The 14-member Advisory Council on Economic Growth, assembled by Finance Minister Bill Morneau, has released a recommendation to gradually increase immigration from the current level of about 300,000 to 450,000 people a year by 2021 to boost Canada's struggling economy (via ctv.ca). This would help increase the country current population of 36 million to 100 million by 2100. Without these changes to the immigration policies, the group said Canada's population would reach 53 million people by the end of the century (see the chart). In that case, Canada would find itself outside the top 45 nations in population size and that would make Canada irrelevant globally.
According to new World Bank research (via http://blogs.wsj.com), this kind of goal is quite attainable as Canada is among four nations, together with the U.S., U.K. and Australia, that attract the most highly skilled immigrants globally. Bill Morneau’s council also wants to focus on “top business talent and international students”. By the way, in the World Bank research piece Ukraine was listed as the tenth largest supplier of skilled migrants globally.
But the way skilled immigrants adapt to the new country is a different matter and it does not paint a rosy picture. This actually raises the question whether skilled immigration as such is a major factor that contributes to the economic growth and what could be done to increase its effectiveness. Statistics Canada says that, in 2015, the unemployment rate among immigrants who landed 5 to 10 years ago and have university degrees is 65% higher than in the total population with university degrees. At the same time, the unemployment rates among those with no degrees, were practically the same for the immigrants and total population.
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