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Immigrants to Canada cost the federal government as much as $23-billion annually and “impose a huge fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers,” according to a think-tank report released Tuesday that was immediately criticized as telling only part of the story.

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or see it below) says newcomers pay about half as much in income taxes as other Canadians but absorb nearly the same value of government services, costing taxpayers roughly $6,051 per immigrant and amounting to a total annual cost of somewhere between $16.3-billion and $23.6-billion.

“It’s in the interest of Canada to examine what causes this and to fix it,” said Herbert Grubel, co-author of the report Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State. “We need a better selection process … We’re not here, as a country, to do charity for the rest of the world.”







The report acknowledges there are “popular propositions” about the benefits of immigration: Young immigrants pay taxes that support social services for Canada’s aging population; immigrants fill the low-paying jobs that others do not seem to want; Canadians are ennobled by allowing people to share in the country’s economic riches; immigration enriches the cultural life of Canadians, and future generations end up repaying their parents’ debt by earning an average or above-average living in the long run.