keeping by professional associations. But first and foremost, Canada needs to change its mentality around immigration. It should be designed as much around whom Canada wants, as who wants Canada.

It is becoming a seller’s market. As Sergio Karas, a Toronto immigration lawyer, says, “People from developing countries are no longer automatically migrating to Canada.” Canada must learn to compete. Educated professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, will not waste their most productive years trying just to get through the door. They know where they are wanted, and if they’re not wanted here they will pack up their bags and go to where they are, taking with them all their potential and promise.

Is the federal immigration system a failure? The Harper government seems to think so, but the stats tell a different story

Italian-Immigrants-to-Canad (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Richard Warnica and John Geddes on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 10:44am - 30 Comments

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney sees deep ﬂaws in Canada’s immigration system. For too long, he argues, the system has been drawing ambitious newcomers who arrive here ready to work only to find their qualifications aren’t recognized, their experience isn’t valued, or their skills aren’t in demand. “We’ve got to stop this practice,” he said in a major speech in Toronto last month, “of inviting highly trained people to come to Canada if they don’t have jobs or they’re not likely to succeed in the labour market.”

As one of the most visible federal ministers, Kenney has made sure his critique of the system he runs is widely heard and broadly accepted. In particular, companies echo his complaints about Canada bringing in 250,000 newcomers a year, and still failing to provide the workers they need to fill gaps, particularly in the fast-growing West. But as Kenney continues his withering attack, it’s worth asking: Is the federal program really the unmitigated disaster he suggests? Not by international standards, where Canada is rated highly for its successful integration of immigrants into the economy, or even by some of the yardsticks Kenney has been using to argue Canada’s existing immigration system needs to be completely overhauled.

Some of the clearest evidence showing the program’s success comes from Kenney’s own department. For instance, Kenney points to the so-called provincial nomination program—through which provinces bring in immigrants chosen to fill job vacancies—as the model for reform. But according to figures provided to Maclean’s by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, any edge enjoyed by the provincial programs is small and short-term. The average yearly earnings for provincial nominees range from $35,200 to $45,100. That’s only better at the high end than the $36,400 to $42,700 average range for the earnings of immigrants who entered Canada through the federal skilled workers doorway. And by the fifth year after arrival, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada data, the federal skilled workers’ incomes outpace provincial nominees by, on average, $2,000 to $7,000 a year.

Still, it’s beyond dispute that new immigrants are taking longer to get established than they did in previous eras. As recently as the 1970s, they earned about the same as Canadian-born workers. But nearly every group of newcomers since has been worse off. By the 1990s, recent male immigrants earned half as much as Canadian-born males the same age. By 2000, more than a third of them were classified as officially “low income.”

So Canadian immigrants haven’t been thriving, at least not in the very short term, and Kenney aims to change that. Under proposals he’s floated in increasing detail in recent months, he’s signalled that he intends to overhaul the programs that make up Canada’s traditional points system for selecting immigrants. The goal is to give employers more of the kinds of workers they need right now and to bring in immigrants who are likely to have their qualifications recognized and be able to work in their own fields right away.

Employers will be given more say in selecting immigrants—possibly through a global “job bank.” Newcomers who speak one of Canada’s two official languages will be given higher priority, and professional qualifications will be assessed before applicants are accepted, rather than after they’ve arrived in Canada.

Still, putting the focus on an applicant’s short-term prospects ignores longer-term considerations. While many immigrants have struggled in their early years as Canadians, their kids have thrived. Even as income levels for first-generation immigrants have fallen over the last 30 years, education levels for their children have remained well above the Canadian average. That’s true even for families in which the parents weren’t university educated.

Dr. Andrew Brown’s father, for instance, immigrated from Jamaica in the late 1970s. His mother followed a few years later. The elder Brown initially struggled in menial jobs. Even after he established himself at Canada Post, both parents had to work to keep the family afloat. After school many days, Brown would microwave hot dogs to have something to eat before his parents got home at 7 p.m. or later.

His parents were never well off. Neither went to university. Statistically speaking you might count them as failures, in an immigration sense. But Brown did go to university, then to medical school. Today he’s a resident in medical imaging at the University of Toronto where he’s studying the next generation of non-invasive cancer research.

That’s not an unusual story. Second-generation Canadians tend to perform better in school, are more likely to earn university degrees and often earn more than children of Canadian-born parents, even if their parents earn low incomes. By moving so fast to overhaul the system, some experts worry the government could put those patterns of next-generation achievement at risk.

Putting more emphasis on English and French proficiency could mean taking in fewer immigrants from areas that tend to show solid multi-generational success. More than 62 per cent of second-generation immigrants with parents born in China have a university degree, for example, compared to just 24 per cent of those with Canadian-born parents. But Chinese immigrants as a whole haven’t typically had the best English or French language skills.

Kenney is aware that second-generation immigrants and what are known as 1.5-generation immigrants—those who came to Canada as children—do well. But he says that isn’t playing a significant role as he retools the system. “We can’t select people on the basis of how their children or grandchildren might succeed,” he says. “Although, and here’s the point, by selecting people who are more likely to succeed quickly in Canada’s economy, I think we’re ensuring that their children and grandchildren will do even better.”

He also says changing the language requirements in a way that might cut the number of immigrants from Asia isn’t a worry. The children of immigrants, no matter where they’re from, are typically going to succeed, he says. “They grow up in aspirational families. They grow up in families that take nothing for granted. They grow up in families that put a huge value on education and quite frankly are pretty forceful and disciplined about making sure their kids do well in school.”

Kenney stresses that employers—not bureaucrats—know best what kinds of workers they need. But giving employers a huge say in the system doesn’t always guarantee success, says Arthur Sweetman, a professor and Ontario Research Chair in health human resources at McMaster University. Companies’ needs, he points out, can change quickly. Before the tech sector busted in the early years of the last decade, there was a huge push to bring immigrants with computer skills into the country. After the crash, many of them ended up unemployed. “Canada wants citizens, employers want employees,” Sweetman says. “Employees are for the short term; citizens are forever.”

Above almost any other factor, Kenney touts the advantage of an immigrant having a Canadian job waiting before landing here. There’s no disputing that is a key factor. More than half of provincially nominated immigrants arrive with a pre-arranged job offer. Since 2005, their average earnings have reached or surpassed Canadian averages within one year of arrival. And since they are chosen specifically to fill the immediate needs of companies, there’s pressure from those employers to expand the program. Across all provinces, it has ballooned from 6,000 immigrants in 2004 to a planned 42,000 this year. And the growing provincial stream has funnelled immigration away from the old dominant cities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Provincial plans have tripled immigration to the Prairies and doubled Atlantic Canada’s intake of newcomers.

On the other hand, only about 14 per cent of immigrants admitted as federal skilled workers have a job waiting for them in Canada. Even so, they do remarkably well—making on average $72,700 in the year after landing, and seeing their salaries rise to $79,200 within three years. Those who don’t quickly enter the workforce have a harder time getting established—but so do native-born Canadians. Research by David Green of the University of British Columbia and Christopher Worswick of Carleton University has found that about half of the decline in earnings for new immigrants, compared to those who arrived in the 1970s and earlier, stems from the same tougher economic conditions faced by native-born Canadians entering the workforce.

So is the existing federal skilled workers program that Kenney is setting out to reform all that bad? It seems to outperform the provincial alternative after five years. While immigrants overall aren’t succeeding as rapidly as in the past, neither are young native-born workers. And new Canadians fare well by global standards, too. When the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development probed the job markets for immigrants in its member countries in 2007, Canada was found to come the closest to equal employment rates between Canadian-born and foreign-born workers.

None of this is to say Kenney is wrong to bemoan the “regrettable decline in the economic results for newcomers to Canada.” The 21st-century uphill climb facing immigrants is indisputable. But as he lays the groundwork for a policy overhaul, Canada’s highest-proﬁle immigration minister in memory seems fixated on the weaknesses of the system he inherited, and under-emphasizing its continued strengths.

Changes to immigration policy could transform society

ARMINE YALNIZYAN

Globe and Mail Blog

Have you noticed how common it has become to talk about replacing workers with even cheaper workers? If you’re looking over your shoulder, you’re not paranoid; you’re paying attention. There’s probably a cheaper you out there. And in Canada, the feds are helping your boss find them.

This week, the International Labour Organization noted there are 50 million fewer jobs in the global economy than before the financial crisis began in 2008. Some 200 million people are now looking for work.
People around the world are on the move, leaving their homes in search of opportunity. Many of them have landed here.
Canada has welcomed newcomers in record numbers throughout the recession, even as unemployment rates spiked. But our policies are shifting, and with it the type of labour market and society we are creating. Today, the preferential nod is being given to a soaring number of temporary foreign workers, or “guest” workers. These are people who are brought here at the pleasure of employers, and stay at the pleasure of employers.
In 2011, 156,000 economic immigrants entered Canada as permanent residents, while 191,000 people entered with a temporary work permit, granted to employers by the federal government. Many of these permits extend beyond a year, so as of Dec. 1, 2011 there were 300,111 temporary foreign workers in Canada, the highest number on record. The number of temporary foreign workers has more than doubled since 2006.
The federal government is promoting the temporary foreign worker program as a solution to skills shortages now faced by employers, particularly in the West. Yet 35 per cent of the nation’s temporary foreign workers are in Ontario, and almost one in five (18 per cent) are in Toronto, which has an unemployment rate of 8.6 per cent. Labour shortage? I don’t think so.
Those numbers will soon rise. Last week, the federal government announced that employers could usher in highly skilled temporary workers such as engineers and electricians in 10 days instead of the current 12- to 14-week approval process, noting red tape will likely be reduced in processing other categories of temporary foreign workers as well. Of note, the fastest growing category of temporary foreign workers is low-skilled workers, whose numbers have grown ten-fold in just five years. These are not the seasonal fruit-and-vegetable pickers on which our nation also relies. These folks toil year-round at Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, in our abattoirs, nursing homes, and hotels; workplaces where employers say they can’t find Canadian workers willing to work at the offered wages.
Disturbingly, the federal announcement also set out new wage rules that permit employers to pay temporary foreign workers up to 15 per cent below the average paid for that type of work locally, sanctioning the creation of a two-tiered “us and them” labour market.
Even if such a rule were rigorously applied and monitored – and budget cuts may eliminate the staff to do this job – it guarantees a downward trend in wages for everyone. Fifteen per cent below the average is a recipe for continuous decline when labour shortages are filled, as a matter of policy, by those who get paid less and are not allowed to stay long enough to ask for more.
Ottawa’s recently announced reforms did not include a change in the four-year cap on residency for temporary foreign workers, brought into play in 2011. That rule guarantees two things: One, employers can minimize the costs of churn; and two, a permanently temporary class of workers is created, keeping wages and expectations low.
The salute to increased use of temporary foreign workers was also not accompanied by increases in the quotas the federal government sets for the number of people provinces can nominate for fast-track citizenship. In Alberta, by the end of 2011, more than 58,000 people were working under temporary foreign work permits, up from about 37,000 at the end of 2007. The province can only nominate up to 5,000 of these workers to become Canadians. The vast majority of low-skilled temporary foreign workers have no avenue for permanent residency.
Even the Chinese railway workers of the 1800s came with “landed immigrant” status. Emphasizing the benefits of a disposable class of workers is a very recent, and unsavoury, development in our history.
This nation was built by immigrants who had a stake in its future. Together we created an economy which today is the tenth largest in the world. While the economy will continue to grow, the distribution of the gains from that growth threatens to become rapidly even more lopsided.
As an economist, I understand cheaper labour will benefit some employers in the short term, though the longer-term results will slow purchasing power and growth.
As a Canadian, I am appalled that public policy can be boiled down to this. We are all cheapened as a result.

P.E.I. grabs $63M in immigrant deposits

The P.E.I. government has added $63 million to its bottom line through defaults on deposits made by immigrants through the Provincial Nominee Program since 2005.

Allan Roach believes P.E.I.'s record of immigrant retention is improving. (CBC)

More than half that money comes from good faith deposits which every nominee was required to pay, and most of the remainder was from failure to meet language requirements.

The good faith deposit is returned if the immigrant stays on P.E.I. for a year. According to public accounts almost 1,500 immigrants have failed to meet that requirement since 2008.

Allen Roach, the minister responsible for immigration, said that situation is improving.

"We've seen, certainly over the last year, last two years, that more immigrants are in fact staying on Prince Edward Island," said Roach.

"As our immigrant communities continue to grow in P.E.I., those immigrants that come here will feel more comfortable staying here. I think as our job growth continues, we'll see that."

According to Statistics Canada, 95 per cent of the Island's population growth in the last few years has been due to immigration.

The most recent statistics show a drop in population. The Island lost 270 people to other provinces in the last three months of 2011.

Newcomers selected under B.C. Provincial Nomination Program fare the best, study says

Mount Robson, Mount Robson Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BY DARAH HANSEN, VANCOUVER SUN

When it comes to earning potential, not all immigrants to British Columbia are equal, according to a new study by author Haimin Zhang.

Zhang, a PhD student of economics at the University of B.C., found a "surprising" wage gap between newcomers who immigrated as federal skilled workers between 2002 and 2008 and those selected under the B.C. Provincial Nomination Program (BCPNP).

Using Statistics Canada data collected from landing information and tax records, the study determined B.C. provincial nominees earned, on average, three times as much as immigrants classified as skilled workers after one year of their arrival. The wage advantage declined with the length of stay in Canada, but remained significant, according to the study, which was published in April on the Metropolis BC website. After four years, B.C. provincial nominees still earned twice as much as skilled workers in the province, the study said.

The federal skilled workers program selects immigrants based on their ability to become economically established in Canada over the long-term. Points are assigned to applicants based on their skills, education, and experience.

The selection process of the B.C. Provincial Nominee Program, meanwhile, requires applicants to have a job offer in hand before they enter the country. The program, launched in 2001, is designed to satisfy province-specific, short-term labour market demands.

Zhang, an immigrant herself who came to Canada from China as a master's student, said the purpose of the study was not to suggest one stream of immigration selection is better than another.

Rather, it's to better understand the wage gaps between immigrant groups and how they will evolve over the long term.

In the study, she poses three possible explanations for the differences in earning levels:

-- Canadian experience: Using data from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Zhang found that 70 per cent of provincial nominees in B.C. had previously worked or studied in Canada, compared to less than 20 per cent of federal skilled workers.

-- Job-offer requirement: The prearranged job requirement of the provincial nomination program helped immigrants establish in B.C. faster, offered better protection from a bad labour market and, therefore, contributed to their earning advantage.

-- Possible "cream skimming": The significantly shorter processing time of the provincial nomination program may have attracted the most skilled immigrants who would have otherwise qualified under the longer, more arduous federal program.

Zhang also raised the possibility of discrimination at play on the part of employers, noting that B.C. provincial nominees accepts a larger portion of immigrants from English speaking, developed countries, namely the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, compared to other parts of the world.

"It could be a coincidence," Zhang said, adding, "Maybe discrimination is too strong a word, but a preference between different people from the country of origin."

"That is just a personal concern I note. I don't think the data itself can speak directly to this, but I think that it should be pointed out," she said.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland questioned the data source used in Zhang's study, calling it old and potentially flawed because many workers earn more money than they declare.

But, he said, the conclusions are sound.

"They got to the right destination, but the wrong way," he said in an email.

Kurland said fast processing times illustrated by the BCPNP will be mirrored under the new federal skilled worker program, "giving more successful outcomes in the labour market, (and) making more earnings for new immigrants."

Zhang acknowledged the findings were compromised by a lack of data that include an occupational breakdown.

"One of the reasons I put this study online is so more people can see the shortage of this paper and that more information would help better address this question," she said.

Zhang said her findings echo those of a 2011 national report by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. According to that study, it took on average five years for federal skilled workers to catch up to the salaries earned by provincial nominees.

dahansen@vancouversun.com Twitter.com/darahhansen