While Canada's opposition parties quibbled over modest measures expediting the arrival of skilled immigrant workers, one answer to that question appeared in a report from the British House of Lords. Stunningly, it concludes that record levels of immigration bring no economic benefits.
The Economic Impact of Immigration argues that immigration addresses neither labour shortages nor problems associated with an aging society. Rather, low-paid and young workers are being placed at a disadvantage because of competition from immigrants; worse, strains on public services and Britons being priced out of the housing market risk stoking social tensions.
According to the Telegraph, the British government welcomed this contribution to its "huge immigration shakeup."
Here in Canada, few noticed the British report or even Britain's "immigration shakeup," though for similar reasons cracks have been appearing in Canada's immigration portfolio too, and a small but growing number of academics, former civil servants and diplomats knowledgeable about Canada's complex and inefficient immigration system are speaking out.
Martin Collacott and James Bissett have reached conclusions similar to the new thinking on immigration now gripping most Western democracies, as did the late Bernard Ostry, while economists and professors emeritus such as Alan Green (Queen's University) and Herbert Grubel (Simon Fraser) are backing them up with far-reaching data and analysis.
Read all of Margret Kopala's article.
See also:
Canada is bringing in skilled immigrants for jobs that don't exist - Martin Collacott
Immigration agreement won't reverse negative trends
Immigration realism at the Toronto Star
Princeton sociologist: "Toronto is becoming increasingly segregated along racial and economic lines"
The Axis Of Amnesty’s Ideology Of Cheap Labor
Economist George J. Borjas analyzes the impact of immigration on American wages
