At the launch of the consultation, Mr Kenney told journalists 'Since 2006, the government of Canada has welcomed the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history. Given the importance of immigration to our economic growth and long-term prosperity, we are especially keen to hear the views of Canadians as we prepare for the years ahead'.
Canada has encouraged high levels of immigration in recent years because of fears that the ageing population will lead to a skills shortage when so-called 'baby-boomers' retire. Canadian business organisations say that Canada needs to bring in skilled workers to fill skills gaps.
Canada takes 250,000 new permanent residents per year
The Canadian government has maintained one of the largest immigration programmes in the world in proportion to its population. Every year some 250,000 people gain Canadian permanent resident status but there is some evidence that some Canadians may want immigration to be scaled back.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has invited various 'stakeholders' to respond to the consultation and has also invited contributions from the public. Among the stakeholders asked are
- Employers
- Unions
- Academia
- Educational institutions
- Professional organisations
- Business associations
- Regulators
- Municipalities
- Aboriginal Groups
- 'Settlement provider organisations' and
- 'Ethnocultural organisations'
CIC issued a statement saying that the consultations 'present an opportunity to raise greater public awareness of the difficult decisions involved in managing a global immigration system'.
'There are competing visions for the future'
It continued 'There are competing visions and diverging goals for the future of the immigration program. Engaging stakeholders and the broader public is key to CIC's development of an overall strategy for Canada moving forward'.
There is some evidence that public enthusiasm for immigration in Canada may be waning. A poll conducted by EKOS Research in February found that 40% of respondents believed there were too many immigrants in Canada. 43% of native Canadians felt this way as did 27% of first-generation Canadians.
EKOS carried out similar polls in 1994 and in 2005. In 1994, 50% of respondents said that they believed that there were too many immigrants in Canada. By 2005, this figure had fallen to 30%. Now, however, it has risen again.
Hostility to immigration has not increased
Frank Graves, the president of EKOS said that he did not believe that hostility to immigration had increased. He said that the company had changed its method of collecting data and now used Interactive voice response automated software to gather data.
Mr Graves told The Huffington Post Canada that he believes that people are more likely to be honest about their dislike of immigration when questioned impersonally by a 'robot'. The robot was not used in the earlier polls and this, Mr Graves believes, led to underreporting of opposition to immigration.
The poll shows that younger Canadians are more likely to be unworried by immigration as are people with higher education qualifications and people living in metropolitan areas.
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