Increase needed to meet 'ever-growing demand for skilled labour'

Canada will raise its annual immigrant intake by about 13 per cent to 340,000 by 2020 under a multi-year plan unveiled by Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen on Wednesday.

The plan will bring the country’s yearly immigration level to 0.9 per cent of the population, up slightly from its current 0.8 per cent level, in order to offset the economic effects of an aging population and low birth rate.

In 2017, Canada has a population of 36.5 million people and will welcome an estimated 300,000 newcomers. Of those, roughly 58 per cent or 172,500 of newcomers are expected to come under the economic class, 28 per cent or 84,000 through family reunification and the rest, some 15 per cent or 43,500, as refugees or on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

However, the 2020 target still falls far short of the 450,000 level recommended by the federal government’s own economic advisory council as the Liberals carefully manage the often sensitive and divisive immigration file.

Under its 2018 immigration plan, the government will phase in the increase over three years by raising the intake initially to 310,000 next year and 330,000 in 2019 before reaching the 340,000 target in 2020.

The economic class immigrants include federal high-skill workers and those brought in by provinces based on local labour market needs. The quota for the provincial nominee program will go up by 32 per cent to 67,800 from the current 51,000 in the next three years.

“The increase is to meet Canada’s ever-growing demand for skilled labour. We will continue to wisely use immigration as a tool to power our economy,” Hussen said. “The multi-year planning will ensure predictability and stability for provinces and cities to plan ahead and do their parts.”

According to government data, there were 6.6 people of working age for each senior in 1971. By 2012, the worker-to-retiree ratio had dropped to 4.2 to 1, with projections that put the ratio at 2 to 1 by 2036, when five million Canadians are set to retire. More than 80 per cent of recent immigrants to Canada have been under 45 years of age.

“Canada’s economic growth is high and we can afford to absorb more immigrants. We do need more immigrants to continue our strong growth. With new immigrants, there’s the demand for properties and goods, new payroll taxes,” said immigration policy analyst and lawyer Richard Kurland.

“There will always be backlash. The reality is we’ve passed the tipping point. The label of visible minority really has no meaning any more with so many Canadians being foreign-born.”

Kareem El-Assal, the Conference Board of Canada’s senior associate researcher on immigration, said a multi-year plan is much better than the traditional “tap-on-tap-off” approach to immigration intake because it allows local communities to plan for housing, transportation and social programs based on longer-term immigration forecast.

The last time the Canadian government introduced a multi-year immigration plan was from 1982 to 1984 but it was quickly scrapped after the country was hit by a recession, he said.

“A 1-per-cent increase is prudent. It is in line with our research,” said El-Assal. “We need the resources, strategic investment and public support in place to sustain the (immigration) level.”

With more immigration, Hussen said the government will invest additional resources to process the increase in applications and in immigrant settlement services.

Refugee advocacy groups were disappointed that the annual immigration level will be lower than the 360,000 they had been lobbying the government to adopt.

“We have an opportunity to offer protection to more people who are in desperate need, people who are fleeing for their lives,” said Loly Rico, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

“Opening our doors to more refugees is not only the right thing to do because it saves lives, it is also good for Canada as refugees contribute in so many ways to our country.”

The opposition Conservative immigration critic, Michelle Rempel, slammed the government’s plan saying it failed to address some important issues on immigration backlogs and newcomer settlement.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“It is not enough for this government to table the number of people that they are bringing to this country. Frankly the Liberals need to stop using numbers of refugees, amount of money spent, feel-good tweets and photo-ops as metrics for success in Canada’s immigration system,” said Rempel.

“They urgently need to bring Canada’s immigration system back to order by stopping illegal immigration. . . ensuring integration into the Canadian economy and our pluralistic society measured by things like language proficiency, mental health support plans for survivors of trauma, and employability.”

With files from Tonda MacCharles