Statistics CanadaEthnic diversity and immigrationcan.gc.ca

Today, the ancestral roots of the population of Canada come from around the world. The 2006 Census identified more than 200 ethnic origins in Canada. One in three—10.1 million people—reported ‘Canadian’ as their origin either alone or in conjunction with other origins. After Canadian, the origins that they most often reported were English, French, Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Chinese, North American Indian, Ukrainian and Dutch.

Visible minorities growing

Canada’s visible minority population is growing at a much faster rate than its total population: 27% growth from 2001 and 2006 versus 5% in the general population. This is largely due to more immigration from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America and the Middle East. In 2006, about 70% of the visible minority population was born outside Canada.

In 2008, Canada accepted 247,200 immigrants, representing a rate of 8 newcomers per 1,000 people. This rate has been relatively constant since the 1990s.

From 2001 to 2006, almost 60% of newcomers to Canada came from Asia (including the Middle East). This contrasts with 35 years earlier, when Asians accounted for 12% of newcomers. Following the Second World War, most immigrants came from European countries.

The proportion of immigrants from African countries more than tripled from 3% in the late 1960s to 11% in the early 2000s. The proportion of immigrants from the United States followed an opposite trend, dropping from 11% to 3%.

Most immigrants settle in Toronto, Montréal or Vancouver. Social networks and links with family and friends influence immigrants to choose a particular location.

Wherever they settle, immigrants are about as likely as Canadian-born citizens to feel safe. In 2004, 93% of foreign-born or immigrant populations reported that they were satisfied with their personal safety, compared with 95% of the Canadian-born population.

Recently-arrived immigrants also may be more likely to move about within Canada to respond to job opportunities. For example, immigrants in Canada for five years or less have noticeably higher migration rates to booming Alberta than non-immigrants. Immigrants who have been in Canada for 10 to 15 years are less likely to move to Alberta.

As immigrants integrate into the labour market here, many initially face difficulties finding jobs. For example, university-educated immigrants aged 25 to 54 who arrived in Canada within the previous five years were less likely to be employed in 2007 than their Canadian-born counterparts. This was true regardless of the country where they obtained their degree. Those educated in Western countries generally had higher employment rates than those educated elsewhere.

However, the gap in rates between degree-holding immigrants and their Canadian born counterparts narrows the longer an immigrant have been in Canada.

Canadian Government Website on Immigration

Much of the success of Canada’s immigration programs depends on who is selected (the mix), how many come (the level of immigration), and where they go (communities that are able to welcome them with job opportunities, schools and housing).

1. What is the appropriate level of immigration for Canada?

In the last five years, Canada has admitted around 250,000 new permanent residents on average each year. This is roughly 0.8% of Canada’s population. See Annex B for the breakdown of admissions of permanent residents from recent years, and Annex C for the proportion of annual immigration to Canada’s population.

2. What is the appropriate mix between economic, family, and refugee/humanitarian classes?

Closely linked with the question of the appropriate level of immigration is the question of the appropriate mix, or distribution, of immigrants across the three main categories of immigration programs – economic, family reunification, and refugee/humanitarian – which broadly reflect IRPA’s objectives.

In 2012, the Levels Plan provided a mix of around 62% economic, 26% family, and 13% refugee and humanitarian class. It is worth noting that the economic category includes the principal applicants (the individual on the application whose skills and qualifications will be assessed) and their spouse/partner and dependants. Principal applicants make up around 40% of the economic category, while spouses/partners and dependents account for around 60%. However, many of these spouses/partners and dependants – as well as immigrants in the family and refugee/humanitarian classes – also join the labour market.

The appropriate mix will depend on a careful balance of competing pressures – of commitments to family reunification, refugee resettlement, and selecting immigrants to support economic growth. The mix must be considered with levels, because there are different settlement needs among the three main categories of immigrants, and the places that welcome them should have the job opportunities, the infrastructure and appropriate community supports in place. How should the social and economic objectives of immigration be balanced?

Go to this reading now for questions 7 to 13

May 9, 2012

How immigrants affect the economy: Weighing the benefits and costs By JOE FRIESEN

The Conservative government has made it clear that the goal of immigration policy now will be primarily economic growth, rather than family reunification and refugee settlement. But how do we assess an immigrant's economic contribution?

A few months after arriving in Canada in 2005, Edwin Sonsona was working 20 hours a day at six different jobs. He began each morning at 3 a.m., delivering the local newspaper.

By the time the sun was up he would don a uniform to flip hamburgers at McDonald's for $7.25 an hour. He rushed packages around town as a courier and set up store displays for Coca-Cola. Then he would go to a warehouse where he supervised the unloading of clothing destined for Winners stores. In the evenings he delivered Kentucky Fried Chicken until 11 p.m.

He kept up that pace for a year, sleeping four hours a night and taking one day a week to dedicate to his church. It was exhausting, but everyone told him he needed to gain Canadian experience.

"I said to myself, 'I'm starting from scratch. Nobody's going to help you,' " Mr. Sonsona said. "Moving from your native land, if you're not motivated, you're not going to be successful – you're going to be a sour-grapes man."

Mr. Sonsona's experience illustrates many of the hardships faced by immigrants over the last 30 years: Although he has an engineering degree and had been a mid-level employee at a multinational company in the Philippines, Canadian employers gave Mr. Sonsona entry-level, low-skill jobs. Even when working six of them, Mr. Sonsona was still earning less than $30,000 per year, substantially below the Canadian average, meaning he was contributing a relatively small amount in taxes.

Today Mr. Sonsona, now 41, has left the bustle of Winnipeg for small-town life in the immigration hotbed of Steinbach, Man. He is employed full time as a genetic technician at a hog-production company. He also takes shifts as a personal-support worker and works as a dance DJ on weekends. He runs a remittance business from his house that transferred $300,000 back to the Philippines last year (he got about $10 per transaction). And he plans to open an Asian food store later this year. His income is up to about $50,000.

In the long term, he wants to open a hog concern in the Philippines, a mirror image of his Canadian employer: When the Manitoba operation needs more workers, he'll be able to send trained people who already understand how things are done.

Sitting with his young son and daughter, Mr. Sonsona wears a T-shirt that says: "All things are possible." He is very happy with his life in Canada. A political party even asked him to be their candidate in the last provincial election, but he turned it down – he already wonders where he gets the energy.

Someone once asked him how he could stand to work in the smelly atmosphere of a hog barn. He said he replied, "Every morning when I sweep [up after]the pig, I tell myself it's one more dollar in my pocket."

For Mr. Sonsona, that's a measurement that counts.

COSTS

Settlement

When an immigrant comes to Canada there are some costs associated with getting them settled. They may need English or French lessons or help navigating the Canadian system, finding schools for their children and beginning a job search. The federal government spends $883-million per year on those services, and each province contributes its own, smaller share.

If immigration (even in the economic-immigrant category) were to rise substantially, those costs would, too – partly as an investment in reducing the potential strain on public services.

Services

As new permanent residents, immigrants become consumers of Canadian public services, such as health care, education, welfare and infrastructure. They contribute to those services through their taxes. A recent Fraser Institute study by Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady argues immigrants impose a burden of about $6,000 each by consuming more in services than they pay in taxes. But economists Krishna Pendakur and Mohsen Javdani argue the amount is closer to $450. (Each side disputes the other's methods.)

What's clear, though, is that immigrants recently have tended to earn less than the general population.

Unemployment

In the late 1970s, immigrants earned about 85 to 90 per cent of what the Canadian-born earned. By 2006 that figure had fallen closer to 60 per cent, according to a recent study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Although employment rates tend to catch up within five to 10 years, it's taking longer and longer for wages to match.

To change those ratios would require, at minimum, greater upfront spending on matching immigration to the country's needs, and in settlement assistance. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's current reforms have yet to call for additional investment in selection or settlement.

Remittances

Many immigrants also send money to family in their native country, removing a portion of their income and spending power from the Canadian economy. A Statistics Canada study found that about 30 per cent of immigrants sent money home in the first two to four years after their arrival in Canada, at an average of about $1,450 per year.

BENEFITS

The size of the pie

"Does [immigration]have a positive impact? The answer is probably yes," said University of Toronto economist Peter Dungan. "The benefits have clearly declined over time, though, because people are not earning to the extent that their equivalent criteria or credentials should allow them."

If Mr. Sonsona and immigrants like him bring complementary talents to Canadian skills and capital, then all Canadians should benefit. The economic pie gets bigger and so does everyone's share of that pie, as measured by gross domestic product per capita.

In Prof. Dungan's forecasting model, devised with two co-authors, an increase of 100,000 immigrants to Canada (chosen under the current selection model) would result in a 2.3-per-cent increase in real GDP over 10 years. But since the population would increase by 2.6 per cent over that period, GDP per capita could actually decline slightly.

However, if Canada were to double the number of economic-class migrants only, as The Globe and Mail has proposed, average entry wages for all immigrants would rise by between 5 and 6 per cent, according to a model devised by Queen's University economist Charles Beach.

Innovation

Studies show that immigration can also foster innovation. A Conference Board of Canada study found immigrants make up 35 per cent of university research chairs in Canada, much higher than their 20 per cent share of the population.

Trade

The same study argued that immigration has a significant impact on Canadian trade links. It proposed that a 1-per-cent increase in immigration from a specific country would lead to a 0.1-per-cent increase in the value of Canadian exports, largely as a result of the international networks that immigrants bring with them. They also bring with them a desire for goods from their home markets, which would contribute to a 0.2-per-cent rise in the value of imports, and a more interesting and varied market for all consumers.

Quality of life

A diverse population is also believed to make a community more attractive to creative, talented people. As a paper written for the Martin Prosperity Institute argues, cities such as Toronto have benefited from attracting people from around the world, particularly as the collision of their skills, abilities and perspectives can lead to improvements in productivity.

To find out what immigration looks like in your community, see an interactive look at solutions to Canada's immigration problem and share your own story click here [http://bit.ly/kxcpxh].

How to fix an 'upside-down' immigration systemBy Natasha Fatah, CBC News Posted: Aug 30, 2012 5:16 AM ET

You know all those "illegal aliens," meaning the Mexican migrant workers that the Americans want to throw out? If we had any sense, we'd bring them to Canada.

It is not an idea you hear very often. But it is exactly what James McNiven proposed, albeit more for dramatic effect, at the annual Palmer Conference on immigration at the University of PEI this summer.

Every single speaker and contributor at the conference agreed immigration is good for Canada's growth and prosperity.

But McNiven, a professor emeritus of public policy at Dalhousie University, and a former deputy minister of development in Nova Scotia, feels it is an absolute necessity to avoid economic catastrophe.

When I approached him after the conference, he allowed he wasn't being totally serious about his throw-open-the-doors proposal. "But, I wanted to point out there is a major labour shortage issue in this country" and something dramatic has to be done about it.

"It's absurd to have PhD taxi drivers," who have been lured here from developing countries with false hopes, he says, and so he is proposing a radical turn in our immigration policy.

Dalhousie professor Jim McNiven, a former deputy minister of development in Nova Scotia. (Dalhousie University website)

As he sees it, Canada should not be seeking out the doctors and engineers from India and China the way we have been.

"We have a bias towards professionals, and what we need are actually unskilled labour, guys who will come here and be industrious and start businesses.

"We need old fashioned immigrants who come with minimal skills and lots of drive."

Counterintuitive?

McNiven acknowledges that Canada is going through difficult economic times right now, with relatively high unemployment, which makes the idea of increasing the number of unskilled or semi-skilled immigrants seem strange.

But he argues that Canada's continually low birth rate will mean that there will not be enough people to fill all the needs of the labour force in the near future and so maintain the tax revenues required to care for an increasingly aging population.

How did we get into this mess? According to McNiven, the Canadian approach to immigration is completely out of date.

"The system is upside down," he says. It was designed in the 1980s, and despite even recent attempts at change, it has remained essentially the same and not in line with what Canada needs now and over the next 10 to 20 years.

During the 1980s, when McNiven was deputy minister of development in N.S., he says he saw first-hand the pressure to keep the "good jobs," the higher paying professional jobs, for Canadian-born young people who were just entering the workforce.

So, starting in the '80s, the Canadian government sought out and invited doctors, lawyers and engineers from other parts of the world to come to Canada.

However, once they arrived, many found that their professional credentials, which were the very reason they were accepted into the country, were considered insufficient.

As a result, many were forced to take on the lower level jobs that Canadians didn't want. And that system remains largely intact to this day.

Ask any immigrant to this country, and they'll tell you the two cruellest words they've had to encounter while looking for a job in their field of expertise are "Canadian experience."

If you're a newcomer to this country how are you supposed to have any? Thus begins the cycle of underemployment among so many of Canada's immigrants.

'Simple snobbery'

The federal government has embarked on changes to the immigration system, somewhat along the lines McNiven is suggesting, and Canada continues to accept more newcomers per capita than most other developed nations.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, putting more emphasis on younger, blue-collar workers. (Canadian Press)

Beginning next year, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney recently announced, there will be changes to the points grid used to apply under the Federal Skilled Worker program, tilting it

more towards younger workers and those with trades learned on the job rather than formal education.

(To get there, however, the Conservative government is unilaterally doing away with an almost five-year backlog of those who applied under the old rules, a move that has provoked a series of court challenges.)

For his part, McNiven feels we have to do more and do it more quickly. Our immigration system needs to loosen up and start chopping away at the impediments, he says. Too much bureaucracy is keeping people out.

But don't we need to be selective? Don't we want the so-called best and brightest to come to this country? McNiven feels this argument is "simple snobbery."

He also says it's unethical to take the most educated and accomplished citizens of one, often developing, country, and bring them to Canada only to deny them the opportunities they deserve.

They "just end up working in hotels and cleaning homes," he says, adding "it's unfair to plunder countries of their skilled labour."

He says the right thing to do is to bring immigrants who don't have great opportunities in their own countries but can contribute to Canada, and be rewarded and grow here.

McNiven recognizes that this is not an easy sell. But he says that unless we address the problem of Canada's looming labour shortage through immigration, the economic crisis in this country "is going to be drought rather a hurricane."