Volodymyr Kish.
I recently had the privilege of making a presentation on behalf of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to a federal government panel that was soliciting public input for a review of this country’s immigration policies. For Ukrainian Canadians, this is a particularly apt time for taking a close look at the immigration experience, in that 2016 marks the 125th anniversary of the first wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada. During that time, there have been four major waves of Ukrainians who either by choice or forced by circumstance, have made Canada their adopted home. They and their descendants now number some 1.25 million of Canada’s growing population. Depending on how you define origins, Ukrainians are currently the ninth or tenth largest ethnic group within Canada’s rich and diverse mosaic of peoples. Aside from the original Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and French colonizers and the original First Nations, the only other ethnic groups that claim higher numbers are the Germans, Italians and Chinese.
Canada has been good to Ukrainians, and Ukrainians have undoubtedly been good for Canada, with an illustrious history of nation building, leadership and engagement in virtually every sphere of Canadian life. In fact, Canada’s success as a nation is largely the result of its liberal and forward thinking immigration policies over the past one hundred and fifty years since Confederation.
In the last several decades though, Canada’s immigration policies have become somewhat stagnant and have lost some of their initial sense of idealism and progressive long-term vision. This is evident first of all in terms of annual immigration quotas. Over the past twenty years, the average annual immigration quota has held pretty steady at around 0.74% of the current population of this country. This translates into approximately 243,000 new immigrants coming to Canada every year.
While this may seem like a large number, it is a significant decrease in relative terms when compared to many of the years and decades of the twentieth century. Between 1900 and 1914 for instance, the average immigration quota stood at over 3% of the total population per year. The highest year on record was 1913 when the rate exceeded 5% and Canada accepted over 400,000 immigrants. The rate exceeded 1% throughout the 1910’s and 1920’s, then fell under that threshold during the 1930’s and 1940’s. In the 1950’s it again averaged more than 1%, reflecting the large influx of displaced persons that came in the aftermath of the Second World War. Since then it has consistently been below 1%, hovering at around 0.75% for most of that time.
Immigration has become somewhat of a controversial topic in recent years, primarily because of the serious global refugee crises in the Middle East, Africa and other troubled spots across the globe. Many people aligned with the more conservative, right wing end of the political spectrum have tended to view increased immigration as a threat to Canada from both a social, economic and security point of view. They do not feel that Canada can successfully absorb increased number s of immigrants.
I would challenge that argument on the basis of Canadian historical experience. Our country absorbed proportionately significantly larger numbers of immigrants in the last century than we are doing now, up to five times our current numbers. One must remember too, that this happened at a time when there was no government funded social safety net, no welfare programs, no immigrant aid agencies, and no ESL training. Yet, these immigrants settled peacefully and in time became productive members of Canadian society. Their descendants now occupy the top rungs of Canadian business, politics, the arts, the military, and virtually all other segments of our society.
The other argument one hears against increasing immigration levels is that the Canadian economy is stagnant and unemployment levels are high, so we cannot afford to absorb large numbers of immigrants who would exacerbate the economic situation and be a big drain on the public purse. What this fails to take into account is the demographic crisis that is looming on our immediate horizon.
Birth rates in Canada, as in most of the developing world, have been steadily declining for some time, and experts are predicting that by 2030 birth rates in Canada will fall below death rates, making immigration the only source for true population growth. To compound the problem, with people living longer due to medical and health advances, the number of seniors as a percentage of the total population is growing rapidly. In 2006, seniors (65 years or older) represented 13.2 % of the total population. Projections are that by 2036 this will almost double to 24.5%. This points to a major demographic problem. Over the next two decades we will start to see the effects of a major imbalance between a shrinking base of working and tax-paying younger people who will be required to support a larger growing group of retirees.
Increasing our levels of immigration is the only viable solution to dealing with a demographic time bomb that is just around the corner. We must seriously start adjusting our immigration policies now to ensure that twenty, thirty years down the road we have a well age-balanced population to enable Canada to grow and prosper as it has in the past.
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