February 25, 2006: Dr. Martin Loney Responds To Canadian Labour Congress Charges
Andrew Jackson (Chief Economist with the CLC) rejects my claim that the CLC study alleging discrimination against Canadian-born visible minorities failed to examine the importance of age in accounting for differences in outcomes. (According to him,)Had I read the study I would have seen that we did control for age throughout the analysis.
Key data are offered in a number of places in the 35-page study. Figure 1 compares unemployment rates for white and visible minority workers, immigrant and non-immigrant. There is no control for age.
Table 5 compares the annual income of foreign-born and Canadian-born visible minorities with other workers. It is the source of the inflammatory charge that Canadian-born visible minority men earn 34 per cent less than other workers. There is no age breakdown.
Table 6 compares average hourly wages. There is no control for age.
Table 13 offers data on occupational representation. It is the source of the claim that Canadian-born visible minorities are underrepresented in most higher skilled occupations. There is no control for age.
The CLC have used this shoddy research exercise as a pretext for suggesting that Canada is threatened by the kinds of riots that recently occurred in France, a country whose history of immigration and assimilation is so far removed from Canadas as to raise questions about where CLC leaders spend their time.
The study is posted on the CLC web site. Your readers can form their own conclusions about who has read the study and who is ranting.
Martin Loney PhD
