Report calls for long-term Canadian immigration plan
July 09 2010 by Liam Clifford
A new study paper by Jeffrey Reitz, the professor of ethnic immigration and pluralism studies at the University of Toronto, claims that a longer-term view of Canadian immigration would be of more benefit to the country.
He explains that
although immigrants tend to settle in Canada easily, due to their higher levels
of education, the jobs that they are brought in to fill will not always be
around for long.
The paper describes how the current short-term view of
economic migration could be detrimental to the economy. An example would be if a
large number of tech specialists made the decision to immigrate to Canada for a IT boom that was
temporary, leaving many without jobs to suit their skills.
What Canada
really needs, Reitz claims, is to be able to attract people who can adapt to
labour market changes. He uses the example of the Australian immigration model, which,
he claims, ran into problems when it began trying to solve its short-term labour
market shortages by issuing more temporary work visas and Australian student
visas. Later, it was found that immigrants who had moved to Australia under
these categories had limited employment success, compared to economic immigrants
who were judged by their education status.
So, although Reitz says a
points based system based on education is a good thing, he would like more
analysis to take place to enable the most adaptable people to be identified
among Canada visa applicants.
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