THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Today’s press release says that in 2010, Canada welcomed the highest number of legal immigrants in the past 50 years, at 280,636 new permanent residents. Good luck Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
“While other Western countries cut back on immigration during the recession, our government kept legal immigration levels high. Canada’s post-recession economy demands a high level of economic immigration to keep our economy strong,” said Minister Kenney. “In 2010, we welcomed the highest number of permanent residents in the past 50 years to support Canada’s economic recovery while taking action to maintain the integrity of Canada’s immigration system with the introduction of the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act.”
They didn’t just keep immigration levels high. They set new records for it. The number is 60,000 higher than the average annual intake of the 1990s. You have to admit, the Conservatives don’t do anything halfway. When they expand something, whether it be spending, deficits, expanding government programs, the bureaucracy, or operating costs, they go the whole hog.
According to their numbers, they also welcomed 182,322 temporary foreign workers and 96,147 foreign students, a 29 per cent increase from the final Liberal year in office. Added to that number was 7,265 refugees and 4,833 sponsored refugees, also a 63 per cent increase from 2005. That’s a total of 571,203 temporary or permanent new residents every year, or 1.6 per cent of our existing population. I can only guess this is some kind of attempt to out-Liberal the Liberal party.
Which is surprising, since Canada has long held the record for the largest per capita increase to immigration in the world. Yet the current Conservative government is made up of elements of the Reform Party, who once said 250,000 new Canadians a year was too much, and should be reduced to 150,000.
There is one rather shameful little boast, however, that can’t go unanswered:
“These refugees played by the rules and came to Canada through legal streams,” noted Minister Kenney. “It is important to note that while Canada is maintaining its humanitarian tradition of providing a safe haven for legitimate refugees, we will not stand by while our immigration system is being abused by queue jumpers and human smugglers. Bill C-49, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, sends a clear message that the abuse of our immigration system will not be tolerated.”
First of all, there’s no such clear message. It’s widely known Canada is an “easy mark”, and not at all difficult to smuggle people into. Nor are the penalties for such crimes very severe. Nor would the current bill being presented as a tough on-smuggling legislation do anything to stop another boat of Tamils.
Bill C-49 provides very limited powers for the government, and doesn’t mitigate any of the costs Canadians are bothered with in the first place. The recent MV Sun Sea incident has been revealed to have cost us $25 million, and the new bill would only serve to increase such costs if a new boat arrived.
The bill would authorize Jason Kenney to designate a boat as an “irregular arrival”, the result being that some refugees would eventually be deemed ineligible to stay in Canada. It wouldn’t prevent their landing, which is what Canadians wanted with the previous boat. It would still require the Immigration and Refugee Board to ascertain the legitimacy of their claims as refugees at the same exorbitant costs, except that the detention would cost us that much more.
h/t Mark Collins
Meanwhile the CBC misses the point. Painfully.
New figures indicate the federal government hopes to reduce overall immigration next year by five per cent, mainly by cutting back on family reunification visas.
[...]The figures indicate the government will issue about 11,000 family reunification visas for parents and grandparents overseas, down from more than 16,000 last year.
Aside from burying the lead, which is that Canada has increased the number of immigrants and refugees as a total, the CBC descends upon the single reduction. If we want to cherry-pick reductions from year to year all we have to do is look at the history books. From 1997 to 1998 the Liberal government cut overall immigration levels nearly 25 per cent.
Nothing to brag about. Too bad they do not publish the actual number of productive, working immigrants, but then they are probably a very, very small per centage of the total.
By the way, I tried to find the figures of family reunification visas from Stats Canada so I could compare them to the Liberal years, but was unable. Maybe someone else has better Google skills.
“The figures indicate the government will issue about 11,000 family reunification visas for parents and grandparents overseas…”
Meanwhile at the hospitals…
Madness.
From the press release:
“A recent evaluation confirmed that immigrants selected under the federal skilled worker program are faring well in Canada and filling gaps in the work force. It found that skilled workers who already had a job offer when they applied for permanent residence fared best of all, earning on average $79,200 three years after arriving in Canada. About two thirds of those admitted in 2010 in the permanent resident category were economic immigrants and their dependants…”
No shoot, but how many actually had that job offer?
As for economic immigrant numbers (“and their dependants”–that’s where the real numbers are) look at this earlier post–the number of people really likely to work ain’t what the gov’t wants to crack it up to be:
http://unambig.com/starry-eyed-about-immigrants-to-canada/
This Conservative gov’t is playing fast and very loose with truth. Seeking votes at the cost of abandoning any principle.
Mark
Ottawa
69,920 unskilled spouses and dependents from 2002 figures. That’s quite the additional burden on social security. Family migration accounted for 62% of total permanent migration in Canada in 2008.
Great news! Immigration always results in more economic prosperity and can even reduce crime. Further, there is no solid evidence that it causes strain to social services. We’re keeping the xenophobes at bay, for now.
“the figures of family reunification visas from Stats Canada so I could compare them to the Liberal years”
Google would be useless for such info…
FOI is the way to go!
So, counter-intuitively, when jobs scarcity and high unemployment strike a country it’s better to bring in greater number of immigrants than ever before?
More is always better. There has never been serious data linking higher unemployment to immigration. Indeed, some evidence shows that immigration reduces unemployment. Singapore is extremely prosperous and a huge chunk of its workforce is composed of immigrants.
Back to your first comment. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence it strains social services, particularly among elderly sponsored relatives. Whether that’s a perceptual issue among large immigrant communities or not is a matter for more fact-finding and statistics.
Bringing in high levels of immigrants from nations with values anathema to western culture has been proven to cause massive increases in crime ( including assault, rape and murder) as well as high unemployment and the inevitable strain upon social systems that it creates.
Cyto, please cite your statements that high immigration levels reduce crime..
By xenophobes, I’ll take it that you really meant angry white racists..
I think comparing immigrant:prosperity data between canada and singapore is rediculous. How do the services offered to immigrants compare? How do laws regarding worker’s rights compare? Do you know? If not then it is pointless to pretend there are any ‘studies’ that show anything at all. Quote/link them or you have no legs to stand on. It is possible , without evidence to suggest that admitting thousands of folks who are reliant on social programs in to the country will cost us money. As for suggesting that more is always better, well if we let in a few hundred million folks and level our standard of living with the countries of origin, perhaps you will see the error there.
If all those immigrants were millionaires then it would help but not likely.
Kursk babbled:
“Bringing in high levels of immigrants from nations with values anathema to western culture has been proven to cause massive increases in crime ( including assault, rape and murder) as well as high unemployment and the inevitable strain upon social systems that it creates.”
Speaking of citing your sources…would you mind pointing me to your “proof”?
Hint: Anything on a site run by an angry short-order cook who thinks all his problems are the fault of “furriners” isn’t a source.