According to the Fraser Institute, a leading public policy think-tank, Canada’s immigrant selection process needs to be revamped to focus on admitting people with Canadian job offers and skills needed by employers.
Prof. Herbert Grubel, of Simon Fraser University and a co-author of a report released today, says, “Recent immigrants earn incomes that are, on average, just 72 per cent of those earned by other Canadians and pay only about one-half of the income taxes paid by other Canadians. At the same time, they absorb nearly the same value of government services and transfers as other Canadians.
“As a result of Canada’s welfare-state policies, our progressive income taxes, and universal social programs, these immigrants impose a huge fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers.”
Using publicly available government statistics, the report, Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State 2011, calculates that the difference between immigrants’ tax payments and the value of government services they absorb was about $6,051 per immigrant in 2006, representing a total cost to Canadian taxpayers of $16.3 billion to $23.6 billion annually.
"This is a substantial amount and is expected to continue to grow for as long as the present immigration policies remain in place," according to economic consultant Patrick Grady, a co-author of the report.
Follow this link to see an abstract of the report. You can download the complete report, free. A hard copy version is also available for purchase.
No comments:
Post a Comment