Every day, thousands of immigrants and migrant workers in Metro Vancouver head to the nearest money transfer outlet to send money home — often to needy family members, sometimes to invest. These outlets, more often called remittance centres, are on almost every commercial street in Metro — in grocery stores, hair salons, florists, post-office outlets, Safeways, Walmarts and even sports bars. Some are neat and tidy, some are run down. These remittance centres are the unassuming face of a globalized money transfer industry that has tripled in value in a decade — to $529 billion a year, according to the World Bank. A recent Simon Fraser University study found more than 300 MoneyMart and Western Union remittance outlets in Metro Vancouver alone. That doesn’t include the many independent remittance centres, operating in dozens of languages. The amount of money that leaves Canada in remittances is staggering. At $24 billion a year in 2012, according to the World Bank, the sum is equivalent to the annual budgets of 12 Universities of British Columbia. Or enough to buy 70 of Vancouver’s tallest building, the Shangri-La tower. A Pew Research Center survey reveals immigrants to Canada, and especially temporary foreign workers, send more dollars per capita in remittances out of Canada than immigrants and migrant workers in almost any other nation, including the U.S., Germany and Britain. The top countries receiving Canadian remittances are middle-income nations — China (which receives $3.9 billion), India ($3.5 billion) and the Philippines ($2 billion). Remittances also often go to poor countries. And sometimes to wealthy ones, to support family or invest in the country of origin. After China, India and the Philippines, the countries receiving the most Canadian remittances are Britain, France, Lebanon, Vietnam, Germany, Italy and South Korea. Effects of globalization Researchers are increasingly assessing the pros and cons of the giant remittance industry — as globalization causes the volume of migrants to rapidly expand. The United Nations says there are 230 million migrants, people living in countries in which they were not born. Canada has more than seven million immigrants, who make up 21 per cent of the population (compared to 14 per cent in the U.S.). In Metro Vancouver, 45 per cent of residents are foreign born. Many who send home remittances are “circular migrants” who move back and forth between their high-income host country and generally low-income homeland. The World Bank says these temporary foreign workers (whose numbers have tripled in Canada, to more than 400,000, under the Conservative government) are responsible for two-thirds of all remittances. Some see positives in the worldwide distribution of private money from well-off to developing countries. They maintain it creates a phenomenon opposite to the “brain drain,” which draws talented migrants from developing nations to richer ones. But researchers also question aspects of the remittance tide. They include often-exorbitant transfer commissions; break up of communities and families; the over-reliance of poor and corrupt countries on relatives abroad, and the unfair pressure many feel to transfer money back home. Helping family abroad

For Vancouver’s Fatima Lagas, 43, however, remittances are fairly straightfoward. The 43-year-old nurse sends about $400 each month to her brother and sister in the Philippines for food, health care, education and electrical bills. Interviewed at Metro Remittance Centre on Fraser Street, Fatima and her husband Henry, who works in a group home, say they’ve been doing so for 15 years. Maribel Bambilla, 38, also sacrifices her small family’s material needs in Canada to send cash electronically to her struggling family. Interviewed at Terra Breads in Kitsilano, where she works before heading off to a second job as a cleaner, Bambilla says she sends up to $500 a month to the Philippines. “I’m grateful to be here in Canada,” Bambilla says, acknowledging this country has built up a stable economy and culture that makes it possible to earn higher wages than she could in the struggling Philippines. On a typical day, the small lobby of the IRemit outlet on Broadway east of Granville is bustling with people, usually women. They chat as they pay a commission to send money to parents, nieces, nephews, children — or to invest. Maricris Tanay, 45, is sending money home to build a house for her future. Tanay works as a live-in caregiver in Vancouver and in a Gastown bar on weekend nights. She transfers $1,000 a month out of Canada. “It’s so stressful and lonely here. All it is, is work, work, work. I don’t want to stay here. When I’m old, I’m going back to the Philippines.” Their remittances may not be huge. But Lagas, Bambilla and Tanay are players in a global remittance market now worth far more than all the combined money and resources that well-off nations deliver in humanitarian aid. “Total remittances to low and middle-income countries are nearly three times the foreign aid to these countries,” says a World Bank report. In middle-income countries such as China and India, remittances make up two per cent of gross domestic product. In poor countries, they comprise an average of eight per cent of GDP. The Philippines is unusually reliant on remittances — at 12 per cent of its GDP. Remittances can be a benefit to many. But they often come with costs. Four tough issues around remittances: THE HIGH COST OF MONEY TRANSFERS The average cost of an international remittance should be roughly five per cent of the total sum, says the United Nations. But an SFU research team, led by Pamela Stern, found fees charged on small sums, such as $100, can be as much as 20 per cent. “Remittances are big business,” says Stern. “Governments, both in Canada and abroad, can take steps to ensure that the money Canadians send to their relatives overseas is not gobbled up in transfer agency charges.” A related problem is migrants usually send money transfers once or twice a month. But that usually comes with higher commissions. It’s more financially efficient to send larger sums less frequently, but that irregularity can worry family members back home. ABUSE AND DUBIOUS MOTIVATIONS