"Canadians strongly support immigration, but don't want current levels increased" by Nik Nanos
In his latest exclusive poll for this special
Policy Options issue on immigration, Nik
Nanos finds that an overwhelming majority of Canadians thinks that immigration is
a positive feature of Canada and that it is good for the country. Canadians also
generally believe that immigrants blend in well here, that governments should do
more to help them settle and that guest workers should be eligible for workers’
benefits such as employment insurance. They also support dual citizenship.
However, they believe immigration levels should not be increased but should be
maintained at the current level or reduced.
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"Selecting immigrants for the short term: Is it smart in the long run?" by Jeffrey G. Reitz
While Canada’s immigration policy is regarded as a success by international standards, the
employment experiences of recent immigrants have become more difficult, and a number
of changes have been introduced to help get them into employment more quickly. Jeffrey
Reitz provides a background assessment of Canada’s immigration policy and asks whether
these changes will meet current labour demands more effectively. He examines the potential
implications for the longer-term goals and objectives of Canadian immigration, drawing on
relevant international experiences, including those of Australia and the United States. He
finds that the evidence casts doubt on whether these reforms will provide the expected
outcomes. “Canada would be wise to go slow in changing what has been regarded, both
internationally and by most Canadians, as a highly successful immigration program.”
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"Canada's immigration score: Recommendations for a win-win" by Ratna Omidvar
How do the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrive each year in Canada
fare in the immigration process? The president of Maytree, Ratna Omidvar,
examines the extent to which our immigration policy succeeds in the short,
medium and long terms for both Canada and the immigrants. Using a number of
economic, social and political indicators, she finds that Canada is doing well in the
medium and long terms, but must do better in the short term: “Canada’s score on
this front is abysmal,” she says. She makes several recommendations to increase the
benefits of immigration in the first few years of arrival, notably by strengthening the
federal Skilled Worker Program.
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"Pour une meilleure gestion de l'immigration économique par le Québec" by Gérard Pinsonneault
A former civil servant in Québec’s Department of Immigration, Gérard
Pinsonneault examines the province’s responsibilities relating to immigration,
and suggests a series of improvements to the selection process to better ensure
immigrants’ integration. He says that while Quebec’s margin to manoeuvre in
this area remains limited, it nonetheless plays as important role, especially in
the selection of skilled workers, who constitute “the locomotive of
immigration.” He thus recommends better evaluation of educational and
linguistic credentials, tying immigrant selection to labour market needs,
increasing the emphasis placed on youth and making the selection process
more rigorous.
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"An economics perspective on Canadian immigration" by Don Drummond and Francis Fong
To judge the successes of the immigration system from an economic perspective,
say Don Drummond and Francis Fong of the TD Bank, we need to answer four basic
questions: “What are the objectives of the system? Are the objectives being met? If
not, why not? And finally, how can the system be improved to more closely align it
to the objectives?” They argue that the legitimate test of Canada’s immigration
system is not whether it maximizes the size of Canada’s population or its output,
but whether it raises the standard of living. But the evidence suggests that the
system has done a poor job at breaking production bottlenecks and facilitating
greater output per person. To improve Canada’s performance in that regard, they
recommend a closer alignment between selection criteria and employers’ demands
concerning language skills, education and work experience, as well as greater
support to help immigrants build a network of Canadian contacts.
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"Les migrants irréguliers comme citoyens" by François Crépeau
At first considered necessary to meet postwar labour needs, irregular immigration is
now often perceived as a national security threat. In this article, François Crépeau,
the Hans and Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in International Public Law at McGill
University, presents a critical analysis of this evolution. He underscores the
importance of reexamining our conception of citizenship and residency to
acknowledge that human dignity is distinct from administrative status. “States
certainly have the power to decide who may enter and reside within their territory,”
he writes, “but migrants nonetheless enjoy rights, and the respect, protection and
promotion of these rights is the next hurdle in the fight for human rights.”
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"Two-step migration: Australia's experience" by Lesleyanne Hawthorne
In the past decade Australia has developed unprecedented reliance on skilled
migrants, notably former international students. University of Melbourne
professor Lesleyanne Hawthorne examines how this transformation has impacted
skilled migrants’ and international students’ labour market outcomes, as well as
Australia’s education sector. She finds that by 2005, offshore skilled applicants
were doing better than onshore applicants, and that international students’
outcomes were significantly worse than those of Australia-born recent graduates.
She also points out that the introduction of two-step migration unintentionally
coincided with the development of perverse educational incentives. However, in
the last two or three years, reforms have been introduced to ensure language
capacity and quality control of the rapidly emerging private training sector.
These reforms, she says “are designed to maximize outcomes for international
students in the future.”
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"Foreign qualification recognition and Canada's intergovernmental landscape" by Don Lenihan
A key challenge for successful immigrant settlement lies in foreign qualification
recognition, the mechanism through which our governments decide whether someone
with a diploma or degree from another country is competent to practice in Canada.
Right now many are deemed not competent, and at least part of the problem is the
way foreign qualifications are assessed, says Don Lenihan from the Public Policy Forum.
Because of a lack of coordination and alignment across the country, the system is
“widely seen as slow, bureaucratic and often unfair.” Canada, he argues, needs a
fundamental change in how we recognize foreign credentials and, drawing on the
experience with labour mobility, he suggests several avenues to improve the situation.
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"Intergovernmental immigration agreements and public accountability" by F. Leslie Seidle
The director of the IRPP’s research program Diversity, Immigration and Integration,
Leslie Seidle observes that in virtually all federations, subnational governments have
no say in the selection of immigrants. Canada is an exception in that regard. Here
he examines the evolution of intergovernmental agreements in that field and the
roles they have conferred on provincial and territorial governments in immigrant
selection. “While not typically front page news, he says, these agreements have
become key elements of Canada’s immigration landscape.” And while they have
proven to be important instruments of innovation, notably in the area of language
training, he finds that there is a need for improvement in outcome measurement
and public accountability. He makes some suggestions to that effect.
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"Canada's future labour market: Immigrants to the rescue?" by Glen Hodgson
With the aging of the population, says Glen Hodgson from the Conference Board of
Canada, Canada faces a challenging economic future. The recession has provided
temporary relief from tight labour market conditions, but he expects that the
national unemployment rate will decrease to 6 percent as the economy recovers.
Planning is thus needed to deal with the forthcoming deceleration in labour supply
growth, and he argues that immigration can provide an important source of labour
market supply and dynamism, if done right. In order to modernize Canada’s
immigration policy, he suggests Canada should increase the weight it gives to
economic factors, streamline the immigration system, expand the use of temporary
foreign worker programs, increase employers’ upfront involvement and improve
foreign credential recognition.
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"A new source of immigration: The Canadian Experience Class" by Arthur Sweetman and Casey Warman
Under the new Canadian Experience Class, created in 2008, people who were
temporary foreign workers and international students with Canadian work
experience can apply to become permanent residents. Although the Canadian
Experience Class is broadly similar to decade-old programs in other immigrantreceiving
developed countries, it represents a significant departure from Canadian
policy and practice since the 1960s. Arthur Sweetman and Casey Warman explore
the pros and cons of this approach. In particular, they examine recent research that
suggests that those entering under this class should have very good labour market
outcomes. However, the successful administration of Labour Market Opinions,
designed to verify that a Canadian resident cannot be found to fill each position at
the going wage, will be crucial in this respect, they say.
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"Who has their eye on the ball? 'Jurisdictional fútbol' and Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program" by Jenna Hennebry
A paradigm shift is well underway in Canada with respect to migration, one in
which temporary migration rivals permanent migration and where the transition
from temporary to permanent status has become the “new normal,” says Jenna
Hennebry. Here she discusses some of the changing realities of Canada’s
Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and asks whether it is a “win-win” policy for
both Canada and the sending countries. With particular attention to the impact
on development and labour market distortion, she discusses the growing trend
toward “two-step” migration, and reflects on the jurisdictional “fútbol” that
characterizes this program.
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"And Saskatchewan makes 9 (million people)" by Todd Hirsch
[summary not available]
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"'Use it or lose it': An appropriate and wise slogan?" by Kristin Bartenstein
Kristin Bartenstein analyzes, from a legal perspective, the political slogan “Use it or
lose it” that the Harper government coined in 2007 for its sovereignty policy in the
Arctic. She argues that fear of losing sovereignty is only relevant in the marine parts
of the Canadian Arctic. For each marine zone she examines the correctness of the
slogan in the light of international law. She concludes that the slogan is inaccurate
with respect to jurisdiction over the resources of the water column, the sea bed and
the subsoil; and it might even be risky in the context of Canadian claims of
sovereignty over the Arctic Archipelago and the Northwest Passage.
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"The Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: More to it than meets the eye" by Patrick Leblond
Canada and the European Union are currently negotiating the Comprehensive
Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which, if concluded, would be the most
important trade agreement negotiated by Canada since NAFTA. Unlike the latter
agreement, however, CETA has so far generated little public discussion. Patrick
Leblond argues that this is unfortunate, since CETA has important economic and
political ramifications. Economically, it touches on all aspects of Canadian economic
activity, from tariffs to regulations, from agriculture to engineering services. Politically,
it highlights the weakness of Canada's federal system in negotiating international
agreements, which increasingly concern provincial and territorial jurisdictions.
“Canada’s political leaders cannot afford to wait for the next set of international
negotiations to devise such a coordinating mechanism,” he says, and he suggests that
the Council of the Federation should be seriously considered for the role.
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"Un seul vote" by Alain Noël
[summary not available]
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Christopher P. Manfredi reviews The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory by David Plouffe and Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heileman and Mark Halperin
[summary not available]
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Desmond Morton reviews Our Man in Tehran: Ken Taylor, the CIA and the Iran Hostage Crisis by Robert Wright
[summary not available]
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Patrick Brazeau reviews Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights by Tom Flanagan, Christopher Alcantara and André LeDressay
[summary not available]
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Gilles Paquet reviews Provincial and Territorial Ombudsman Offices in Canada by Stewart Hyson (ed.)
[summary not available]
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June 2010
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July-August 2009