October 7, 2014

Why Now, More Than Ever, Canada Needs Immigrants

Across the board, Canada has consistently been considered one of the best places in the world to settle down. We are consistently considered one of the most peaceful and happiest countries, with a sterling reputation among other nations. But this leads us to an important question as we look towards the future: how will we be able to sustain this level of success and growth? According to Scott Gilmore, the answer lies in increasing our population, with the easiest way of doing so through immigration.

In his Macleans Magazine piece, Gilmore goes on to argue that despite our great attributes as a country, Canada will not be able to uphold our pattern of growth if we allow our population to continually dwindle. Though we welcomed more than 250 000 new Canadian nationals last year, it is not enough to cover labour shortages; consider this in tandem with a falling birth rate, and one can understand the distressing trend that our population is experiencing. According to Gilmore, Canada would merely need an annual growth rate of 1.3% to reach a long-term population that we can sustain, based on the infrastructure that we already have in place. Advocating for the great importance of immigrants in addressing this matter, he further states that:

“More immigrants mean more minds, more hands and more tax dollars. There is a misconception that new arrivals are a net drain on our economy. In fact, they are more entrepreneurial and work longer hours than average Canadians. The added muscle would make us smarter, stronger and louder.”

(Sources)