Who is "fit" to immigrate to Canada?

[CountryMike]

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[Acajack]

Originally Posted by CountryMike

I think 550-560,000 immigrants is an oddly specific number and quite frankly too many. I don't really understand the reasoning behind wanting to increase immigration to levels never seen in this country or probably in any country.

Perhaps some people just want to be seen as the most tolerant and the most accepting. I think most people realize that culture isn't static and changes with time, technology and immigration. However, allowing culture to change and pushing to change culture are 2 different things. If we allowed more than half a million immigrants per year Canada would soon become a majority Chinese or Indian colony. Proponents of mass immigration will have to convince the rest of us that this is a good thing.

I think that's a very long way off, if ever.

At the moment about 5% of Canadians are of Chinese origin and about 4% are of Indian origin.

Of the 275,000 immigrants we receive annually less than 10% or about 20,000 are from China, and about 40,000 or just under 15% are from India.

Even if those numbers were to double (to 40,000 Chinese annually, and 80,000 Indians annually) it would take decades for them to become the majority (if ever) given that the population of other groups continues to increase as well.

[CountryMike]

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[isaidso]

Originally Posted by CountryMike

I think 550-560,000 immigrants is an oddly specific number and quite frankly too many. I don't really understand the reasoning behind wanting to increase immigration to levels never seen in this country or probably in any country.

Immigration rates were far higher a century ago (so you're incorrect) and demographers are urging the federal government to significantly boost immigration. Canada is well below replacement levels and when boomers start dying off we'll be facing a steep decline in the ratio of workers to retirees.

Demographers conclude that the sooner we boost the immigration rate the more likely we'll be able to avoid what is potentially a financial catastrophe. What I don't understand is the reasoning to resisting sound evidence and an easy solution. We can fix it but we have to act now.

I'm also taken aback by how most Canadians are oblivious to this ticking time bomb. And no, I'm not exaggerating the severity of the problem. Canada's standing in the world is at stake, as are our pensions.

Originally Posted by CountryMike

Perhaps some people just want to be seen as the most tolerant and the most accepting. I think most people realize that culture isn't static and changes with time, technology and immigration. However, allowing culture to change and pushing to change culture are 2 different things. If we allowed more than half a million immigrants per year Canada would soon become a majority Chinese or Indian colony. Proponents of mass immigration will have to convince the rest of us that this is a good thing.

By 'rest of us', who are you referring to? I'm assuming Canadians of your ethnicity? Canada belongs to ALL Canadians, Scottish Canadians, Iranian-Canadians, Nigerian-Canadians, Mexican-Canadians, Filipino-Canadians, etc. One ethnicity of Canadians don't get to mold Canada in their own image.

Canada is not a white Christian country; we're a white majority country and that's a big big difference. Multiculturalism is enshrined in the Canadian Constitution and has been the reality of modern Canada for close to 4 decades now. If some white Canadians haven't realized it yet/understand what that means, that's neither here nor there. Our culture has changed with each new flood of immigration. You don't get to halt it because the current influx isn't from the same part of the world as your ancestors.

And Indian-Canadians are Canadians period. Chinese-Canadians are Canadians period. If you don't get that you're out of step with this country.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Immigration rates were far higher a century ago (so you're incorrect) .

Yes, in the 1910s I believe Canada admitted 400,000 people or more some years, which is more than today and is a much higher proportion relative to the smaller population back then.

[Blader]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, in the 1910s I believe Canada admitted 400,000 people or more some years, which is more than today and is a much higher proportion relative to the smaller population back then.

It was quite a different type of immigration - the big prairie land grab. It took 15 to 20 years. Land for free.
Today, it's primarily urban.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by isaidso

demographers are urging the federal government to significantly boost immigration. Canada is well below replacement levels and when boomers start dying off we'll be facing a steep decline in workers to retirees.

They conclude that the sooner we boost the immigration rate the more likely we'll be able to avoid what is potentially a financial catastrophe. What I don't understand is the reasoning to resisting sound evidence and an easy solution. We can fix it but we have to act now.

I'm also taken aback by how most Canadians are oblivious to this ticking time bomb. And no, I'm not exaggerating the severity of the problem. Canada's standing in the world is at stake, as is your pension.
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I am in favour of immigration, but at the risk of being provocative, it's a somewhat lazy way of offsetting population decline.

A more balanced approach to sustaining and growing our population would involve both decent levels of immigration coupled with some type of "natalist" policy that would provide a lot more support to those Canadians already living here who would like to have children but for various reasons do not.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I am in favour of immigration, but at the risk of being provocative, it's a somewhat lazy way of offsetting population decline.

A more balanced approach to sustaining and growing our population would involve both decent levels of immigration coupled with some type of "natalist" policy that would provide a lot more support to those Canadians already living here who would like to have children but for various reasons do not.

Perhaps over the very long term, but even a child born today will be of little use in addressing the "time bomb" to which isaidso refers. We Boomers ain't getting any younger! For the next couple of decades (or three, if the millenials aren't pulling our plugs by then ), I see no option but sustained/increased levels of immigration.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I am in favour of immigration, but at the risk of being provocative, it's a somewhat lazy way of offsetting population decline.

A more balanced approach to sustaining and growing our population would involve both decent levels of immigration coupled with some type of "natalist" policy that would provide a lot more support to those Canadians already living here who would like to have children but for various reasons do not.

In fairness I'm not sure how much more could be done... Canada is already a pretty good country in terms of making it easier to have a family.

-No extra cost for education or healthcare
-Reasonably generous parental leave policies
-Subsidized childcare
-High enough incomes that make it possible for middle income earners to have one parent stay at home

I think it's really a lifestyle choice that is being made. You want to live well so you go to school in hopes of landing a good job. Not many opt to have children while in tertiary education, so that cuts down the childbearing years significantly. Also, many wait for years beyond that, out of a desire to live life unencumbered by kids for a while, or to wait until they're financially established, etc. Women are still typically expected to take the lead on parenting but that interferes with careers so that has an impact on the number of children. And then there is the biggie: having too many children has a dramatic impact on one's lifestyle... it's hard to enjoy the finer things in life many of us have become accustomed to if you have 7 kids. Not many are willing to make that kind of sacrifice.

The government can throw some stuff out there like universal child care and it might have a marginal impact, but I don't think that's what's really driving things here. Immigration is the real key to solving these demographic issues.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think that's a very long way off, if ever.

At the moment about 5% of Canadians are of Chinese origin and about 4% are of Indian origin.

Of the 275,000 immigrants we receive annually less than 10% or about 20,000 are from China, and about 40,000 or just under 15% are from India.

Even if those numbers were to double (to 40,000 Chinese annually, and 80,000 Indians annually) it would take decades for them to become the majority (if ever) given that the population of other groups continues to increase as well.

I think our immigration composition will change significantly in the years to come. For example, I see immigration from China leveling off and declining, immigration from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the smaller countries of the Indian subcontinent rising, immigration from Latin America leveling off, immigration from Europe falling, and immigration from the Middle East and especially, Africa, rising substantially.

100 million by 2100? Highly doubtful. I think we are already seeing a considerable backlash against our immigration intake levels. I would like to see net immigration levels increase to about 400,000 per year for the next decade or so, to offset our aging population. Birthrates are unlikely to rise much in the near future.

[esquire]

I suppose one could really take a step back and ask what the benefit of increased immigration levels is? The most obvious answer is that it helps to prevent the scenario of falling off a demographic cliff which leads to economic problems as we've seen in Japan. But beyond that?

How do Canadians benefit if we had 30 million people combined in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Demographers conclude that the sooner we boost the immigration rate the more likely we'll be able to avoid what is potentially a financial catastrophe. What I don't understand is the reasoning to resisting sound evidence and an easy solution. We can fix it but we have to act now.

I'm also taken aback by how most Canadians are oblivious to this ticking time bomb. And no, I'm not exaggerating the severity of the problem. Canada's standing in the world is at stake, as are our pensions.

There are two general ways to address this problem. One is what you described (needing ever increasing numbers of immigrants because otherwise our system's unsustainable) and the other one is to change it to make it sustainable with a stable population, rather than the borderline Ponzi scheme it is nowadays.

65 is ridiculously young to retire. My dad's over that age now and still as active as ever. My grandpa at 91 still lives in his own house, cuts his own heating wood, drives (he lives in the countryside so he needs his car)... it makes no sense that so many people like him would be retired for about as long as they've been active in the workforce or even more.

I've said for years that retirement age should be fluid and tied to life expectancy. When 65 was introduced, it should have been pegged to life expectancy at the time. This way we'd have avoided creating unrealistic expectations and the problem we're discussing wouldn't even exist.

[esquire]

^ Something will eventually give on the retirement age. It's tough to run an economy when people live 80 years but only work 40, maybe 45 years at the most.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Something will eventually give on the retirement age. It's tough to run an economy when people live 80 years but only work 40, maybe 45 years at the most.

Yes, unless you've got a Ponzi-style steady intake of enough fresh "suckers" to continue to fund the system.

[1overcosc]

I dunno. I think that keeping retirement ages where they are now and having the aging population/increasingly life expectancy eat into the workforce is fine thanks to automation. Automation and the increases in productivity it brings could allow us to keep our economy running just fine even as the workforce participate rate declines. Moreover, it might be key to preventing the social unrest that automation may bring... if automation eliminates a third of all jobs, the aging population and increasing life expectancy could eliminate a third of the workforce, and the two cancel each other out and working age people can still work.

[CountryMike]

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[someone123]

A century ago most immigrants to Canada moved to rural areas to be farmers or became low skill urban labourers. We don't have vast tracts of land ready to be farmed and even if we did the labour requirement has dropped to a tiny share of what it was. Most unskilled manufacturing work has moved to cheaper countries or been automated away. The bar for economically viable labour will keep rising as automation continues.

Demographic Ponzi schemes are a bad reason to increase immigration even if they do temporarily shore up pensions. That solution requires an ever-increasing population. What will this do for, say, our total greenhouse gas emissions?

Population growth is expected to slow in the future and many other countries are catching up to Canada's standard of living so finding a large supply of economically advantageous immigrants is likely to get harder, not easier.

Immigration inflates asset prices and suppresses labour prices, which is why so many rich and connected people are in favour of it, whether they're aware of it or not. They see the upsides in terms of cheaper services and increased housing prices. They don't suffer from decreased wages because they are either living off of wealth or they work in privileged protected industries.

[hipster duck]

I'm with someone123 and 1overcosc on this one.

Why accept hundreds of thousands of immigrants to fill jobs that we have no idea will even exist in 15 years? We once scoffed at the Japanese when they said a decade ago that they had no reason to accept immigrants because all of that much needed replacement work would eventually be performed by robots. Whether or not they were incredibly prescient or just stumbled on this by accident, I think their theory is increasingly correct.

[whatnext]

"Only the best people", right JT?

It was dirty money – stuffed in the trunk of their Mercedes and behind a seat in their Range Rover. The rest was squirrelled away in a safe and a night table, at a condo they were using.

Small bills – $660,970 in all – covered with traces of deadly fentanyl and other street drugs. Police seized the cash in the spring of 2016, when they arrested Ying Zhang, Zhi Guang Zhang and Wei Zhang, after putting them under surveillance and watching them conduct business in parking lots in and around Vancouver...

...A Globe and Mail investigation has discovered that the Zhangs and other local residents associated with drug-related crime are effectively parking their riches in Vancouver-area real estate, where it is rendered clean and secure, without actually owning any of the properties. They call themselves private lenders – issuing millions of dollars in registered mortgages and short-term loans...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle38004840/

[vid]

Originally Posted by whatnext

"Only the best people", right JT?

It was dirty money – stuffed in the trunk of their Mercedes and behind a seat in their Range Rover. The rest was squirrelled away in a safe and a night table, at a condo they were using.

Small bills – $660,970 in all – covered with traces of deadly fentanyl and other street drugs. Police seized the cash in the spring of 2016, when they arrested Ying Zhang, Zhi Guang Zhang and Wei Zhang, after putting them under surveillance and watching them conduct business in parking lots in and around Vancouver...

...A Globe and Mail investigation has discovered that the Zhangs and other local residents associated with drug-related crime are effectively parking their riches in Vancouver-area real estate, where it is rendered clean and secure, without actually owning any of the properties. They call themselves private lenders – issuing millions of dollars in registered mortgages and short-term loans...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle38004840/

Ugh, it's like the Italians all over again. :ohno: Is it because of pasta do you think?