Immigration Favored For Canadian Economy On High Note

21 Apr 2011

Out of all major countries, Canada has the highest immigration rate per capita. Canada has extended to invite immigrants and already has a number of skilled immigration programs to help deal with skills shortages in labour force.

‘Canada should increase its immigration levels’, is the outcome of a recent study conducted by Mr.Tony Fang.  The study suggests that Canada should increase its immigration levels to bolster investment in housing and boost the nation’s gross product.

Fang says that Canada needs an additional one million immigrants; This would be an extra 100,000 immigrants a year during the period 2012 to 2021. This would also help the Canadian economy which is yet to recover fully from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

"To study the impacts of large-scale immigration on the Canadian economy, the researchers took into account many factors including: immigrants' participation in the labour force; associated spending on government services and infrastructure; funds brought by immigrants; and labour market differences between migrants (in order to capture the effect of large-scale immigration on Canadian-born workers)," a press release on the study said.

Fang, a professor at the University of York in Vancouver, said that adding 100,000 more immigrants a year to Canada's population would increase the GDP by 2.3 percent. Moreover, the increase in population would create demands for goods and services, particularly housing.

Fang also said that increased immigration would add $14 billion in tax revenue for the government.