To save the economy, feds need to close door to immigrants
Posted By RICHARD ROHMER, O. C., Q. C.
Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin
November 28, 2008
Notwithstanding yesterday's attempt by Jim Flaherty, the federal Minister of Finance, to paint an optimistic picture for Canada's economic and fiscal condition, he misses/ignores a major factor that negatively impacts the Canadian economy.
That negative factor is the federal government's “wide open” immigration policy.
Wide open? Try letting in some 300,000 new immigrants each year while attempting to increase that number. The waiting line is said to be in the one-million range.
Where will those immigrants end up when they arrive? Mainly to the Greater Toronto Area and to a handful of cities across Canada.
In Ontario it's like dropping a city the size of Kitchener's population right out of the blue sky (all by air) on top of a heavily-populated area that is already overstretched for hospital care facilities, basic educational services and is seeing jobs disappearing by the carload.
The agony that the U. S. auto industry is suffering is having– and will have–disastrous employment consequences particularly in Ontario with GM, Ford and Chrysler plants from Oshawa to Oakville to Windsor facing bankruptcy and shut downs. We're talking of tens of thousands of jobs at risk. Plus those in the auto parts manufacturing such as the great Magna International based in Aurora with units across Ontario and Canada and Europe.
Add to those potential huge job loss numbers the 3,500 car dealers who employ some 140,000 people across Canada with roughly half of those in Ontario.
If the U. S./Canada automobile industry shuts down, the job impact in this country will be devastating.
Then there are other sectors that will be at prejudice. Try the housing industry, which is the other main production leg of Canada's economy. If you let in 300,000 immigrants each year, where will they find accommodation let alone jobs?
The Government of Canada appears to be absolutely blind to the fact that a reversal of economic/ employment good times requires a dramatic reversal of its long-standing and entrenched wide-open immigration policies.
What is urgently needed is a complete immigration policy review that reflects the reality of a Recession– which is what the U. S./ Canada joint economy is clearly into.
Parallel to that urgent review, the Government should declare an immediate Moratorium on Immigration.
Generally speaking, the immigration factor is not on this government's radar screen. But what is on it?
The potential for deficits and the probability of deficits can only be increased by allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants into a nation without jobs.
