OTTAWA — Despite all the so-called “transformational change” that has befallen Canada’s immigration system, a non-partisan think tank argues the government has missed the mark on one critical element: the sheer number of people allowed to immigrate every year.
The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform says 250,000 newcomers per year is too many and has led to the ghettoization of immigrant communities and has put undue pressure on health, education, housing and traffic in Canadian cities.
In an year-end assessment of Canadian immigration policy, the group commended the government for focusing more on economic immigrants, tackling backlogs and toughening the refugee process to reduce abuse.
But it raised concerns about the social costs of the parents and grandparents immigration stream that reopened to new applicants last week, and described the expansion of the temporary foreign worker program and the “reckless continuation of unjustifiably high levels of immigration” as “two big failures.”
The group would not say how many immigrants Canada should admit but suggested immigration officers should be given the resources needed to conduct “substantive” interviews with prospective newcomers to better identify those who may not integrate well and ensure newcomers have no misconceptions about the challenges they’ll face when they get here.
The Conservatives have worked hard to court support from ethnic and immigrant voters and have long boasted of maintaining the “highest sustained levels of immigration in our history and the highest per capita levels of immigration in the developed world.”
tcohen@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/tobicohen
