IMMIGRATION MYTHS

MYTH #1:

High levels of immigration are required to ensure Canada’s prosperity.

The facts:

A country’s prosperity does not depend on a growing population or workforce. This is particularly true in the case of Canada since we are a trading nation and do not require an increasingly large domestic market to achieve economies of scale. Our prosperity depends rather on sound economic policies that stimulate productivity, make good use of capital investment and maximize the potential of the existing workforce.

MYTH #2:

With an aging population and lower fertility rates, Canada needs high levels of immigration to provide the workers and tax base required to support social services for retirees.

The facts:

While it is true Canadians are living longer and having fewer babies, research shows that immigration has almost no impact on offsetting the costs of an aging population. Immigrants themselves grow old and draw on social support services while on average they have families as small as those of other Canadians.

For immigrants to make a net contribution to the support of social services, they would have to pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. In recent years this has not been the case as newcomers have usually earned substantially less than native-born Canadians and have drawn significantly more in social services than they have paid in taxes.

The only ways to deal with the effects of an aging population involve increases in productivity and raising the age of retirement to accord with improvements in the population’s health and longevity.

MYTH #3:

Canada is sparsely populated and can support a much larger population.

The facts:

Despite Canada's large surface area, much of it is not suited for human habitation. It would require a large input of food and energy for any significant number of people to live there and this would have both economic and environmental costs. 

A large majority of recent immigrants have chosen to live in large cities, most notably Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, because of the wider range of social services, the higher quality of life, economic opportunities and the presence of relatives and immigrant communities in these locations.

This does not result in net benefits for most of the residents of these large cities and increases pressure on educational and health care facilities as well as adds to housing costs, commute times and environmental problems.

MYTH #4:

Canada needs large numbers of immigrants because it will face massive shortages of skilled labour in the coming decades.

The facts:

There will be no such shortages if more Canadians acquire the needed skills, which can be accomplished if wages, government policies and other conditions encourage them to do so and the jobs are not filled by immigrants. With a few exceptions—such as the present and temporary shortage of medical workers—Canada has both the human resources and educational infrastructure to meet our skilled labour needs.

MYTH #5:

We need immigrants to do the jobs Canadians won’t do.

The facts:

Sufficiently high wages will induce Canadians to fill all jobs needed in the economy. The increased use of capital and new technologies induced by higher wages will raise workers’ productivity enough so that employers can afford to pay the higher wages. The filling of these jobs by immigrants prevents such pay increases, which in turn causes more Canadians to live in poverty than would otherwise have been the case.

MYTH #6:

Canadians support high levels of immigration.

The facts:

Although throughout history most Canadians have been positive about immigration in general, many polls show that more recently, and after many years of very high levels of immigration, those who want our intake lowered far outnumber those who want it raised. Despite this, advocates of high immigration have been far more influential in setting immigration goals than average Canadians. The former include immigration lawyers looking to expand their client base, employers in search of cheap labour, immigrant settlement organizations that receive government funding and political parties seeking support from immigrant communities. Until Canadians in general understand the extent to which current immigration policies do not serve their interests and begin to demand that political parties adopt more sensible policies, they can expect little improvement to this situation.

This is not to oppose immigration per se. There will always be important fields where critical shortages exist and where Canadians choose to go elsewhere. Historically, Canada has greatly benefited from its immigrants and always will, but the careful selection and nurture of immigrants is critical.

MYTH #7:

As one of the more wealthy countries, Canada has an obligation to share its bounty with people from poorer countries who want to come here to benefit from our standard of living.

The facts:

Canada is too small to have an appreciable impact on global poverty through immigration. It only accounts for around 2.5% of global GDP. Sharing this indiscriminately with the rest of the world would only impoverish Canadians without substantially reducing global poverty. Canada can do more to combat global poverty through its foreign policies and development assistance.

MYTH #8:

If we don’t let people from other counties immigrate here legally, they in any event find other ways of coming.

The facts:

While Canada should be doing a much better job of screening those who come here and removing those who do not have the right to stay, the fact is that because of our geographical location we are much better placed to control our borders than are most other countries. We do not have a land border with any low-income countries nor are we easily accessible by sea from any of them. We can do quite an effective job of exercising control over who enters our territory and who stays here if we put our mind to it and make available the requisite resources.

MYTH #9:

Canadian society is constantly enriched through the increasing diversity brought about by large-scale immigration.

The facts:

While compared to other countries Canada has done a relatively good job of integrating newcomers of different backgrounds, sustained high levels of immigration slow down the process of integration and can have negative implications for social cohesion. There is growing evidence that, although Canadians enjoy the benefits of cultural diversity brought by immigrants, in recent years they have begun to feel that the large numbers of immigrants threaten our national identity and institutions—a reaction that has become widespread in a number of European countries and given rise to significant political movements favouring reduced immigration.

MYTH #10:

Immigrants built Canada and are needed to continue this process in the future.

The facts:

It is true that in the past, immigrants were responsible for much of Canada’s population and economic growth. However, this fact does not imply that immigrants are needed for the continued existence and prosperity of the country. The population and economy are large enough to be self-sustaining. The merit of continued high levels of immigration is determined by the effects the immigrants have on the living standards and culture of the existing population. In the absence of large immigration flows, the growth in population and incomes will be determined by the decisions of Canadians about the number of children they have and the sacrifices they make for them through savings and investment. This is how it should be. Politicians, buying votes from immigrant communities, should not interfere with this process.

MYTH #11:

Since most new immigrants come from developing countries and are members of visible minority groups, it would be an act of racism to reduce immigration levels.

The facts:

Canada’s immigrants are selected on the basis of criteria that exclude consideration of their origin, religion or skin colour. These criteria will continue to be applied if levels of immigration are reduced. The fact that the possible future reduction of immigration levels affects persons from visible minorities is simply the result of the fact that we do not need as many newcomers regardless of their backgrounds and is not motivated by racism.

MYTH #12:

Immigration does not have environmental consequences.

The facts:

Immigration currently accounts for most population growth in Canada, and population growth is by far the major pressure on the environment. In addition, immigration to Canada from developing countries (which is where most of our immigrants now come from) has significant negative effects on the environment in the world as a whole because, according to some estimates, such immigrants have an ecological footprint four times that which they had in their countries of origin. It is worth noting in this regard that, while Canada is often criticized for the environmental consequences of its oil sands development, the impact on the environment of our immigration intake is significantly greater. Immigration in fact has major environmental consequences.

MYTH #13:

Even if many recent immigrants have not been successful, many of their children do very well.

The facts:

While it is true that in the past, the children and grandchildren of immigrants have successfully integrated into the Canadian labour force and performed comparably to the native born, there is no evidence yet available to suggest that this will continue to be the case for the children and grandchildren of the more recent cohorts of immigrants, who have performed so poorly economically. In the past, the first generation would usually close the earnings gap with the native born over a ten- or twenty-year period. This would provide them with the wherewithal to ensure their children got a good education and to follow their examples in working hard and doing well economically. Now, however, there is a real risk that the growing ghettoization and increasing poverty among many recent immigrants will undermine their capacity to give their children a good start in life, creating a poverty trap. This would feed a growing inequality that would persist even into the second and third generations. Consequently, it would be foolish for the government to continue to admit large numbers of new immigrants on the hope that their children and grandchildren will be able to succeed economically given the lack of solid empirical evidence that the immigrants themselves are succeeding.

MYTH #14

Canadians benefit from the capital brought here by wealthy immigrants.

Evidence suggests that the amount of capital investors have brought into Canada is on average relatively small and does not raise their income enough to make them pay taxes above the average. Studies have shown that the investments often go into real estate, mainly housing, which raises land prices and the housing costs of Canadians. A large proportion of investors buy small businesses, such as retail stores, that provide their owners with relatively low incomes and lead to low tax payments.

MYTH #15

Canada benefits from trade generated by immigrants with their former homelands.

The facts:

While immigrants increase Canada's trade with their home countries because their knowledge and connections lead to a reduction in the cost of such trade, evidence indicates that the increase is slight and that there is no significant relationship between immigration and trade. Moreover, to the extent that immigrants do generate more such trade, imports from their former homelands tend to grow more than twice as much as exports—leading to a trade deficit and a lower Canadian dollar in the longer term.