Canadian immigration: cultural incompatibility

By Frosty Wooldridge

In the past few weeks, London has seen its streets blazing with fires started by angry immigrants and the dispossessed.  In the Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and other cities, black youths have run around beating up white people.  They are part of a social phenomenon known as “flash mobs.”  Youth connect with others on cell phones.  In Wisconsin, black youths called it “Beat Whitey Night.”

While it hasn’t hit Canada’s major cities yet, it’s coming faster than anyone understands.  It will take a spark such as an angry confrontation between police and immigrants.

Paul Fromm is the Director of the Canada First Immigration Reform Committee. He spoke about Canada’s growing immigration problem:

“On July 12 Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced a consultation on immigration levels and composition will take place this summer,” said Fromm. “He’s already met with a number of people in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto and mostly heard support for present levels or an increase.  Is this “consultation” a real openness to the views of Canadians or just a sham, where the immigration industry speaks to the immigration industry?”

 ”The purpose of the consultations is to seek feedback on immigration levels, including the appropriate level of immigration for Canada, and the most suitable mix between economic, family class and protected persons,” a CIC press release explains.

“Worrisome is the phrasing that this consultation seeks input from stakeholders,” said Fromm. “Now, all Canadian citizens are “stakeholders” in the immigration debate, seeing that the flood of the last 35 years has radically changed the face and makeup of this Dominion and, given the current levels, 85 per cent from the Third World and the present Canadian birthrate, is calculated to render the European founding/settler people a minority in their own land by 2050. 

“However, “stakeholders” has a sneaky in-house meaning. It means the insider immigration industry — greedy immigration lawyers and consultants, ESL teachers, of course, self-interested immigrant and ethnic groups, as well as the legions of social workers and immigrant settlement folks who have jobs, thanks to poorly screened immigration.” 

We are told: “Invited stakeholders represent a variety of perspectives, including those of employers, labor, academia, learning institutions, professional organizations, business organizations, regulatory bodies, municipalities, settlement provider organizations and ethnocultural organizations.” Fair enough, but what about the rest of Canadians?”

On the CIC site is an interesting Background Paper which poses the key questions of the consultation: “The purpose of this consultation is to seek your feedback on Canada’s immigration program. We are asking for your input on the right level of immigration to Canada – how many – and the right mix between the three immigrant classes to Canada – economic, family and protected persons. Should immigration levels be higher?” Note, from the last question, that the presumed answer is the same level or higher levels.

“A depressing sign that the fix may well be in is Immigration Minister Jason Kenney vituperative reaction to a poster that appeared in Calgary, Edmonton and London, Ontario in recent weeks,” said Fromm.

Here is its message: “Did you know: Immigration costs Canadian taxpayers $23-billion annually; 265,000 immigrants enter Canada every year; the official unemployment rate is 7.7%. Does this seem right to you? If not, contact ….”

That’s the message. Yet, in an August 1, press release Jason Kenney raged: “These are loathsome individuals whose views are both sickening and ridiculous. They believe that, by convincing a gang of nasty half-wits to play dress up and litter suburban streets with crude and menacing flyers, they are promoting ‘European culture. .. Our government condemns unequivocally the actions of these individuals and their message of hate. As a Calgary resident, I take particular offense and applaud my fellow residents who have taken it upon themselves to rid our city of these posters.”

“So quoting studies and statistics and asking people, should they too question mass immigration in a time of high unemployment to contact those behind the posters is”hate,” said Fromm. “The poster had made no reference to European culture.

“The immigration intake figure of 265,000 is actually low ball. The government boasts of actually taking in 280,000 in 2010. The 7.7% unemployment figure is for March. It’s official. It now is 7.2%, but understates the real rate of unemployment as it counts only those collecting EI benefits, not those denied benefits or those who have exhausted their benefits. A former MP and colleague of Jason Kenney in the Reform Party Herb Grubel, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Simon Fraser University, is the source of the $23-billion annual cost figure.

“Common sense would suggest that immigration during times of high unemployment is unwise. With official unemployment of 7.2% just how can an immigrant benefit Canada?”

There are just three possibilities.

1.      The immigrant may be rich, bring a lot of capital and start up a new enterprise that will employ Canadians. Few are in this category. Those who are may be a benefit to Canada.

2.      The immigrant may find a job. He takes the job of a Canadian or a Canadian remains on unemployment insurance or welfare. Net loss for Canada.

3.       The immigrant does not find a job. Canada must support him. Net loss for Canada.

“Herbert Grubel’s study Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State, 2011 provides the economic figures to back up this common sense analysis,” said Fromm. “His is not the first study to note that immigrants, since 1980, have been doing poorly compared to earlier immigration in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. The cohort that arrived from 1987 to 2004 earned 72.4% of the average Canadian’s income, but paid only 57.3% of the taxes paid by the average Canadian. “Subtracting what this cohort paid in taxes at all levels from government services it used, there was a shortfall of $23.6-billion for fiscal 2005/2006. Thus, immigration during times of high unemployment is a serious net financial loss for Canada. Grubel notes that the immigration intake of the past three decades has “lowered per-capita income after taxes, the most important measure of economic well-being.”

Grubel’s conclusions are actually worse than the much-maligned posters reported: “Taking account of the 1.5 million immigrants who arrived since 2004 the fiscal burden comes to $25 billion in 2010.  These fiscal costs represent a significant proportion of the $55 billion deficit of the federal government projected for the fiscal year 2011.” 

“Mr. Kenney’s claim that immigration “supports Canada’s economic recovery” (Canada Updates, February 16, 2011) is thus shown to be patently absurd,” said Fromm. “High prices for Canada’s commodities, a better regulated banking and mortgage system and a more prudent federal management may be key factors in Canada’s economic recovery: high immigration levels are definitely not!

“Still in trying to shore up arguments for historically super high immigration, the Immigration Department advances an argument heard way back during the Green Paper consultation of 1975. Canada has a low birthrate, the argument runs, and an aging population. Somewhere in the future there will come a time when there will be a labor shortage. The CIC’s Backgrounder: Stakeholders Consultation on Immigration Levels and Mix argues: “Without immigration, labor force growth would shrink, making overall economic growth more difficult to achieve.”

“Common sense would argue why import workers today, during a time of high unemployment, for jobs that might be there in 10 or 20 years time,” said Fromm. “Wondering whether you could clear your long driveway of snow in a bad winter, would you hire and pay today someone whose work you might need in November. Canada has been doing just that for more than 30 years.”

“Grubel quickly disposes of the future labor needs argument: “In the absence of immigration, these jobs would pay higher wages and would be filled by Canadians or [be] eliminated by the application of labor-saving technology.” To return to the hypothetical need for snow removal, the homeowner, if he couldn’t hire a person to shovel his snow, might simply buy a snow blower (labor-saving technology) and do it himself. The result of a moratorium on immigration concludes Prof. Grubel is that “poverty in Canada would be substantially reduced.”

“The lobbying by certain business interests for continued high immigration to provide large pools of cheap labor which also keep wages down for many Canadian workers should be treated with skepticism, Grubel concludes: ”What is good for business is not necessarily always good for Canadians in general, especially if benefits for business are paid for by the general public through higher taxes, as is the case with immigrants that fill the low-paying jobs and induce fiscal transfers under the provisions of the welfare state.”

“Numerous polls show Canadians are less supportive of high levels of immigration than the immigration industry insiders. For instance, a recent Angus Reid poll “revealed that 46 per cent of Canadians believed immigration was having a negative effect on the country.” (The Walrus, June, 2011)

“Will Jason Kenney open his consultation to other voices?” said Fromm. “It’s risky. The last time the Government allowed a wide-open discussion of immigration was 36 years ago. “In 1975, Parliament struck a Special Joint Committee on Immigration Policy. It received over 1,600 briefs from groups and individuals. Almost 50 per cent called for a complete halt to all immigration. A further 22.4 per cent called for tight controls. A mere 7 per cent called for an open-door policy which was, of course, the policy the politicians recommended at the end of their deliberations.

“The huge dichotomy occurred between the views of individuals and groups.  While 88.4% of individual briefs called on the government to stop immigration or impose tight controls, just 25% of organizational submissions took that view. The organizations were largely the “stakeholders” of the day.”

 Paul Fromm is the Director of the Canada First Immigration Reform Committee

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