Immigrants help drive Metro Vancouver’s housing market: study

2016/03/15 Leave a comment

Dan Hiebert and David Ley continue their insightful work in assessing ethnic concentration and impacts on housing:

Immigrants have a major impact on fast-rising house prices in Metro Vancouver and Toronto, according to the author of a new study.

In a unique research project, UBC geographer Daniel Hiebert discovered that ethnic Chinese and South Asians become homeowners at a much higher rate than other immigrants and the general population.

“There is definitely an impact on the housing market,” said Hiebert, who believes a key factor behind the phenomenon is many new immigrants arrive in Canada’s major cities with a great deal of money.

The veteran researcher’s exclusive cross-tabulation of housing and immigration data, including between 2006 and 2011, found on average that 53 per cent of immigrants to Metro Vancouver during those five years became homeowners in that period.

They bought roughly 100,000 homes in Metro Vancouver during the five years, ranging from suburban condos to ritzy mansions.

“New Chinese immigrants were at the top of all this. Kind of incredibly, their rate of home ownership was 73 per cent,” said Hiebert.

Roughly 52 per cent of newly arrived South Asians, the second largest immigrant group in Metro Vancouver, bought homes in that same five-year period.

Rounding out the five largest recent newcomer groups during that period, the rate of home buying among South Koreans was 51 per cent and among white and Filipino immigrants it was each about 44 per cent.

Hiebert, who has published major studies on immigration, housing and ethnic enclaves, believes immigrants are seriously affecting housing affordability at both the high and low ends of the market.

Prices of Metro Vancouver’s expensive properties, those in the $4-million-plus range, are being dramatically affected by immigrants, Hiebert said. But, at the low end, so are costs for new Syrian refugee families, who need government subsidies to afford a basic place to live.

While some of the new immigrants who end up classified as homeowners might be among the relatively few who arrive on a family reunification program and join an existing household, Hiebert believes most would be buying homes by transferring large financial resources into Canada.

“I think it would be a pretty big stretch for someone to arrive tabula rasa (without a lot of money) in a housing market like Vancouver and within five years be able to purchase a home in this place. That would be really difficult to expect.”

Hiebert’s findings support the conclusions of UBC’s David Ley, holder of the Canada Research Chair in geography and author of Millionaire Migrants. The Oxford-educated professor has found an “unusually decisive” correlation between high immigration to Metro Vancouver and high home prices.

The overall rate of home ownership among all residents in Metro Vancouver is almost 70 per cent — out of a total 1.5 million households, according to Hiebert’s work.

Based solely on visible-minority status, and disregarding immigrant status, ethnic “Chinese have the highest ratio of home ownership, followed by South Asians,” Hiebert said.

“The percentage of home ownership among Chinese is 81 per cent,” accounting for 290,000 Metro households, Hiebert said. “And South Asians are second at 75 per cent,” or roughly 160,000 households.

“Between these two largest groups, you’ve got much of the immigrant picture, which is why the immigrant picture looks better than the other picture (for non-immigrants),” said Hiebert.

Among smaller ethnic groups in Metro Vancouver, 62 per cent of Filipinos own homes, as do 59 per cent of West Asians (mostly Iranians).

Hiebert, who frequently advises the federal government, said his research did not include studying the rate of home ownership among non-immigrants, long-standing residents of Canada, or whites.

Nor does it delve into the specific effects of foreign ownership on Metro Vancouver housing costs.

And even though Hiebert said the high rate of home ownership among immigrants has a “definite” impact on housing, he said more careful analysis of sales is needed to measure it precisely.

He speculated the roughly 100,000 homes bought quickly by immigrants who arrived in Metro Vancouver between 2006 and 2011 would represent a “reasonable fraction” of all houses sold in that period, adding that proportion could be calculated after learning how many homes sell each year in the region.

Craig Munn, spokesman for the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, said in an interview the average number of houses sold between 2006 and 2011 across the region of Metro Vancouver (which contains 21 municipalities from West Vancouver to Langley) was about 44,000 annually.

That adds up 220,000 home sales over that five-year period, which means the proportion bought by immigrants who arrived in that time alone would be about 45 per cent.

Hiebert, basing his work on novel cross-tabulations of the National Household Survey, found “stark differences” in new immigrants’ home ownership rates between Canada’s three largest cities.

While the home ownership rate in Metro Vancouver was 53 per cent and in Toronto 50 per cent among those who arrived between 2006 and 2011, it was just 23 per cent in Montreal.

“The much lower rate of home ownership in Montreal is ironic, because of course housing can be had for (roughly) 40 per cent of the price of Toronto or Vancouver,” he said.

“When housing prices escalate quickly, people feel they have to dive into home ownership. But there’s no sense of urgency in Montreal.”

Source: Immigrants help drive Metro Vancouver’s housing market: study

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Liberals shift immigration focus to family reunification, refugee resettlement

2016/03/10 Leave a comment

Immigration_Plan_2016One of the more comprehensive reports on the changes, but changes that some of my colleagues more expert in immigration characterize as ‘less change than meets the eye’:

Canada will seek to admit a record number of immigrants as the Liberal government shifts its focus on family reunification and the settlement of refugees, says Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum.

“This plan sends a message about the importance of family,” McCallum said in Brampton, Ont., on Tuesday.

“It outlines a significant shift in immigration policy towards reuniting more families, building our economy and upholding Canada’s humanitarian traditions to resettle refugees and offer protection to those in need.”

McCallum said Canada will admit between 280,000 and 305,000 new permanent residents in 2016, a record increase from the 260,000 to 285,000 newcomers the previous Conservative government had planned to welcome by the end of 2015.

The Liberal plan will see Canada admit:

  • 151,200 to 162,400 caregivers, provincial nominees, and other skilled workers under the economic stream.
  • 75,000 to 82,000  spouses, partners, children, parents and grandparents of Canadians under the family reunification plan.
  • 51,000 to 57,000 refugees, protected persons and others admitted for humanitarian reasons.​

The Liberal plan also includes admitting 18,000 privately sponsored refugees, “three times more than in earlier years,” McCallum said.

The government has resettled some 25,000 Syrians, a mix of government-assisted and privately sponsored refugees, in four months. The Liberals have also pledged to resettle another 10,000 government-assisted Syrian refugees by the end of 2016.

Reviewing sponsorship conditions

McCallum said the government will review some of the conditions imposed on Canadians looking to sponsor their children and spouses living overseas, making family reunification a priority.

“The government of Canada will make family reunification an important priority because when families are able to stay together, their integration to Canada and ability to work and grow their communities all improve,” McCallum said in a much-anticipated report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.​

“We will work to restore the maximum age for dependants to 22 from 19 and re-examine the two-year conditional permanent residence provision for sponsored spouses.”

In its annual report to Parliament, the Liberal government is also pledging to:

  • Eliminate the $1,000 labour market impact assessment (LMIA) fee for families looking to hire caregivers for family members with physical and mental disabilities. An LMIA is a document employers must file to prove the need to hire a foreign worker over a Canadian one.
  • Review the express entry system launched in January 2015 “to provide more opportunities” for applicants who have Canadian siblings.
  • “Expand and monitor the use of biometrics” to verify the identity of all temporary and permanent residents  who need a visa or permit to enter Canada.

Fewer economic immigrants

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel denounced the government’s decision to admit fewer economic immigrants.

“These cuts to economic immigration come at a time when our workforce is aging, our economy is slowing, and refugees are waiting for months to have long-term affordable housing,” Rempel said during question period,

She said the government’s changes to the caregivers program would “leave the most vulnerable Canadians without care.”

Source: Liberals shift immigration focus to family reunification, refugee resettlement – Politics – CBC News

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Ottawa to eliminate rule used to crack down on marriage fraud

2016/03/02 Leave a comment

Good range of commentary on the Government’s recent announcement on its planned removal of the two-year delay on spousal permanent residency:

One Vancouver immigration lawyer said Monday that anecdotal evidence (the government has yet to make public the official data) suggests that the 2012 measures have been effective.The two-year delay has had “the desired effect of discouraging this kind of behaviour. So if you eliminate that, I wouldn’t be surprised if (marriage fraud) went back up again,” said Andrew Wlodyka, a former assistant deputy chair with the appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

“But the government has made this decision, and they’re going to have to live with the consequences.”

Geeta Ghardwaj, a settlement worker for Punjabi immigrants at Abbotsford Community Services, said she noticed a “significant” reduction in marriage fraud cases as a result of the 2012 policy changes.

But other immigration specialists praised the pending move, saying the two-year delay had unintended consequences that put new immigrants, especially women, in a vulnerable position.

Marriage fraud “was a problem, there is no question about that,” said Vancouver immigration lawyer Alex Stojicevic, past-chairman of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section and an adjunct professor at the University of B.C.

But the policy “caused more problems than it solved (by creating) incentives (for sponsored spouses) to stay in abusive and bad relationships simply to keep their status.”

He said the separate prohibition on a second spousal sponsorship less than five years after an initial marriage should be an effective deterrent.

Stojicevic noted that Citizenship and Immigration Canada has also developed sophisticated tools in recent years to detect marriage fraud, making a “Draconian” measure like the two-year delay unnecessary.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said there are other tools to discourage fraud, like a mid-2015 regulation that excluded “proxy” marriages executed via telephone, fax or the Internet.

But he said the government should maintain the two-year ban as a discretionary option for visa officers when they have suspicions about a spousal sponsorship, but want to give the couple a conditional benefit of the doubt rather than reject their application outright.

The Conservatives brought in both the two-year and five-year provisions in 2012 after Jason Kenney, the immigration minister at the time, told of “thousands” of victims who had their hearts broken by marriage fraudsters.

A year later, CBSA documents obtained by Kurland indicated that roughly a third of spousal immigration applications from China and India were fraudulent.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/ottawa+eliminate+rule+used+crack+down+marriage+fraud/11753186/story.html#ixzz41gdoS5Rn

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Spouses of Canadians to get permanent residency immediately

2016/03/01 Leave a comment

Another platform commitment being implemented, reflecting a preference to reduce the risk of spouses being trapped in abusive situations compared to the previous government’s preference for reducing marriage fraud and marriages of convenience:

Immigration Minister John McCallum says he’s planning on introducing changes in the “next couple of months” that will grant permanent resident status to the sponsored spouses of Canadians, immediately, upon arriving in Canada.

“When spouses come in now, they don’t immediately become permanent residents; there’s a two-year period where they are not yet permanent residents,” Mr. McCallum (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.) said in an interview with The Hill Times. “We said in our platform that we will end that so that they will become permanent residents on arrival.”

Currently, sponsored spouses of Canadians receive conditional permanent residency upon arrival in Canada and have to wait for two years to obtain permanent-resident status. If the relationship breaks down, the sponsored spouse’s permanent residency can be revoked. Spouses holding conditional permanent resident status enjoy the same rights and benefits as any other permanent resident.

The Conservatives introduced the conditional permanent-resident provision in 2012 to address the issue of marriage fraud.

Since becoming the immigration minister in November, a number of Liberal MPs in ridings with large visible-minority populations have been asking Mr. McCallum (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.) to take immediate measures to make the application processing time of family sponsorship applications faster. Most MPs representing major urban centres from all parties say that issues related to immigration, refugees and citizenship account for 70 to 80 per cent of their constituency work.

Mr. McCallum, whose riding has the third-highest percentage of visible minority population at 82 per cent, said that he finds it “abominable” that it takes almost two years for the spousal immigration applications to be processed, and after arriving in Canada, another two years to receive permanent-resident status. He said that his department is working on coming up with plans to speed up the application processing times. Mr. McCallum did not offer a specific target timeframe for reducing the application processing times, but said that it will be brought down “radically.”

Source: Spouses of Canadians to get permanent residency immediately: McCallum | hilltimes.com

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Dozens of ‘British home children’ lie forgotten in Etobicoke cemetery

2016/02/29 1 Comment

One of the less known parts of our history that I learned about when working on citizenship and multiculturalism issues:

Charles Bradbury was still a child when his throat was slit with a razor on Feb. 1, 1897. His charred remains were found the same day in a burned-down barn near the Don River.

The live-in farm hand had quarreled with his landlord and employer before falling into a “sulky fit” and earning a “slight kick” from the plowman, a local newspaper reported two days later. The man was never prosecuted for his death, dubiously deemed a suicide.

Several news stories, a name and a number — 983 — scribbled onto a graveyard plot card are all that survive to mark the boy’s existence.

Charles is one of 75 children whose remains lie buried, unmarked and virtually forgotten in a pair of mass graves at an Etobicoke cemetery. They were drops in the wave of British home children, sent in droves from the U.K. to build a fresh life on Canadian soil.

Now a research group has dug up their identities, giving new life to youths all but anonymous in death. The revelation unfolded as part of an effort to reclaim the pasts of more than 115,000 children shipped across the Atlantic as indentured servants between 1869 and 1948.

“This thing at Park Lawn Cemetery was held under wraps for many years,” says Lori Oschefski, who heads the British Home Child Advocacy and Research Association.

Source: Dozens of ‘British home children’ lie forgotten in Etobicoke cemetery | Toronto Star

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Business groups fear refugees and immigrant families will crowd out spaces for foreign workers in Canada

2016/02/23 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how the Government balances the different demands and whether or not it raises the overall number of immigrants (levels, currently around 250,000).

And it is not only refugees that are creating pressures on levels, as seen in Minister McCallum’s mandate letter:

  • As part of the Annual Immigration Levels Plan for 2016, bring forward a proposal to double the number of entry applications for parents and grandparents of immigrants to 10,000 a year.
  • Give additional points under the Entry Express system to provide more opportunities for applicants who have Canadian siblings.
  • Increase the maximum age for dependents to 22, from 19, to allow more Canadians to bring their children to Canada.
  • Bring forward a proposal regarding permanent residency for new spouses entering Canada.

Should know the results of these trade-offs March 9:

Provinces and businesses keen to bolster their workforce are worried the push for Syrian refugees this year will lead to a cutback in foreign workers..

The government admits a set number of immigrants each year. In 2015, for example, the Conservative government planned to admit up to 285,000 immigrants. Of those slots, 66 per cent were reserved for economic immigrants; 24 per cent of the slots were for the family members of immigrants; and the remaining 10 per cent were for refugees and other humanitarian entrants.

The federal government is supposed to provide its immigration admission numbers by Oct. 31 each year. Because of last fall’s federal election, the numbers for 2016 haven’t yet been published. The government now has until March 9 to come up with its plan.

But with tens of thousands more refugees being admitted this year compared to 2015, and with the Liberals’ campaign promise to make it easier for immigrants to reunite with their parents and grandparents, the number of slots reserved for economic immigrants may be reduced.

(Economic immigrants are foreign workers, including business people and skilled tradespeople, who are allowed into Canada on a permanent basis. Those admitted through the controversial temporary foreign worker program fall into a different category.)

Immigration Minister John McCallum said last week he has consulted with industry, as well as refugee groups and other organizations about this year’s immigration levels. But he wouldn’t say whether the government is considering reducing the number of economic immigrants allowed.

Critics often accused the Conservatives of turning Canada’s immigration system into little more than a hiring program, with refugees and families being given short shrift. In 2007, foreign workers represented only 60 per cent of immigration admission targets. with 26 per cent family members and 14 per cent refugees.

Given the state of the Canadian economy, with unemployment rising, some question whether the government should continue to admit tens of thousands of foreign workers, including business people and skilled tradesmen, on a permanent basis.

But provinces, industry associations and experts say economic immigrants are essential for meeting Canada’s labour needs. Some bring skills that are in short supply in Canada, while others are willing to do jobs Canadians won’t. The country’s low birthrate also threatens long-term labour force supply.

“We really need immigrants to drive economic growth,” said Sarah Anson-Carter, director of skills and immigration policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “Economic immigrants make up about 30 per cent of new entrants into the labour force each year.”

Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said economic immigrants are even more important now given that the temporary foreign worker program has been effectively frozen while the Liberals review it.

“The small business community does not want to see economic immigration drop in this country,” he said. “TFW has been rendered largely useless for small businesses.”

Provinces are also counting on the government to keep the levels where they are. One provincial official, speaking on background, said provinces loudly protested when federal immigration officials recently suggested that the number of economic immigrants could be scaled back this year.

“Our hope is it would remain the same or have a modest increase,” the official said.

Source: Business groups fear refugees and immigrant families will crowd out spaces for foreign workers in Canada

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Temporary foreign workers program faces federal review

2016/02/19 Leave a comment

Not unexpected to see political pressure from Atlantic Canada.

Will be interesting to watch the political debate, given that former Minister Kenney sees one of his legacies threatened (after reversing earlier Conservative policies than made it easier for businesses to hire Temporary Foreign Workers) and the degree to which the Government responds:

While the Liberals criticized the Conservative government’s handling of the program, the party did not propose reforms in its 2015 election platform.

All seats in Atlantic Canada went to Liberals, and MPs from the region are pressing hard for changes, saying the restrictions hurt seasonal businesses and the service sector.

Nova Scotia Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner, who is also Ms. Mihychuk’s parliamentary secretary, said the program needs to be overhauled to take into account the demands of seasonal businesses.

“Changes over the last couple of years have impacted seasonal industries. We still generate over 50 per cent of the regional GDP through seasonal industries. The work force is getting older. The out-migration is significant,” he said.

Yvonne Jones, the Liberal MP from Labrador, said the changes to the TFW program hurt her province’s tourism and fish processing industries, making it difficult to get seasonal labour.

“Because of the fact we are unable to recruit under the temporary foreign worker program, we have seen a lot of businesses having to close or scale back their hours and days of operations. This is really affecting services to communities that need that service,” Ms. Jones said.

Conservative MP Jason Kenney, the former minister who overhauled the program, said it would be dumb economic policy to exempt fish plant workers from the terms of the temporary workers program when so many Atlantic Canadians are unemployed and many jobless oil workers are returning from Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“This is classic Liberal position. Make it easy for local fish plant workers to go on unemployment insurance and make it easier for the employers to bring in fish plant workers from overseas,” he said.

Mr. Kenney said one of the reasons his government tightened the rules for employment insurance and temporary foreign workers was that communities in Atlantic Canada had local fish plant workers collecting employment insurance while foreigners were doing their jobs.

Ms. Mihychuk said the review by the Commons employment committee needs to encompass every sector of the economy, including the impact of the collapse in oil prices.

“You look at the massive layoffs in Alberta, it’s really changing the labour market,” she said. “A lot of indigenous people are strongly opposed to [TFW], saying it’s time for indigenous people to be given a chance. So there are a lot of different angles to the whole program.”

Unemployment among aboriginal people is more than twice the rate for non-aboriginals, according to the 2011 National Household Survey.

The Liberals also believe a credible pathway to citizenship for foreign workers is needed.

“It’s a situation that is complicated. These are people – excellent people – and a lot of them want to stay in the country,” Ms. Mihychuk added.

The Liberals say the Conservatives mismanaged the 2014 reforms and based many of their regional employment assumptions on inaccurate labour market data.

“Under the temporary workers program, basically, they connected it to data around employment statistics, but those employment statistics were not completely accurate,” Ms. Jones said. “They looked at large regions as opposed to individual areas where the problem was most sensitive. And because they didn’t go with the [mandatory] long-form census, a lot of the data was incomplete,” she added.

Mr. Kenney said the review is unnecessary, saying the reforms he brought in were balanced and well thought-out.

“I think our changes have turned out to be prescient given the downturn in the western economy, in particular where the most skilled part [of TFW] was being overused. With over 100,000 Albertans having lost their jobs in the past few months, and if more people were pouring into the Alberta labour market from abroad as de facto indentured workers while many Canadians are facing unemployment, that would be totally unacceptable,” he said.

Source: Temporary foreign workers program faces federal review – The Globe and Mail

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Changing Immigrant Characteristics and Entry Earnings: StatCan Study

2016/02/18 Leave a comment

Key takeaway of this study: Canadian work experience makes the largest difference in short-term (less than 2 years) economic outcomes, and provides an evidence-base for policy changes that reward it (e.g., Express Entry points). In the longer-term, education and age are more significant (View):

Immigration selection policies changed significantly during the 1990s and 2000s, at least in part to improve immigrant entry earnings. After the decline in both relative (to the Canadian-born) and absolute entry earnings during the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong desire to improve the economic outcomes of immigrants shortly after their landing. Changes in selection policies and other factors altered immigrants’ characteristics across a number of dimensions, including demographics, source region, work experience and geographic distributions. This paper examines whether immigrants’ earnings immediately after their landing improved as a result of these changes and, if so, which characteristics contributed the most to this improvement.

Among all new immigrants, abstracting from economic cyclical variation, entry earnings—defined as earnings in the first two full years after landing—remained more or less constant throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The situation was very similar for principal applicants (PAs) in the economic class. During the 1990s, rising educational attainment at landing and the increasing share of immigrants in the economic class increased entry earnings. During the 2000s, a much more complex period in terms of immigrant selection, the factors that positively influenced immigrant entry earnings included changing distribution by immigration class, notably the rise of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP); changing source region; and, for immigrant women, rising educational attainment at landing. These factors were offset by less favourable economic conditions in destination cities and regions in the late 2000s.

However, one factor dominated all others: the rise in the share of new immigrants who had Canadian work experience, often in high-paying jobs, prior to obtaining permanent residency. Changes in this factor tended to increase entry earnings during the 2000s far more than any other variable studied. The increase in pre-landing Canadian work experience accounted for most of the positive effect of the rise of the PNP on entry earnings during the 2000s, since the increase in work experience was heavily concentrated among provincial nominees. Furthermore, differences in pre-landing Canadian work experience between provincial nominees (with more Canadian work experience) and skilled workers (SWs) (with less) accounted for virtually all of the entry earnings advantage that the provincial nominees held over the SWs during the 2000s. While other factors, such as differences in geographic distribution (more settled in the West), educational attainment at landing, unemployment in the destination regions and cities, and source region, contributed, either in a small positive or negative manner, to the entry earnings differences between provincial nominees and SWs, their contribution paled in comparison with the pre-landing Canadian work experience factor. Once adjusted for differences in pre-landing Canadian work experience, entry earnings were virtually identical between provincial nominees and SWs. These conclusions were found for all new immigrants, as well as for PAs in the economic class, and were evident for both men and women.

It is likely that the pre-landing Canadian work experience variable used here captures at least three effects. First is the effect of Canadian work experience on earnings early in immigrants’ working life after landing. Employers appear to be more willing to remunerate such experience relative to foreign work experience. Second, this variable may also reflect a selection effect. When immigrants are selected from the pool of temporary foreign workers, they come with information regarding how well they performed in their jobs in Canada. If an employer seeks to change the status of temporary foreign workers to a permanent one, it is likely because they have done well in their jobs. Hence, much of the effect on entry earnings could be because of this selection process. Third, during the 2000s, many of the workers on temporary visas who attained permanent status worked in high-paying jobs.

Source: Changing Immigrant Characteristics and Entry Earnings

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Canada’s hardest-hit economies need immigration to thrive again: Moffat

2016/02/18 Leave a comment

Mike Moffat on the need to remove the need for a Labour Market Impact Assessment for graduates of Canadian universities in Express Entry point scoring (another issue is to restored pre-Permanent Resident credit towards citizenship residency requirements for international students as was done prior to the 2014 changes in the Citizenship Act):

So how can London, Windsor, St. Catharines et. al. increase their population of talented twentysomethings? The region does an excellent job of importing talent as our institutes of higher education are worldwide magnets for young achievers. In London, Western and Fanshawe bring in some of the most gifted students in the world, teach them skills highly in demand in the region while they become familiar with Canadian culture. We then allow these graduates to stay in the country for a period of up to three years via Canada’sPost-Graduation Work Permit Program(PGWPP); tech companies Darren Meister, Kadie Ward and I interviewed in London told me how incredibly valuable these workers are.

They also told us that, despite these workers having graduated in Canada and being in the country around seven years, the Federal government makes it difficult (and some cases impossible) to keep them in the country. They are sent back home, and London has fewer talented young workers.

The issue stems, in part, from year-old changes to Canada’s express entry system which makes it impossible for someone in the PGWPP program to gain express entry without a Labour Market Impact Assessment, as chronicled by Nicholas Keung:

“The problem, which the federal government denies, lies in the significance given to a certificate called the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). It is issued by Ottawa to ensure a candidate’s skills are sufficiently in demand to warrant hiring an immigrant.

Ottawa says applicants for Express Entry, such as international graduates, do not need an LMIA to qualify. But Express Entry acceptance is based on a point system and it’s not possible to earn enough points without an LMIA, immigration experts say.

“The new system is flawed,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Shoshana Green. “We want people who went to school and have work experience in Canada. These people are already fully integrated. And now we are ignoring them. It is just bizarre.””

The process to obtain a LMIA is arduous for smaller growth companies, and navigating it can be difficult, as immigration lawyerRonalee Carey describes:

“Last month I sent a young woman back to Japan. She’d come to Canada as an international student first to finish high school, then to attend Sheridan College in their Animation Program. Her employer consulted me after their Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), because her position was denied. They had been paying her the median wage for Ontario, as opposed to Ottawa, which was slightly higher. Meanwhile, they had no idea there were median wages specific to Ottawa. They offered her a raise and resubmitted the LMIA application.”

But it was too late.

The young woman had been working on a post-graduate work permit. It had expired, and she’d applied for an extension. However, a positive LMIA was required for the extension. Ultimately, her work permit application was denied, because the new LMIA application had not yet been processed.

And so on the plane she went.

These stories are all too common according to the tech firms I have spoken to. In order to obtain an LMIA, one must prove to the federal government that “there is a need for the foreign worker to fill the job you are offering and that there is no Canadian worker available to do the job.” Not only does this place a large burden on growth companies to convince a bureaucrat about the lack of Canadians for the position, it is also completely counterproductive for communities where there is a desperate need for young talent. Furthermore, it may be impossible for these companies to prove this point to the government’s satisfaction. As immigration lawyer Evan Green asked the Globe and Mail, “…how do you prove for someone with [little] work experience that there is no Canadian to do the job?”

Southwestern Ontario is desperate for economic growth from startups. Startups are desperate for these talented workers. These workers are desperate to stay in Canada. Yet we are kicking them out. It makes absolutely no sense. If the federal government truly wants to help London and the rest of southwestern Ontario, the place to start is to recognize the region needs talented young people and to reform the Express Entry system to allow us to keep more of our graduates.

Source: Canada’s hardest-hit economies need immigration to thrive again

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British Columbia Imposes Citizenship Disclosure for Home Buyers – Bloomberg Business

2016/02/18 Leave a comment

Long overdue. The lack of data hampers knowing what, if any, policy response is needed:

British Columbia will require home buyers to disclose their citizenship to help the government monitor foreign ownership and address a housing boom that has made Vancouver one of the least affordable cities in the world.

Proposed changes to the property transfer tax will enable the government to collect information on property buyers, including their citizenship status and whether they hold the property as bare trustees. Bare trusts are typically used for real-estate assets and pass taxes and benefits directly to the beneficiary.

“We think it’s time to start collecting again,” Finance Minister Michael de Jong said in a briefing in Victoria. “At least we’ll be in a position to aggregate the information and provide data for the public discussion.”

The measures are meant to provide more transparency in the country’s hottest real-estate market. Prices in Vancouver are the highest in Canada, topping C$1.3 million ($940 million) for a detached home in January, a 28 percent rise over the prior year, according to that city’s real estate board, with sales up 32 percent in that period.

More transparency is not meant to slow investment from abroad, de Jong said. The province will continue to spend taxpayer money to promote the province as an investment destination.

Source: British Columbia Imposes Citizenship Disclosure for Home Buyers – Bloomberg Business

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