Why this affects you as a Canadian

Historically, we have heard that Canada opens their doors to immigration to compensate for low birth rates and lack of workers for certain sectors of the economy, as said by many entrepreneurs and recruiters.

However, the advantages of immigration in Canada go beyond that (1). It's not only about jobs, taxes and young labor that can compensate for the thousands of workers that retire every year. It's also cultural richness, tourism, gastronomy, diversity and much more.

Numbers and facts support Canada's need for immigration, which is ultimately beneficial to achieve the country's goals as long as it is made in an efficient and timely manner:

Economy and retirement

The biggest source of population growth (2) for many of the main Canadian cities is immigration, according to Statistics Canada. These cities that grew thanks to immigration also reported the highest economic growth (3) in the country.

Why is this important? Not only for economic growth itself, but also because the balance between people retiring and people entering the job market is what makes the retirement system sustainable.

As pillar 1 of the Canadian Retirement System (4) is the Old Age Security (OAS) Program, funded with Canadian taxes, it is fundamental to keep the balance mentioned above to guarantee a constant tax stream to this program.

Added to the low birth rates (10 births per 1000 people by 2013) (5), thousands of Canadians migrate every year to settle in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, Japan and New Zealand. This makes the above mentioned balance more difficult to keep.

By 2010, 2.8 million Canadian Citizens lived abroad (6), which is equivalent to 9% of the Canadian population currently in the country.

Unfortunately, the gaps and errors in the current Canadian immigration system are keeping the country from bringing the best of immigration and from solving the problems the country is facing.

Immigration gaps

These are some consequences of the delays and errors in Citizenship and Immigration Canada:

- Permanent Residency under the Federal Skilled program and the Canadian Experience Class, both valid until the end of 2014, took up to 3 years to be granted (7), depending on the country of origin of the immigrant. This means that Permanent Residents who just enter the country were admitted based on the needs of the labour market 3 years ago.

- Canadians who choose to marry a non-Canadian must wait more than two years for their spouse to be granted Permanent Residency. (8) This not only influences the freedom of a Canadian to choose who to marry, but has other implications to the economy and wellbeing of them and the country:

If their spouse lives abroad, this means more than two years apart, depending on the country of origin of the foreign spouse. In the meantime, Canadian spouses will continue to support their spouse abroad, and probably her family. This money, instead of being spent in Canadian businesses, is spent on business abroad, since the spouse does not live in the country yet.

If their spouse lives in Canada, this means more than two years without healthcare, education, possibility to work, travel abroad and be part of the Canadian society. The inability of this spouse to work and study leads to a slower integration into the society and labor market, while the inability to access healthcare means that the household might postpone or cancel altogether their plans to have kids. Due to low birth rates in the country, provinces such as Quebec help in-vitro fertilization with public funding (9). Part of this balance needed in birth rates could be achieved by allowing these couples access to healthcare, which would encourage them to start their families.

This situation also means less tax contributions per family: the Canadian spouse gets tax reductions for economically supporting the non-Canadian spouse (10), plus, they also receive credits for all the medical expenses paid (11), since this spouse doesn't have healthcare. Added to this situation, the spouse can't contribute to taxes until allowed to work.

- Qualified people around the world see CIC's errors and delays (12) as a deterrent to apply for the Canadian Permanent Residency. Many prefer to choose countries such as Australia, where processing times are significantly lower while fees are almost the same.

Also, Australia is getting better results in their economy (13) as a result of a more efficient and timely immigration process. In the cited report, Australia also recognizes that the need for skilled migrants is increasingly not an exclusive problem of Australia and Canada: low birth rates and aging population is a phenomena that other countries are suffering, which will lead them to adopt policies to attract qualified migrants. This will intensify the competition between countries to attract the best immigrants: only those with better systems will succeed.

- Canadian companies who lack specialized staff often can't fulfill their needs in a timely manner because processing times for Permanent Residency are too long. The Canadian Government offered the Express Entry (14) program as a solution, but the processing times of 6 months were deemed too long (15) by the entrepreneurs, who need staff immediately.

- Foreign students and workers have higher possibilities of integration to the Canadian society than immigrants who have never visited Canada. Also, the fact that they are already in the labour market proves that their skills are needed. However, the new points system of the current Permanent Residency program, Express Entry (14), practically excludes them. Companies who want these workers to become Permanent Residents so that they can retain their talent in a Canadian company, must go through an additional hardship: the request for a Labour Market Impact Assessment, which costs $1,100 (16) for each worker. Although there is a commitment to expedite LMIA for certain types of jobs and grant it in 10 days, the reality is that in most cases it can take months (17) while Human Resources and Development Services Canada finishes all verifications in the company that requested it.

All of these reasons have an impact in the Canadian economy, which impacts YOU directly.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada operates on your taxes and on the processing fees applicants pay every time they submit an application.

Do you want to know how well your taxes are being invested for your benefit? Follow our journey and help us find these and more answers to the immigration questions.

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Sources:

1. "Why Canada needs a flood of immigrants" The Globe and Mail. May. 04 2012. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
2. "Immigration main source of population growth in cities: Statistics Canada" Montreal Gazette. February 11, 2015. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
3. "Prairie cities to lead Canadian economic growth over next two years" Calgary Herald. September 19, 2014. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
4. Report: "Intergenerational Balance of the Canadian Retirement Income System" Chief Actuary Jean-Claude Ménard and Actuary Assia Billig, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Canada. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
5. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. Retrieved: February 24, 2015.
6. Canadians Abroad. Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. 2011. Retrieved: February 24, 2015.
7. Processing times for federal skilled worker applications. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
8. Processing Times: Family Sponsorship. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
9. Québec Assisted Reproduction Program. Portail santé mieux-être from the Quebec Ministry of Health. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
10. Tax Return guide: Line 303 - Spouse or common-law partner amount. Canada Revenue Agency. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
11.  Tax Return guide: Line 330 - Medical expenses for self, spouse or common-law partner, and your dependent children born in 1997 or later. Canada Revenue Agency. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
12. ‘High error rate’ found in Canada’s immigration processing. Toronto Star. January 05, 2015. Retrieved on February 19, 2015.
13. Report: "A Comparison of Australian andCanadian Immigration Policiesand Labour Market Outcomes" The National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University. September 2004.
14. Express Entry guide. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
15. "Is ‘express entry’ the solution to Canada’s immigration issues?" Canadian Lawyer Magazine. September 22, 2014. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
16. Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) guide. FW Canada. Retrieved: February 17, 2015.
17. LMIA Processing Time & Changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Visa Place. Retrieved: February 19, 2015.