Benefits of Canadian Immigration Policy.

Benefits of Canadian Immigration Policy

Immigration: the entrance of people into a country for the purpose of settling in that country.

This paper will take a closer look at benefits and costs of having an immigration friendly policy.

The Canadian immigration department has developed very systematic immigration criteria to recruit economic class immigrants, which includes skilled workers, and business class immigrants in to Canada. The primary objective of Canada’s immigration policy focuses on the economic benefits to Canada by fulfilling a legitimate need of the Canadian labor market.

The Canadian policy on foreign workers permits the admission of foreign workers who meet Canada's needs while ensuring that Canadian citizens and permanent residents have adequate employment and training opportunities. The balance between these two objectives is reached by admitting foreign workers whose skills are in short supply and their migration will not adversely affect Canadian citizens or permanent residents or where benefits will result from the entry of the foreign workers. Benefits may be economic, social or cultural.

4,971,070 foreign-born individuals lived in Canada, representing 17.4 percent of the total population (1996 Census). In 2000, 58 percent of admissions were in the Independent or Economic Class, 27 percent were in the Family Reunification Class, 13 percent were Refugee Class and 2 percent were "Other" (cases determined on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, live-in caregivers or provincial/territorial nominees). (www.statscan.ca). Migrants have a tendency to be highly educated, in part reflecting the fact that the majority of immigrants who come to Canada do so through the independent or business streams. For instance, the proportion of men and women holding a ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

In terms of labor force participation, in their first years after arrival, immigrants tend to have lower rates than the Canadian-born population. This is because a number of migrants spend time upgrading either professional, trades, or language skills, and many women take time out from the workforce to raise children. Over time, however, the labor-force participation rates of the foreign born not only converge with those of the Canadian-born population, but exceed them. For instance, 81 percent of male immigrants aged 45-64 who arrived in Canada between 1981 and 1990 participate in the labor force, compared to 78 percent of Canadian-born men in the same age bracket (Infometrica Ltd 2001, 48-49).

Recent immigrants are more likely to experience unemployment in their first five years in Canada than those immigrants who have been in the country for a longer period of time. For instance, the rate of unemployment among men who arrived in the early 1990s varies from 15 to 21 percent, depending on their age group, and is higher among women (20 to 26 percent).

Recent census data highlight the important role that immigrants will play in the demographic, economic and social life of the nation in the decades to come. In the period 1981-1986, 52.1 percent of population growth was attributable to immigration, and by the 1991-1996 periods the figure had risen to 69.3 percent. Furthermore, throughout the 1990s already low fertility rates dropped even further and the number of deaths increased due to Canada's aging population -- trends that are unlikely to change soon (MPI.)

Immigrants are both consumers and producers, so whether their influx makes those already residing in the host country richer or poorer, in the aggregate, depends on how much the immigrants add to overall production as compared to how much they consume (MLE, 329). The impact of immigration on social services depends on the use of government services by immigrants. To keep the influx of immigrants into Canada advantageous, the taxes paid by immigrants have to cover, if not, exceed the benefits they receive from each program.

According to a study of the net fiscal effects of recent legal immigration suggest that these effects-measured over the lifetimes of the immigrants and their descendants-are positive. That is, immigrants and their descendants typically pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits. (MLE, 330) This study however is using the United States as its subject.

It is clear that where immigration levels are full and who ends up migrating will have profound effects on the size and characteristics of Canadian society. Likewise, it also appears that immigrant settlement will continue to be highly localized in a relatively small number of cities. This has implications for the degree to which Canadian society in its entirety shares the benefits and costs of immigration and ethno cultural diversity.

Works Cited

Bank of Canada. Monetary Policy; Measuring economic growth.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Strategic Policy, Planning and Research. 2001. Facts and Figures 2000: Immigration Overview. Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Migration Policy Institute. Canada: Policy Legacies, New Directions, and Future Challenges. Brian Ray

Addison-Wesley. Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy. Robert G. Ehrenberg and Robert Smith