New Canadians key to keeping economy competitive
The path former prime ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau put us on — to not merely tolerate newcomers, but to embrace and celebrate the diversity of contribution they bring — is largely accountable for our unlikely high standard of living and status as a hotbed of innovation.
But we are at a crossroads, at which we can grasp the greater prosperity that diversity brings or suffer the current dysfunctional immigration system that keeps so many aspiring Canadians from reaching our shores and throws up roadblocks to new Canadians seeking to make their contributions.
The stakes of fixing our immigration system could not be higher.
Even with its current jobless rate of 7 per cent, Canada is coping with severe shortages of skilled workers throughout the economy. Among the most prominent examples are in health care; engineering; entrepreneurship and leading-edge business management practices; advanced construction methods; and scientific and technological research and development.
To thrive in the 21st century, Canada needs to become second to none in advanced practices. With a modest population of 35.7 million people, we cannot achieve that goal without the infusion of the unique talents and insights that new Canadians provide. Canada’s innovative culture means that we have the chance to repeat our contributions — our inventions of standard time, insulin, the world’s first stem-cell research, the smartphone and the fibre-optic backbone of the global Internet.
We must nurture centres of excellence. We already have concentrated excellence in financial services, aerospace and health care. We need to bolster our prowess in those fields and nurture nascent centres of excellence in alternative energy, construction, transportation, agriculture and other technologies. That will require a continued infusion of the world’s best and brightest talent.
Canada is the world’s largest branch-plant economy. The key decisions about entire industries in Canada are made abroad. More newcomers from South Asia, the Pacific Rim and other regions of above-average entrepreneurialism are essential if Canada is to achieve genuine economic sovereignty.
Finally, we are in a global competition for immigrants. That contest will intensify. Worldwide, notably in mature economies and in China, the growth of retiree populations is outpacing that of the workforce. The populations of Japan and Russia have begun to shrink, and Western Europe can’t be far behind. Elsewhere, China’s biggest challenge over the next two decades will be managing a growing, perilous imbalance between its worker and retiree populations.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision last month to take a minimum of one million Syrian refugees this year alone is as much pragmatic as altruistic. Already coping with a low birth rate, a widespread skills shortage and an increasingly skewed ratio between retirees and workers, Germany needs the refugees.
In their homeland, the Syrian refugees were family physicians, engineers, radiologists and entrepreneurial store and factory owners. They are poised to bolster the strength of what is already the world’s fourth-largest economy.
With almost all advanced countries facing the spectre of declining workforces, Canada must work much harder to remain a pre-eminent destination for émigrés. Are we still that “shining city on the hill” for immigrants that we’ve long thought ourselves to be?
Out of complacency and recent ill-advised federal policy changes, we risk losing its favourable regard among prospective immigrants choosing among Canada, Germany, Britain, Australia, the U.S. and other regions.
In Canada, there is a stubborn gap between skilled first-generation immigrants and the general population when it comes to being able to secure employment, decent housing and adequate pay. And new arrivals report back to relatives and friends in their homelands; what they have to say about their adopted nation will determine levels of additional immigration to Canada. Too often, the reports from here are negative.
Even newcomers to Canada with 10 or more years’ residency are routinely stymied when they try to gain accreditation to practise medicine, law, accounting, pharmacy, engineering and so on. These people were pharmacists, family doctors, architects and accountants back home. Canada’s accreditation bodies, determined to keep the number of practitioners low and the income of their members high, care little about the high calibre of expertise and experience of Egyptian mechanical engineers, Croatian physicians and Peruvian accountants, who work below their skill level even as Canada suffers an acute shortage of their professions.
Finally, Canada has a highly imperfect intake system for new Canadians that fails to ensure rapid, uneventful integration of new- comers into mainstream Canadian society.
“Any reason for participating in skilled immigration is rendered null and void if those immigrants ultimately take lower-paying jobs unrelated to their training because of the labour-market barriers they face,” says Craig Alexander, chief economist at TD Financial Group. “Solving the issues immigrants currently confront is thus integral to the long-term prosperity of Canada’s economy.” Again, consider:
The estimated total unrealized earnings for Canadian immigrants is $11.4 billion per year.
The increase in Canada’s taxpaying workforce if immigrants were able to obtain jobs at the same rate as the general population would be 370,000 people.
The estimated increase in Canadian personal income, if pay equity existed between immigrants to Canada and the general workforce, is $30 billion, or 2 per cent of Canadian GDP.
The number of new workers B.C. alone will need over the next seven years: one million-plus, or almost one-quarter of B.C.’s current population.
The estimated portion of those workers who will have to be recruited from abroad, given the paucity of native-born Canadians: More than one-third.
This is a fixable problem with a tremendous upside if we get it right.
Accreditation bodies, including the Law Society of Upper Canada, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the Ontario College of Pharmacists and their counterparts in every province and territory need to show “just cause” why they are impeding the entry into practice of qualified immigrants.
We need to fast-track the credentials of immigrants long before they arrive in Canada. Rather than studying for the Canadian exams in medicine, engineering and the like here while eking out a living in a substandard job in the meantime, prospective newcomers must be given the chance to pass those exams in their home countries. That way, these new Canadians will be able to contribute as radiologists, veterinarians, architects and entrepreneurs the moment they arrive.
Four countries have already implemented these “pre-arrival services,” and they are working well. In selected countries, the Canadian Immigrant Integration Program tutors prospective immigrants on the documentation and accreditation they will need here. It co-ordinates with Canadian NGOs in newcomer integration and provides instruction on Canadian social norms and values. That program is long overdue for expansion.
The federal government’s Temporary Foreign Worker program and accompanying so-called “Express Entry” system is mired in red-tape impediments. Long-time employers of immigrants seeking permanentCanadian residency must post those jobs. That’s something employers are loathe to do, as it signals upheaval in the ranks of their key personnel. These programs need to be revised to expedite permanent residency applications for immigrants who have worked in Canada for more than a year.
International students who’ve graduated from engineering, management studies, engineering and other programs and wish to remain in Canada need an expedited route to permanent residency. Otherwise, they contribute to a brain drain in relocating elsewhere after interminable delays in having their work permits extended.
We take pride in a tradition of welcoming immigrants that has served Canada exceptionally well. But a close look shows we’re not so immigrant friendly. It’s long past time we became truly welcoming.
It puts us on the right side of history, of course, and it’s also powerfully in our country’s best interests to do so. dolive@thestar.ca