Canada: Seems Like Yesterday - Western Standard
May 16, 2009
While a far more severe problem in the United States, Canada has a substantial underground workforce. Unable to enter the country legally, rarely because they pose a genuine security risk to the country, they over stay student and tourist visas. They are legally excluded - or the process takes a prohibitively long time - because the Department of Immigration believes they can pick winners and losers. Highly skilled professionals? Come right in. Low skilled service workers? Maybe as a nanny. This sounds to be a plausible policy, yet it flunks basic economics and public policy.
The Government of Canada has no better idea of what makes a good immigrant than what makes a good investment. It shocks people that trained engineers are driving taxi cabs in Toronto. Why? Our immigration policy is run along much the same lines as the Trudeau and Hatfield era industrial strategies, that thought the Bricklin would make Saint John the Detroit of the North.
An engineer might seem like a good immigrant, but what if there is barely enough demand for Canadian graduates? Qualified or no, certified or no, there's a good chance the engineer will be sweeping floors. A cleaning woman from Honduras? Not the kind of immigrant modern Canada needs? What if the cleaning woman has an entrepreneurial bent? Unskilled labour? How about the ambitious willing to acquire skills, at their own expense, once here?
The Western Standard
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