Why its time for Canada to grow up – Increasing immigration
2014/10/03 2 Comments
Pretty shallow argumentation, with no evidence apart from asserting it will be so.
No mention of inequality issues and that some communities are struggling more than others that the NHS and various studies make clear.
While overall Canada’s success at integration is almost unique in the world, simply assuming we could scale up immigration, integration, citizenship and multiculturalism by 50 percent a year is naive at best.
It would not be hard. Now at 34 million people, we would only need an annual growth rate of 1.3 per cent to reach that target. Assuming our fertility rates remain low, this means an additional 186,000 migrants annually, bringing our total immigration numbers to 444,000 per year. This may sound like a lot, but we could absorb them easily. By comparison to most cities around the world, Canadian urban areas are sprawling and empty. Even if we doubled our immigration numbers, the lineup at Tim Hortons would stay the same. It would only increase our workforce by one per cent per year, a number that our economy could easily engage, especially if we continue to recruit and favour skilled and educated migrants.
More immigrants mean more minds, more hands and more tax dollars. There is a misconception that new arrivals are a net drain on our economy. In fact, they are more entrepreneurial and work longer hours than average Canadians. The added muscle would make us smarter, stronger and louder.
While my bias is towards more pro-immigration rhetoric than the anti-immigration crowd, this has to be grounded in reality, and recognition that our absorptive capacity cannot be increasing by wishing it was so.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
Hi Andrew, Reading your response to Gilmore’s cowboy argumentation led me to wonder how ‘absorptive capacity’ is actually understood and estimated. Would be great if you wrote something on that topic! cheers, Natalie
________________________________
Hi Natalie, it would be an interesting piece to write. Agree.
But too busy now working on my next book, a heavy data-based look at multiculturalism, told through charts, so will have to keep that when I am largely through getting this put together.
Andrew