Herbert Grubel by

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"Canada is our nation now!"

he results of reliable surveys show that a majority of Canadians want changes in important government policies. For example, a survey by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a not-for-profit organization, found that in 2016 out of 4,547 respondents 55.1 percent indicated that Canada’s health care system needed fundamental changes and 8.6 percent that it needed to be rebuilt completely.An Angus Reid poll taken in 2017 found 57 percent of respondents supported the statement “Canada should accept fewer immigrants and refugees”. A 2016 government survey found that 54 percent of Canadians believed that the annual immigration level should be below 150,000.Another Angus Reid poll taken in 2017 found that two out of three Canadians nation-wide, 50 percent by residents of Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island and 60 percent of residents in the rest of British Columbia favor the construction of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline for the shipment of petroleum to Vancouver.Public opinion on these issues is based on solid evidence about the negative impact of current policies on the well-being of Canadians. Public opinion on the desirability of constructing the Kinder-Morgan pipeline is based on studies done by the federal regulatory agencies and the Ottawa government showing that the value of its economic benefits exceeds the environmental costs of accidental spillages of oil.Current immigration policies impose a heavy fiscal burden of over $30 billion a year on Canadians because recent immigrants on average have much lower incomes and pay much lower taxes than average Canadians. The large number of immigrants exceeds the country’s absorptive capacity and contributes much to the crises in the housing and rental markets and congestion on roads and recreation facilities.Disregarding the public will, the federal government has increased the number of immigrants from 240,000 in 2015 to 323,000 annually in 2016, and promised more increases in the future to as much as 350,000 by 2020. The government of British Columbia has vowed to prevent the construction of the pipeline by requiring further reviews of environmental risks the cost and delays of which threaten the economic viability of the project.Why are Canadian governments adopting policies that are clearly in conflict with the well-justified wishes of the public? The answer is quite simple. The politicians running these governments care more about getting elected or re-elected than the public interest. They increase their chances of electoral success by maintaining current policies that serve the beneficiaries of these policies.The beneficiaries of current immigration policies are employers who see immigrants as a source of low-cost labour, and business owners, professionals like lawyers, engineers, accountants and teachers who see them as markets for their goods and service, the construction and real-estate industries benefiting from the growth in the residential housing market and immigrants already settled in Canada who want to see their communities grow in numbers and political influence.The beneficiaries of policies that prevent the construction of facilities needed to produce and transport natural resources are organized groups of environmentalists with financial support from abroad.Political parties know that these beneficiaries of existing policies will vote for them if they promise not to change them. On the other hand, the majority of voters who wish to have them changed do not have the same powerful self-interest to vote against parties opposing changes.To change this condition it is essential that the public be well informed about the cost existing policies impose on them and thus encourage voting for parties promising to change the policies. Only a relatively small proportion of the general public has to be persuaded to do so in order to overwhelm the voting power of the special interest groups.This goal can be attained through the work of think tanks like the Fraser Institute, CD Howe Institute and others which, with the help of academics, the media and public interest activists inform the public about their interest and voting power. If they succeed in mobilizing the public well enough on a subject like fiscal deficits and the establishment politicians refuse to respond properly, populist parties can become successful and force existing parties to change their policies. This has happened before when in 1993 the Reform Party gained enough votes to enter parliament in large numbers and induce the creation of balanced budgets.The beneficiaries of current policies not in the interest of the public should also be targets for information. For example, recent immigrants should be made aware of the negative effects current policies have on competition in labor markets and on their incomes and taxes needed to service growing debts.