Conference Board, Century Initiative and Trudeau-Morneau Try to Deceive Canadians
In the past month, Canadians have heard (1) The Conference Board of Canada, (2) The Century Initiative and (3) The Trudeau-Morneau Advisory Council on Economic Growth advocate that Canada increase its immigration intake to 400,000–450,000 per year. Two are also saying that Canada should increase its population to 100 million by the year 2100.
The proposals are being made now in order to support the baseless claims made by Immigration Minister McCallum. He says that Canada should increase immigration to provide an economic stimulus, that increases in immigration will solve problems caused by our aging population, and that Canada has a labour shortage.
In fact, existing legitimate evidence completely contradicts what McCallum and all three groups say.
Here are examples of the reputable, legitimate studies which McCallum and the Trudeau government seem grossly ignorant of :
On the Labour Shortage issue, in the past two years, Ottawa’s Parliamentary Budget Office and two of Canada’s big banks have said Canada does not have a labour shortage !!! Canadians should note that even the big banks said this.
In 2006, C.D. Howe Institute demographers conducted a very detailed study which concluded that Canada should not increase immigration to solve aging population problems. If it did, the immigration increases would have to be so high (up to 7 million per year) that they would obviously create many more difficulties than they would solve.
Around 1990, the Economic Council of Canada conducted a study of every decade from Confederation to 1990. It concluded that immigration did not produce any significant economic benefit for Canadians.
In the late 1980’s, Health and Welfare Canada concluded that Canada should not increase immigration to solve aging population problems. It would be better if Canada used its own population to deal with problems caused by its aging population. In fact, an immigration intake as high as 600,000 per year would not solve aging population problems.
In 1976, The Science Council, which consisted of Canada’s best scientists, recommended that Canada stabilize its population at around 35 million. It had to limit immigration. It said that Canada did not have unlimited resources, and that it had to conserve the resources it had for its future generations. It also had to ensure its food security by not building on scarce agricultural land. Subsequent studies done by UBC’s Prospects For Sustainability in 1997 and by Ontario’s Environment Commissioner in 2005 drew similar conclusions for B.C. and Ontario respectively .
Why are The Conference Board, The Century Initiative and the Trudeau-Morneau Advisory Council making their announcements now? In the fall of every year, our Immigration Minister is required by law to announce Canada’s immigration intake for the following year. The CB, CI and TM reports are intended to give “legitimacy” to the large increases in immigration that Immigration Minister McCallum has been hinting he will introduce on November 1.
The fact that the Trudeau–Morneau group’ is also recommending a high (450,000) immigration intake is no co-incidence. It shows that Post National Trudeau and his government have colluded with The Conference Board and The Century Project to deceive Canadians. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the reports of all three groups are based on gross ignorance of existing Canadian immigration research.
This is shocking because the Liberal government has boasted that it is committed to making “evidence-based” decisions, but if their other decisions are as weakly-based as their immigration ones, Canada’s future will not be one of “Sunny Ways”.
Canadians should be made aware that The Conference Board receives $30 million per year from Big Business in order to promote the interests of Big Business. The Century Project describes itself as a “14-member group (which) includes institutional investors, business executives, venture capitalists, and academics”. These groups do not represent typical working Canadians or the interests of typical working Canadians. Neither are the people who comprise the Trudeau-Morneau group.
The Liberal government should not be listening to them.
