Ottawa to unveil plan to attract 40 per cent more immigration to Canada
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
at 17:05 on September 23, 2005, EST.
By ALEXANDER PANETTA
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's current immigration levels would rise 40 per cent within five years under a plan that will soon be presented to the federal cabinet, The Canadian Press has learned.
Prime Minister Paul Martin described immigration in a speech this week as key to Canada's economic success in an era defined by low birth rates, an aging population and an ever-deepening shortage of skilled workers. His immigration minister will address that challenge by announcing the target by Nov. 1 after consulting cabinet colleagues.
Joe Volpe will table a document in Parliament setting out the goal and will also deliver a wide-ranging plan for meeting it in a presentation to his cabinet colleagues next month.
Volpe declined to provide specifics but said something needs to be done to ramp up the country's immigration levels.
"We've got to have more," the minister said in an interview Friday. "There isn't a place in the country that hasn't used that four-letter word: 'More'."
Volpe said the reality of Canada's immigration needs hit home as he travelled the country over the last five months and heard the same refrain from coast to coast, in rich and poor provinces and in urban and rural areas.
Government sources say his proposed target would see immigration levels rise to one per cent of the Canadian population within five years - or about 328,000 per year and growing.
That would represent an increase of about 40 per cent from last year's level of 235,824 people who became permanent residents of Canada - which fell within the government's current target range of 220,000 to 245,000 new residents per year
(edit: thread title clarified)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
at 17:05 on September 23, 2005, EST.
By ALEXANDER PANETTA
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's current immigration levels would rise 40 per cent within five years under a plan that will soon be presented to the federal cabinet, The Canadian Press has learned.
Prime Minister Paul Martin described immigration in a speech this week as key to Canada's economic success in an era defined by low birth rates, an aging population and an ever-deepening shortage of skilled workers. His immigration minister will address that challenge by announcing the target by Nov. 1 after consulting cabinet colleagues.
Joe Volpe will table a document in Parliament setting out the goal and will also deliver a wide-ranging plan for meeting it in a presentation to his cabinet colleagues next month.
Volpe declined to provide specifics but said something needs to be done to ramp up the country's immigration levels.
"We've got to have more," the minister said in an interview Friday. "There isn't a place in the country that hasn't used that four-letter word: 'More'."
Volpe said the reality of Canada's immigration needs hit home as he travelled the country over the last five months and heard the same refrain from coast to coast, in rich and poor provinces and in urban and rural areas.
Government sources say his proposed target would see immigration levels rise to one per cent of the Canadian population within five years - or about 328,000 per year and growing.
That would represent an increase of about 40 per cent from last year's level of 235,824 people who became permanent residents of Canada - which fell within the government's current target range of 220,000 to 245,000 new residents per year
(edit: thread title clarified)