Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - May 2011
A controversial new report claims that immigrants cost Canadian taxpayers over $20 billion dollars per year.
The report, Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State, was conducted and issued by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank with offices across the country. The report uses census data collected over nearly 20 years, and claims that immigrants cost approximately $6,000 per person, as immigrants are not paying as much as other Canadians in income tax but are using just as many social services.
However, upon release of the report, critics were quick to point out that there are other factors that were not taken into consideration by its authors.
"I'm sure the data behind the numbers is sound, but I think it only tells half the story," said writer and analyst Rudyard Griffiths who co-founded the Dominion Institute. "The fact is that we're doing immigration on the cheap.... We don't spend enough money on language services, and we don't do enough skills accreditation and training."
Yet the authors of the study stand by their findings and say that the government needs to do more to address the issue, such as focusing more on skilled worker migration rather than family unification, and rewarding applicants who have a Canadian job offer in hand.
"It's in the interest of Canada to examine what causes this and to fix it," said co-author of the report Herbert Grubel, himself an immigrant from Germany. "We need a better selection process.... We're not here, as a country, to do charity for the rest of the world."
Source: National Post
