Changes Needed in Canadian Immigration Policy

Liberals preparing to unveil immigration plan

Updated Sat. Sep. 24 2005 4:29 PM ET

Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- 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.

Prime ministers have long cited the one-per-cent goal without success. Volpe's plan would set out a strategy for finally achieving the target, though one Opposition critic said the Liberals are merely recycling a broken promise.

"I find it interesting that after 12 years the Liberals are talking about meeting their own targets," said Tory critic Diane Ablonczy.

"Parliament's going to want to know -- what's changed?"

Municipal and provincial officials, labour leaders and businesspeople struck a recurring theme while lobbying Volpe over the summer.

Economic growth is being hampered in places like Edmonton, Calgary and Fort McMurray because they can't fill jobs fast enough, Volpe said.

Rural communities in Atlantic Canada are dying and existing public services such as schools and hospitals are emptying for lack of use.

If no one wants to live in those communities Rev, why should we try to sustain them at all?

Interestingly enough, in rural NB, where McCain Foods has their head office, there is a huge population of immigrants, from China and India...and these people are skilled technical and IT people. Our Canadian-born people don't want to live in rural NB, so guess what happens.

I've interviewed about a half dozen trained engineers who have immigrated to NB, and their experience and qualifications would, for the most part, put any grad from any university in Canada to shame.

It's truly a mind-expanding experience, to meet these people.

they still had choice though.

Now you will tell me that under this proposal, people would still have the choice to come to canada or not and it is fair so long is the government is up-front about the requirements.

I think that the federal government should stay out of the business of supplying people to communities. If communities can not lure people to move their on their own merits why should the government step in? I am thinking of communities like businesses.

The McCains' example of a forced community came about because of the proximity to the potato fields,making it more convenient to set up the processing plants..Florenceville just grew up around this.

People came to Canada because they had little choice, Caracal. The United Empire Loyalists came because they were chased out of the US. The Irish came because they were starving. The Scottish because they were booted off their land to make way for sheep. The Eastern Europeans came because they were poor and there was land here. Many of the English came to escape debts or because they were desperately poor. People came from all over because they had done something to piss of the authorities...sometimes they were common criminals and sometimes it was religious or political persecution, but they headed for the boats rather than heading for prison.

Many came without few or no skills. We gave them land as enticement. We gave them jobs. We gave them a chance. That chance always had strings of some sort attached.

My great-grandparents got off the train in Winnipeg and were told where their land was. They didn't choose Saskatchewan, the government sent them there for reasons of economic development and to protect Canadian sovereignty.

yes, communities are established for arbitrary reasons, and they die for arbitrary reasons as well. I say let them die if they can not generate enough interest for people to want to be there.

If a community wants to lure people with education in exchange for service thats fine, but the fed government should stay out of such activities. It is not the federal government's job to control migration patterns.

Provinces can do their own nominations for immigrants, though. Perhaps they ought to ramp up these nominations and then the province can have a say in which immigrants go where. Let the territories do the same.

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Provinces can do their own nominations for immigrants, though. Perhaps they ought to ramp up these nominations and then the province can have a say in which immigrants go where. Let the territories do the same.

But then you end up with Whitehorse in direct competition with Toronto. Now, anybody who knows anything about both will naturally choose Whitehorse, but most immigrants have never heard of it.