Allow skilled immigrants into Canada

Canada, 23rd July: Canada immigration rules should be amended to enable more skilled immigrants into Canada, a recent report by CBC (Conference Board of Canada) has revealed.

As per the report, changes in Canada’s immigration system should be made by giving due importance to the skills possessed by immigrants if Canada wants to avoid facing acute shortages of labor in the coming times.

The recommendations by CBC’s analysts stress on making immigration policies of the country modernized to help the economy of Canada grow at a higher rate. The analysts argue that outdates Canada immigration rules will stifle the growth of Canadian economy.

At present, Canada is, undoubtedly, a leading economy in the world.

But, Ottawa based conference board’s report authored by chief economist of the board, Glen Hodgson reiterates that although the global economic slowdown has come as a relief(to a small extent) from tight employment markets, however, the coming times are going to see a shortage of required workforce in Canada.

Moreover, the situation is only going to worsen for the Canada labor market as the baby-boomers reach the retirement age. And another factor likely to prove bad for Canadian economy is the poor birth rate in Canada which is 1.66 children per female. However, the required birth rate in Canada to sustain population needs to be 2.1 children per woman.

As per Hodgson, the potential for long term growth of the economy of any country depends on three factors. These include increased productivity, investments made in physical capital and the most important, growth in the work force along with total number of hours worked for.

Although, workforce of Canada has growth at a faster rate than those of several other industrialized nations in the recent past, but Canada’s workforce has been left behind in terms of improving productivity and capital investments, argues Hodgson.

Hence, there appears to be an urgent need for making changes to the current policies of Canada immigration especially in temporary immigration so that the immigration rules make it easier for temporary immigrants as well as international students to gain permanent residency in Canada.

Other factors needing improvement includes protection of refugees and ease of Canada family visas for reunification of families.