Why Is Canada Still After Immigrants Despite Soaring Unemployment?
Canada is struggling against the coronavirus pandemic. Marco Mendicino, the federal minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, has announced his plan to battle the looming demographic problem of the country.
Over the next decade, more than nine million baby boomers are set to retire, which is likely to create a potential labor shortage. If unchecked, this can raise health care costs, halt the country’s economic growth, and upend pension payments. Mendicino proposed that a total of one million new permanent residents will be added to Canada by the end of 2022. This slight increase would raise the annual immigration level to around one percent from 0.9 percent currently.
In a press release, Mendicino said immigration drives economic growth, spurs innovation, and helps employers access the talent they need to thrive. He further remarked that welcoming more newcomers will help address the demographic challenges of an aging population and compete and win in a competitive global marketplace.
However, things may not be easy as foreign embassies and consulates across Canada are closed, and the country has shut its borders to all non-essential traffic. This dents the plan of Mendicino. Canada has closed its borders to all non-essential traffic that is the latest to make immigration a central facet of the long-term economic growth plan of Canada.
The issue ahead is challenging as the pandemic continues to rage, and there are no signs yet when a vaccine emerges. To add to the woes, a potential decline in immigration may get offset if fewer Canadians leave as part of the annual brain drain. Working remotely is slowly and steadily emerging as the new normal.
Agopsowicz went on to add that Canada will become a very old country, and that’s a very expensive proposition without an influx and added that we can’t just go into this turtling, not letting people in, because it’s such an important piece of our growth.
Andrew Agopsowicz, a senior economist at RBC Capital Markets, said that if we have a prolonged stop, that could really hurt us 10 years from now. Agopsowicz added immigrants tend to be much younger, so anything that stops that process now is going to reverberate.
Immigration is one of the critical aspects for health care costs, the real estate market, and university budgets.
The Senior Economist at RBC Capital Markets further remarked he was not concerned about “jobs and too many people” even though unemployment in Canada is surging presently at 13.7 percent. Agopsowicz said the aging demographics of Canada mean the count of jobs will exceed supply in the long term unless there is immigration.
The Senior Economist at RBC Capital Markets in a report released in May also said immigration has powered the economic engine of Canada, driving up gross domestic product in the largest cities of Canada at a faster rate than the national average. The populations in Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto all would have declined in 2019.
Béatríce Fénelon, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, said immigration has drastically declined during the pandemic in Canada.
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