Too Much Immigration ?

[iguana]

If you spend more time on welfare than working - get out.

Yeah, maybe we should get rid of some of the Canada borns too. If you're on welfare for 5 years you must give up your Toronto apt and move to Newfoundland or NWT.

I and my wife are both immigrants...so I don't like the idea of stopping immigration. And of course, if you're not a native American, you or your ancestors are immigrants too. We both are educated, work and pay plenty of taxes. I meet many Asians with professional degrees and money, who immigrate and can't find jobs. So they open small businesses. A shame I think, and further to the previous post - WHY many come here I don't know.
Kick out criminals and layabouts. Force 1st language learning. But due to declining birth rates we need immigrants. I personally would make a lot more money if the Canadian market could compete a little better with the US. I find the Canadian government a hopeless bunch of thumb sucker though..and never expect great policies...just mediocre crap.
Also young women who are flexible about job prospects should be allowed in from the 4 corners of the earth.

 

[Exciter]

Geography Lesson

Iguana,

The earth doesn't have 4 corners because it's round. Columbus discovered that many years ago.


Exciter

 

[mr. x]

I and my wife are both immigrants...so I don't like the idea of stopping immigration. And of course, if you're not a native American, you or your ancestors are immigrants too. We both are educated, work and pay plenty of taxes.

Kick out criminals and layabouts. Force 1st language learning. But due to declining birth rates we need immigrants.

i never said stop immgration - only that we should cut it back considerably - in this country, we want simply and easy solutions to our problems, and immgration is one of these simple-minded solutions...

even the "aboriginal peoples originally immgrated here- though they don't want to admit it - the human race evolved in africa, and then spread around the world - the "natives" supposedly came via the alaska land-bridge - though some polynesians may have come via a separate route to south america.

this whole thing about decling biorth rates ia a lark. japan and europe have a much bigger problem with birth rates and aging populations - they are our main competition. if we have a problem, it is because of the baby boom - simlar to the US and Australia - but many of the immgrants coming now are not that much younger than the last baby boomers - if we need more people, maybe we should reduce immgration for 10 years, and then ramp it up when people retire (and people are working longer these days - many retire and then start second careers, or delay retirement completely).

the bit about kicking out criminals and layabouts seems like immgrant bashing here - even though you are one yourself!

(and don't they have enough layouts in newfoundland - why add to their problems!)

 

[mr. x]

Re: we need more, but we need the right more

We need more immigration. Not less. But we need high quality people whereas our refugee system is bringing us the worst the world has to offer.

However we need it. Our population is aging rapidly, and pretty soon there are going to be far more old people drawing on the tax system, and not enough young hard working people paying taxes. Furthermore we're a huge country, and if we actually want to develop the potential of an area the size of Ontario (never mind Canada) we need a lot more than 30 million people.

We don't just need immigrants in order to shore up a "labour shortage"--that's a red herring. It's not the case that there are only so many jobs to go around. Immigrants come here and start new businesses, consume services, and create all kinds of employment and growth in the economy.

you still don't get it....

look, if immigration is so wonderful, why do not the scandiavian countries fling their doors wide open to millions of immigrants?

why is it that we still continue to believe all this crap about immigration being so necessary - it seems like we are the only ones to take it to such extremes!

okay, talk about potential - look at the potential of antartica - talk about an underpopulated place - why, millions of people could fit in antartica!

again - we have lots of space - but most of it isn't worth settling - just like russia. hey, why don't all those chinese people move up to siberia - ita a lot closer, and they don't even need to cram into a boat like sardines!

supposedly, with free trade, you do not need a big population to develop our economy (i don't buy most of the free trade stuff, buts thats another argument) - in the old days with restrictions on trade and high trariffs, a big internal market was necessary to get "economies of scale" in order to make certain industries viable - if you can export, you don't need the large domestic population.

look - there are 10 million people in ontario - if we let in another 2 million over the next 10 years, where will they settle - moosonee? ontario is a big place, but mostly it will just add to the population of the GTA, and maybe a few will go to ottawa and london.

are there only so many jobs to go around - no, not quite - but many of our industries are limited by the underlying resourses - in fact, improvements in productivity have reduced the number of people needed for mining, forestry, agriculture, etc. yes, some immigrants will start businesses and create jobs - frank stronach and others are proof of that - andi am not saying NO immigration, but that immigration as not the wonderul solution for our economic woes that we automatically assume it to be.

look - over the last 20 years we have had much higher immigration levels than the US - my point is - if immigration is so wonderful, why are we falling behind - and why do we have a 65 cent dollar - something is seriously wrong here...

its like the old days when if you were sick, they would let out some of your blood - and if you got sicker, they would let out even more blood - until the patient died! too much immgration is hurting us, and we seem oblivious to the facts and as our economy gets worse, it seems like the main soltion is always "more immigration"

 

[olguy]

That's the problem with Canada- politicians that are stupid .

They want to fit another 7 million peole in GTA ONLY!!!!!!

They say they won't make the urban mistake that NYC or Detroit did.

I say bull.

It's already too many people.

You can allow 13 million immigrants into Canaa. Do you think they wil spread around ?

NOPE.

65% to Toronto
30%- Vancouver or Montreal
The remaining spread.

You can't "populate" Canada by allowing more immigration. It 's a fallacy.
You can't force peole to spread out. They will all come to 2-3 cities and destroy those cities which our urban planners and politicians think will support 10 million people per cit.

My brother works in immigration. He states himself that what is coming in is the drudge of other people's society. Not the best.

He also sees plenty of 65+ people coming in. How will they help the country?

I know it sounds cruel but it's reality.

 

[mr. x]

a few more thoughts on immigration...

we have apopulation of 30 million, and let in roughly 200,000 last year - by comparison, the US has 290 million and let in 1 million people - they have 9 1/2 times the population, but only let in 5 times more people...

the liberals decided on a policy of 1% of the population as an tyearly immigration target - thats 300,000 peope per year - a 505 increase from what we have now. in my posts, i am not talking about stopping immigration, but just cutting i back significantly - perhaps so that it is in line with US rates per capita.

there are 3 classes of immigrants -

1. refugees - yes, this is exploited and needs to be reformed so that it not so open to abuse, while at the same time remaining humanitarian and high enough that we can say that we are doing our share when major crises erupt around the world (like yugoslavia, vietnamese boat people,...) a study i read about showed that this group has the hardest time prospering in this country, and they need the most help to overcome their traumas and hardships...

2. economic class - this is the class that more than pulls its weight overall - these are the people who get in solely on the points system. this is the group we benfit the most from. however, there are diminishing returns - the more we want let in under the class, the lower the quality will be - we have to lower our standards.

3. family class - this group falls in the middle in terms of the economic benefits. we have been generous in letting people in under this category, because of the the reasoning that we want to "reunite families" this is stupid - because in encouraging immigration, we are breaking up the families in the first case (only with refugees is this not true) and of course, it is so easy now to fly back to the country you came from for a quick visit! (and of course, we do not even require the family class immigrants to live in the same city.


and what we never taslk about is the cost of immigration to Canadians - and i don't mean welfare and that kind of thing, but other things like the extra cost of educating children who do not speak english, and the effect it has on the classmates who do speak english. the federal government provides no support to the toronto school board to pay for the extra costs - nor does the province kick in money either...

then there is the cost of infrastructure... an expanding population means more users for our existing roads, highweays, parks subways...

imagine if you lived on an island - it had all the things you needed - schools, roads, hospitals, parks, and these things were mostly paid for. if you add extra people - it means that someone has to pay for the additional schools, roads, etc., or conversely, the QUALITY OF LIFE goes down. inevitably, the existing residents end up paying for these additional facilites through higher taxes, etc.

think in terms of TTC - if we increase the population - the yonge subway will become even more crowded - who will pay for another subway line going downtown? the stupid sheppard subway cost 100s of millions of dollars - building a new line downtown would cost even more for each mile than it did!

 

[mr. x]

i beg to differ with applejack regarding some of his comments on refugees...

no - refugees do not necessarily want to return once a war, or whatever, if no longer a problem...

some people do return - there were political refugees here from greece, czechoslovakia, etc who did return home once the conflict was over - but these people were usually the educated elite who came here to avoid jail or death...

as an example, there were jews who fled europe before ww2 - i knew some who came here,often via south africam morooco, or some other way. despite the fact that the nazis were defeated, they did not return home.

nobody wants to keep moving - particualrly if your children have adjusted to canada, and their prospects are better here than in the "old country".

 

[MRMARCUS]

Isn't it amazing that the USA has such a large population but there are still plenty of jobs available. Ever picked up the classified section of the New York times or Miami Herald.
Compare that too the classified section of the Toronto star.

No matter what we still need people in this vast nation, maybe we do not need them in the GTA and southern ontario. I would stay away from the political stuff, because as we know the goverment has money too spend when they need it. Didn't Chretien buy a plane recently.!!!
Let alone look at the money the GST generates and all the political parties always promise to eliminate it.

I think people need to realize that some of the worst area's for welfare/UIC are out east (NB, NFLD and maritimes) and the Belleville/Kingston region. The people benfitting from this are not refugees but good ole "canadians".

 

[Monte Cristo]

I think people need to realize that some of the worst area's for welfare/UIC are out east (NB, NFLD and maritimes) and the Belleville/Kingston region. The people benfitting from this are not refugees but good ole "canadians".

Bravo Mr. Marcus. At least someone has their head out of the sand...

Their command of the Queen's language leaves much to be desired as well. Why? Who knows... from what I've come to understand, education is free for the masses yet many choose to eschew that privilege...

 

[mr. x]

Isn't it amazing that the USA has such a large population but there are still plenty of jobs available. Ever picked up the classified section of the New York times or Miami Herald.
Compare that too the classified section of the Toronto star.

I think people need to realize that some of the worst area's for welfare/UIC are out east (NB, NFLD and maritimes) and the Belleville/Kingston region. The people benfitting from this are not refugees but good ole "canadians".

re: USA -

this is supports my point - one reason why there are so many job ads in the US is because unemployment is low - so companies need to advertise... an unemployment is low because immigration is lower.

re: down east

this also supports my point - if we had fewer immigrants, unemployment would drop in toronto - meaning that companies would have to pay more (which would lure more easterns to toronto) or conversely, companies that needed employees would have an incentive to relocate outside of toronto. as long as there is a steady stream of immigrants coming here to toronto, businesses will locate here.

for years governments have tried to solve regional economic disparities by trying to subsidise companies to move down east, or to the prairies - it didn't work. my theory is that by restricting immigration, market forces will push companies that use cheap labour to move to areas where there is excess labour - and only highly productive companies will be able to compete for labour in toronto.

if those companies do not move, they will go out of business - and that is how we raise productivity - because we force less productive companies/industries to wither and die because they cannot compete for a limited supply of labour.

that was my starting point - excess immigration = labour surplus = a low dollar and labour intensive, low productivity type jobs.

 

[mr. x]

nobody has yet to answer my question - why is it ithat over the last 30 years we have fallen behind th eUS? in 1975 the canadain dollar was worth more than a US dollar.

(in part this was due to high oil prices - and we were a net exporter of energy... ).

for decades, the US was the most proserous nation in the world, and we were number 2 - the canadian dollar was stable against the US dollar. not any more.

my starting point is to look at how things in canada differ from the US.

okay, the US has more defense spending than us, but that should help us - since we aren't wasting money to have cletus and leroy playing war games or sailing the ocean blue.

we are more dependent on resources - mining, fishing, forestry, argiculture, enregy than the US. this is part of the answer - the prices for these goods have been going down, due to foreign subsidies, supply and demand, US tariffs on wood, etc.

conversely, the uS economy is more dependeant on manufacturing and services - and high tech - but this still doesn't explain everything.

inflation. for some years, inflation was higher in canada - and this hurt the dollr as a canadian dollar would buy less - but with the dollar at 65 cents, things are actually cheaper here than in the US - there is some called PPP (purchase price parity) that shows this. based on what you can buy in canada with a canadian against what an american dollar will buy in the US, the loony should be worth something like 85 cents US.

foreign investment. canada has far more foreign ownership than the US - this means we have fewer head office jobs, less R&D, and that the profits from canadian businesses do not stay here. i have always thought this a major problem, but forign ownership has not drmatically increased over the last 30 years.

demographics - both canada had a baby boom, and both countries have had women entering the labour force in large numbers (i.e., higher particaption rates) - so we are simlar there. the US does have a higher birth rate - much of the difference though is because the birth rate in quebec drags us down.

immigration - we have nearly double the rate of immigration, per capita - and i think this is one of the reasons - its been the focus of my posts so far.


there are other factors - the end of the cold war, the fact that the uS is a superpower, the fact that the US dollar is used in place of local currencies in many countries, but i did not see how any of these sorts of things could explain our poor performance, beyond the fact that the US dollar has been strong against almost every other world currency over the last 10 years.

 

[mr. x]

okay applejack -

1. we were not the only country to go crazy running up debt in the 60s and 70s - the US did too - only they spent more on defense, vitnam, military spending (ronald raygun) and other things, whereas we spent more on regional development, social prgrams, etc. this does not explain why we did worse than the US.

2. this was one of my points, that the resources we sell are not what they used to be - any we should be reducing our dependence on resources in the future.

3. again, the US also has lost jobs to the third world. there are a few differences - they havbe more high tech and services than we do. also, because the US is such a big market, companies feel they have to produce goods in the US in order to be assured of access - despite NAFTA and globalisation. look at mazda, nissan bmw and mercedes - they all have plants in the US despite the fact we have free trade and cheaper labour. even honda and toyota set up there first, and only opened their plant s here later.

the arguments about an aging population just don't fly - like i said - europe and japan have bigger problems on this front than we do.

part of my argument is this - why do we need growth - why is growth good?

and there is a difference between total growth and per capita economic growth - that is if the economy grows by 5% but the population is stable, then we are all better off by 5% - if the economy grows by 5% but the population grows by 10%, we are each poorer!

you see - big corporations have an interest in total growth - not per-capita growth.

and the bit about an immigrant versus a native-born child is a red herring. my pointis that this country could do better if we have 100,000 immigrants per year instead of 200,000 or 300,000 - the birth rate is not something can we can directly control, and in any case, there is a 20 year lagtime for that child to enter the wokforce....

my point hinges on this idea: a slight shortage of labour could be beneficial to this country - other countries with lower immigration and aging populations have managed quite well - why are we the only ones who think massive immigration is the best economic solution?

i do not blame immigration for all of our ills -

but something occurs to me when i constantly read/hear about these three things:

the low dollar
low wage growth in cnada in the 1990s, much yet there were gains in the US
little increase in canadian incomes in the 1990s, yet there were gains in the US


and what occurs to me is that these three things are not isolated, but are all symptoms of one problem - which is that our population has grown faster than the opportunities for our economy - and that part of that is too much immigration.

the fact that our immigration rate is nearly twice that of the US seems to confirm my analysis

 

[mr. x]

oh - and the debt crisis is past - the debt is now a lower percentage of GDP than it has been in nearly 20 years -

the problem we had 10 years ago was high government debt, high deficits and high interest rates - those are no longer major problems for the canadian economy.

while each immigrant will help to shoulder the debt, each immigrant also gets a share of our national wealth and the infrastructure built with that debt - its like saying you want to marry someone so they can help pay your mortgage - when your mortgage is $200,000 - but your house is worth $300,000 - you are just giving away $50,000!

 

[mr. x]

let me correct some statisitics

US population - 281 million
canada 30 million

US immigration 2000 = 849,000
canada immigration 2000 = 226,000

per capita, we let in 2.7 times as many immgrants as the US...

and this is misleading - the canadian average from 1994 to 1998 was 210,000, the US from 1996 to 2000 was 773,000 - 2000 was a high year for the US.

 

[Master Muse]

Too much immigration

Mr. X

Anent your comment that the US use more resources per capita than other peoples of the world:

True. And the US produces more per capita than any of the other peoples of the world - by a looong shot.

Somehow that fact has escaped your eye or you simply forgot to mention it in your post.

 

[Master Muse]

Too much immigration

Mr X (again)

You seem to love statistics. You know what they say about figures don't you? Figures don't lie but liars figure.

In one of your posts you compare the Canadian/US immigration numbers and develop a ratio concluding that the US has so many more people and lets in so few.

Oh that you were fully right. You see, Old Boy, what you're counting is the proximate number of LEGAL immigrants we are supposed to allow entry. (Plus asylum sekers, 100,000 refugees with special qualifications, relatives of US citizens, green card wives etc, none of whom count toward your 1,000,000 figure.)

The ILLEGALS are in the 10 to 12 million category; not annually of course. I live in Southern California. There are at least 3.5 million illegals living here, virtually all hispanic. No kidding; >3.5 million. That's nearly 20% of the population.

We are importing the worlds poor and exporting high paying USA manufacturing jobs to low labor rate nations. That is a major reason for the increasing gap between the economic classes.

 

[mr. x]

some quick points - i will write a longer post later...

i am not worried about any immigrant taking my job...

what i am looking at is the longer term consequences of immigration, not short term - my starting point was trying to explain the 30 year decline of the canadian dollar.

there is illegal immigration into canada too - people overstay visitors permits or disappear into the underground economy - its not as bad as the problem that the uS has with the mexican border - but even if you account for illegal, we still have 2 time the per capita immigration that the US has

the issue here is not so much whetheror not immigration is a good thing - i am saying that too much immigration is a good thing - that a lower level would optimise the net benefits of immigration -

or, let me turn the tables...

at what point does immgration become bad, under our current economic circumstance - if more immigration is good, why not let in more than 220,000 - why not a million per year, or 2 million!

okay applejack and muse, you tell me - what is the maximum number of people should we let in per year?

 

[mr. x]

applejack:

my argument really falls under c - though one might also note that given the problems/lack of funding for public transit, schools and our health care system, those parts of our "infrastructure" are already overburdened...

my point has been that we have only mamaged to absorb the immgration by letting the doolar drop - or conversely, that too much immigration has caused this drop indirectly...

what it is slowly doing is turning canda into a third world country - and by that i mean that our ecomony is becoming more more based on a cheap currency and a cheap workforce - rather than one which is getting richer because of higher productivity...

we would be better off training and educating the aboriginal people and the people in the have not provinces than spending money to integrate immigrants into the economy... because ii think that the losers in this are really the people in the "have-not" parts of the country...

if immigration creates economic growth, and doesn't take jobs from other workers, than why does toronto have the privilege of getting most of the immigrants... if immigration is so good, why do we not force the immgrants to live in cape breton, the pairies or mewfoundland?

but whay is it that the scandanivian countries, with little immigration, have a standard of living that is equal to, or greater than, our own? just because immigration was good for this country in the past, when we opened up the west, or needed unskilled people for factoy jobs (which is no longer the case - as the factories have gone to the third world) doesn;t mean we still need high levels of immigration.

but answer me this: if we cut immigration in half - what do you predict would happen? how and why would it be bad, other than just reducing growth?

 

[torex]

Sorry,kinda off topic,but reading this thread has brought back some memories in the battle of our Canadian dollar.

I have horrible memories of October 19/1987!

I was working on the floor at the T.S.E for my fathers firm.It was hard seeing my father it that situation,especially for quite awhile after the crash.

Many people lost big time!,there was one guy who had just started pro trading!,he lost so much money he leaped from Jarvis Square!

nobody has yet to answer my question - why is it ithat over the last 30 years we have fallen behind th eUS? in 1975 the canadain dollar was worth more than a US dollar.

 

[ice_dog]

Answer to your question about CAD

Before getting to your answeer, I just want to say that, if we curb immigratiion now, there will be less tax-drivers, less pizza deliverymen, and less Asian Massage Parlours, and less people to blame on.

yes, I remember the 1987 crash, I lost quite a bit. But I lost even more when I short sold some high fliers(Amazon, Dell) in 1999.

Yes, I remember CAD was worth 1.05 USD in 1975. There are several reasons:

(1) The Canadian deficit was much smaller.
(2) There was an oil embargo by OPEC, and the Canadian economy is resource-based.

(3) Well, how about the reason that there were less immigrants ?