PorCubaTodo
More immigrants are in Canada’s national interest.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s announcement that he’s launching stakeholder consultations
on Canada’s immigration program presents a timely opportunity for a
national conversation. How will we adapt to a century of unprecedented
mobility? Will we harness migration to build a more dynamic society and
economy, or will we quietly recede from the frontiers of globalization,
sacrificing innovation and prosperity for a more static society?
With new policies aimed at clamping down
on human smugglers and enhancing U.S.-Canada border security, many
perceive that Canada’s door is closing. This is false – so far. Canada
accepted 17 per cent more migrants last year than in 2005. In a time of
recession when other Western governments are imposing strict limits on
migration, Canada admitted 50,000 more migrants in 2010 than in 2009.
Over the past 25 years, the total number of international migrants doubled
to more than 200 million. We should expect that number to double again
in the next two decades. The world is entering a period of
hypermobility, the product of a growing supply of potential migrants
from developing countries and a burgeoning demand for both low- and
high-skilled workers in developed countries such as Canada. Skype,
Western Union, low-cost airlines and other advances are enabling an
unprecedented scale of movement.
The drivers of mobility will grow stronger in the coming decades for three reasons:
• Intercountry inequality
is increasing rapidly. Millions of Europeans left for the Americas in
the late 19th century to seek, among other things, wages that were two
to four times higher than those at home. Today, migrants stand to earn
as much as 15 times more by moving to another country to work.
• The connected processes of economic development,
urbanization and population growth in developing countries are
positioning more people to seek their fortunes abroad. Those with the
greatest propensity to move are educated young people with access to
resources and networks for migration. Climate change will also threaten
rural livelihoods, pushing more people into cities and some across
borders.
• Demand for migrants
will increase as declining fertility and population aging create severe
labour shortages, often in developed countries such as Canada. The
fiscal burden of an aging population will be borne by a shrinking work
force, and staff for nursing homes and retirement facilities will
continue to be scarce. Just as Canadian farms rely on temporary foreign
workers during harvest time, our elderly population will benefit from
the care provided by new Canadians.
We should embrace higher levels of migration
because it’s in our national interest. High-skilled migrants innovate
at a higher rate than the native-born population, and low-skilled
migrants meet crucial service sector gaps. On the whole, migrants
contribute more to the public purse than they receive in benefits. It’s
no wonder the provinces are seeking increased quotas.
We should also increase levels of
migration because it can deliver far more for global prosperity than
foreign aid and international trade ever will. Completely opening
borders, World Bank economists predict, would produce gains as high as
$39-trillion for the world economy over 25 years. These numbers compare
with the $70-billion that is currently spent every year in overseas
development assistance and the estimated gains of $100-billion from
fully liberalizing international trade. If we want to revolutionize our
foreign aid policy, we can start by giving more people a chance to work
in Canada.
The debate on immigration policy
is undermined in many countries by partisan agendas and dysfunctional
politics. Other governments are tempted to choke off migration in the
interest of short-term expediency and political gain. We must resist
this trend, remembering that Canada is a society built with the
ingenuity and hard work of generations of migrants.
Source: TheglobeandMail
