The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Are Newcomers Losing Interest in Canada?

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Is the dream of Canadian citizenship still worth pursuing? While carrying a passport and voting in elections might have once been the goal for many permanent residents who call Canada home, a new report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship finds that the number of permanent residents leaving Canada is on the rise. What is sparking this migration? Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the ICC, joins Steve Paikin to discuss this and more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you didn't know you could become. Exciting, isn't it? Visit tvo.org slash giving Tuesday to make your donation today and discover your 2-point TVO. A new report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship finds that the number of permanent residents leaving Canada is on the rise. What is sparking this exodus? Joining us now to discuss is Daniel Bernhardt, CEO of the ICC. It's good to have you back in that chair.

Thanks, Steve. Let's just show the folks what you already know. We've got some stats cans. Excuse me, I should give the full name. A new report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship finds that the number of permanent residents leaving Canada is on the rise. What is sparking this exodus? Joining us now to discuss is Daniel Bernhardt, CEO of the ICC.

It's good to have you back in that chair. Thanks, Steve. Let's just show the folks what you already know. We've got some Statistics Canada numbers here to share. And Sheldon, I'll ask you to bring these up right now. They call this onward migration, which basically is a fancy way for saying that's people who are leaving Canada.

And this is over the last 20 years. And for those listening on podcast, I'll just describe what we've got here, which is essentially a graph showing what percentage of people who come then leave. And it's a pretty flat line until about 2017 when there's a big spike, but then it comes down again. But now here we are after COVID in 2020

and the line is spiking up again. So what concerns you about that trend? Well, what we see is this phenomenon of people who are coming to Canada from around the world. And by the way, I should clarify, all the people in this study are permanent residents. So they all have the ability to stay and have chosen not to. We're not talking about temporary workers

or international students. And this is, I think, quite alarming. There are a number of different ways to slice it. The view that you just showed is the year of leaving. We can also look at how people are leaving based on the year that they've arrived. What we've seen in that graph is actually a 30-year upward trend.

So whilst there are spikes in recent years, conservative governments, liberal governments, all different types of economies, this phenomenon has been silently on the rise. And what does it mean? It means that people who are hand-selected in many respects, economic immigrants are actually the most likely to leave, according to our study.

Maybe we'll get into that soon. These people who are hand-selected for their ability to address some of Canada's most pressing economic and social needs in areas like health care, early childhood education etc. are increasingly saying thanks but no thanks. And this is troubling because when they leave the needs that they are brought here to address do not.

And so Canada as a country that's been dependent on immigration I think should be concerned about this growing trend, not yet at a catastrophe level, but definitely rising and trending in the wrong direction of immigrants who are coming to the country and saying thanks, but no thanks. Can you tell whether they leave after five years, 10 years, 15 years, what? Yeah, so that's actually a very important finding

in our report. The number of immigrants that are projected to leave the country is about 20% over the long term, 20 to 25 years. But what we find is that most of that leaving happens in the first seven years. And so there is this real spike in the graph between years three and seven,

where the risk of departure is highest. It's like danger zone territory. But it's also actually an opportunity for intervention. If Canada can make those early years winning years, you know, amazing years, satisfying years, such that people with these great talents from around the winning years, you know, amazing years, satisfying years, such that people with these great talents from around the world decide, you know what,

my decision to come here, this was the right move. This is the place where I would like to devote my talents and my energies to the country's success. This is the place where I belong and where my family belongs. That is to the great benefit of all Canadians, not just the immigrants who are coming here. But if we can't, if we can't get people past that year seven hump, then we lose on everything that they have to contribute.

So that's, I think, what's at stake here. On the other hand, I'll play devil's advocate here, you can imagine people who have been here for a few generations saying to themselves, you know, this is a pretty good place to live in this world for a lot of people, and if they don't want to stick around, well, good riddance. What's wrong with thinking that way? Well, this is a very good place to live.

I'm, you know, really fortunate to live here, and I really enjoy living here, as do, I imagine, most of your viewers, even those who have other options to live elsewhere. I think what this reflects, though, is a really dramatic change in the nature of who's coming. So my parents came to Canada from South America, and they were 18 and 19. One had finished high school.

One had to finish over here. They spoke relatively little English, the proverbial $5 in your pocket. What was the first language? Spanish. They came from Chile. And Chile was in the midst of a coup and a dictatorship and all that kind of stuff.

Everything in Canada was upside. Well, people who are coming today are coming in dramatically different circumstances. If you are applying in the point system today in Canada, you need to be basically in the top 5 percentile to be admitted. So that means that we are rejecting 95% to 96% of people who are applying.

That's a level of competitiveness on par with Harvard University. So who are we getting? We're getting people who speak English and French, often both impeccably well. We're getting people with advanced education and master's degrees. We're getting people, therefore, who were homeowners,

who had domestic help in their country of origin, who came from two-car, two-driver households. These are people from the top of very unequal societies. And so they have a lot of different things to contribute than my parents had at the time, for example. But they also have global options. And so instead of immigration being a manifestation of our generosity

as a country, which I think our conversation, our public debate still reflects that frame. Immigration needs to shift as a, you know, we need to talk about this as a reflection of our ambition and as an admission, quite frankly, that an aging and shrinking society is a poor, weaker, and less fun place to live. We need immigrants in many cases much more than they need us. And so the profile of the contemporary immigrant has changed a lot. The discourse around immigration has changed hardly at all. And the services that are available to immigrants have also changed, in my opinion, far, far

too slowly. So language classes, for example, are the number one government-funded settlement service. Sixty percent of immigrants are economic immigrants who have to take a language test as a condition of entry. And so many of them don't use these services, they're just not appropriate. Instead of thinking about how we can fix immigrants to improve their language skills and give them CV training, etc., because they need help, we need to start thinking about how we can sell these very talented people with global options on Canada

so that they decide, this is my place, these are my people, this is where I belong, and this is where I would like to devote my talents and energies in the long term. That's what's at stake for Canada. We need, I think, to work a little bit harder to win over the affections of these talented people. And I should just add one more thing. This is not an issue of promiscuity or disloyalty.

These are people who are doing what you or me or anyone else watching the show would do. Make a big decision to uproot your family and move to another country. Give it four, five, six years to see how it's going. And if you don't think it's working out, you'll pursue other options. Do those other options include, maybe you could tell me

which is more prevalent, going back to their country of origin or are they picking yet another country to go to? So we don't know that from this data. We suspect most of the returning is to the country of origin. I know there's a lot of interest, for example, in moving to the United States, but that's actually really hard to do. So we-

Harder now, I would think. Harder now, yeah, for sure. So we have more work to do there, but we do know that they're not staying in Canada, and that's the prime concern here. Daniel, do we know if they're just homesick? Well, one of the theories is that the nature of global migration is changing. With FaceTime and YouTube, you can practically live in another country nowadays, culturally at least.

You're not disconnected by distance in the way that you once were. Maybe that is the case, but if that's the case, then perhaps our conceptualization of permanent residency and the path to citizenship also need to adapt accordingly. I think though that the numbers still suggest in our testimonies and our organization through our Canoe Pass, which gives newcomers free access to over 2,000 culture, nature, and sport experiences,

so that they fall in love with the country and stay. For a year, right? Well, it's for a year. It's actually for five years now. For five years, OK. They get a little bit less every year, but they're able to stay for a little bit longer. We're in touch with over 410,000 verified adult immigrants.

That's more than almost all other settlement services in Canada combined. And what they tell us is that they're really looking to make a go here. They really want to stay. They really want to contribute. They're idealistic about Canada. They have very positive impressions of Canadians.

They feel welcomed at a personal level. But if the economic stuff in many cases doesn't click, and remember, we're taking high status individuals from their country of origin, then they'll pursue other options. One of the questions that's raised here is whether this idea of picking the highest status people from their country of origin is, in fact, a good idea.

To your point about people who came 40 or 50 years ago, are we being a bit too snobby, perhaps? That's, I think, a reasonable question to ask. But the point is that just three, like just two weeks ago, for example, Canada invited over 3,000 people with health care expertise to become permanent residents. We're all complaining about difficulties accessing medical services.

Anyone who's waiting for a specialist can testify to this. Some people might worry about, are we adding too many immigrants for our country's health care capacity to be able to hold? But we have to also remember that immigrants don't just consume stuff. They are producing things, including these people, for example, who will contribute to our health care system success in the long term.

So it's a more complicated discussion than that. And so long as these needs persist, then our national interest in retaining people, hand-selected to fulfill those needs, will also persist. in retaining people, hand selected to fulfill those needs will also persist. I do wonder though, I guess I should ask whether or not this really is a problem at all, only in as much as we have seen over the last few weeks. The federal government has really done a U-turn on immigration.

It was unambiguously up and up and up and up over the last many decades, and now they've definitely put the brakes on. If there are fewer people who come here who decide to stay, maybe that's a bit of a safety valve for that problem? I think that is a sort of superficially sensible understanding. But when you probe a little bit deeper, it starts to break down. We live in a democracy where, at least some of the time, public opinion becomes public policy.

And that's clearly what's happened here. Canadians have been bombarded for about two years with messages that are biggest failings many generations in the making, like a shortage of affordable housing, health care issues, which have been a problem on the front page of the newspapers my entire life, that these issues are suddenly attributable not to our own mismanagement of our governance, but to people who came last week. This mathematically does not make sense, but also it fails to incorporate for the fact that immigration is a two-sided ledger. So if we were to take 10% of the immigrants out of the country, for example, yeah, maybe

we would take 10% of people out of the hospital waiting room, but we would take 30 or 40% of the people out of the hospital staff room, and anybody who's been to a hospital can testify who's working there. So I would invite your viewers to do the math and think about whether this is a good trade for Canada. In the construction trades, for example, we have a huge boom of retirements that are currently unfolding and continuing to unfold. Speak to any of the construction companies. They are bringing in large numbers of temporary foreign workers to meet their goals. Not to lift shovels, to be supervisors and project managers at very high levels and very high wages because we are just missing that layer here.

So we can reduce the number of people all we want. The Federal Minister of Immigration and the Prime Minister said, well, this will reduce our housing targets. We'll need to build fewer houses. Then like two weeks later, CMHC releases data saying, housing starts in Ontario, plummet to new lows. There are more moving pieces here

than just the number of people piling on to the system. And to simply blame all of our failings amassed over many, many years on the number of people coming, particularly when many of those people are coming, are selected for their ability to address precisely those failings, I think just doesn't serve us very well as a country. We need to consider both sides of the ledger. In which case, let me ask you about something very symbolic, the passport. You and I probably both grew up being told that the passport was really gold. It was a beautiful thing to be able to show anyone around the world. And in fact, I can recall, not that long ago, there was a great counterfeit ring where people

wanted to create fake Canadian passports because they were so accepted all over the world. Does it not have the lure it once had? It doesn't. So naturalization rates among newcomers, among permanent residents rather, who are able to do so have declined by 40% between 2001 and 2021. This will come as a shock to many people. It came as a shock to me. I mean, this question about retention, about naturalization rates, I started in my job three years ago and I said, all right,

what's happening, you know? And I decided to look and no one actually knew the answers to these things. So we had to find out ourselves. We were surprised by the results too. And the funny thing is that when we ask immigrants why they're choosing to leave to other countries, lack of affordable housing is the number one answer. But when we ask them why they are considering not becoming Canadian citizens, lack of affordable housing is also the number one answer. And it's interesting because it's the number one answer across income groups. Even people who are making a lot of money are not feeling optimistic about their ability to build wealth and to build a base here in their future.

And so optimism for the future really seems like actually the core thing here. And many Canadians are professing a lack of optimism in the future, and it's no wonder then that immigrants who also live here amongst all of us who consume the same media are feeling the same way. I got some numbers on this. Okay, rate of Canadian citizenship declining. Here's what the citizenship rate has been among adults who met the minimum residency requirements. Sheldon, we got this graphic here. Can we bring this up? Top of

page three. Those who landed in 1996, 65% of them obtained citizenship five years later. That's a pretty healthy number. Of those who arrived in 2006, only 44% obtained their citizenship by 2011. And of those who arrived in 2016, again, if you look five years later in 2021, 22% obtained citizenship. So we go from almost 30 years ago to about two thirds of people obtaining citizenship, now down to two in 10. What story is that telling? Processing delays during the pandemic probably affect the last number,

but even if it's not 20% but 30%, right, it's still a major decline. You know, I was telling the National Press Gallery last week when we announced this study, I said, you know, Canada's still a great place. It's an affluent and abundant and welcoming place. I think Canadians really do have a warm and welcoming heart. But we'd also do well to maybe get over ourselves

a little bit. There are countries around the world where we are sourcing immigrants from, India, China, the Philippines, that have progressed immensely in the last 30 or 40 years. India no longer has a paper currency. Even the poorest street peddler is doing their business on their phone. People are coming here and they're wondering why our healthcare system is run on fax machines.

We send them to immigration services to learn how to deal with the Canadian financial system. We teach them how to write paper checks. They laugh. And then in the employment sector, we're saying, well, do you have Canadian experience? Is that sufficient? And they're going like, what are you talking about? We're light years ahead of you in some of these ways. And so this, I think, speaks to really the main prescription here for all of Canada,

not just for the government, but for each of us. It's a double dose of humility because we are still, like I said, thinking of immigration as a manifestation of our compassion. People are coming from horrible places, and of course you're welcome to come here. Maybe not so many. Maybe we can't handle it all. These are just limits on our generosity,

on our capacity for generosity. But what about our open-mindedness to what people from around the world can teach us, to what we can learn? Self-interest. Exactly. And to having a team built up of stars from around the world who want to play for our team.

When I speak in public, I often talk about Alfonso Davies, the captain of the men's Canadian soccer team, who came to Canada as a refugee and played his very first game for Team Canada either the same day or the next day after getting his Canadian citizenship. And when he goes to work, he literally wraps himself in the Canadian flag because he believes in this place, and he feels like he was welcomed here. And we've attained incredible success on the soccer field as a result. But this plays out in every domain of society.

When you have people from around the world who want to play for your team and contribute all they've got, we should say yes. We should say yes. And we are closed minded right now about what the rest of the world has done, how they have moved in many cases faster than us. And the tragedy of all this is that

we have the people who are already here, who can teach us amazing things and who are bridge builders to global markets, who have a lot to contribute. But instead of asking them what they can teach us, we simply ask them if they can teach us, we simply ask them if they can meet our standard as though our standard is naturally and always the highest one.

I think that really says a lot about how Canadians' mentality about immigration is backwards. And if you are an immigrant on the other side of this ledger, you experience this enough times and it starts to get frustrating and we see that all the time. So no wonder the economic immigrants with the highest points, with the highest global experience are also now showing us that they are the most likely to believe in the country.

This takes its toll after a while and it takes its toll not on immigrants, it takes its toll on Canada. This is not something that you should feel badly about because an immigrant was discriminated against or had a rough experience here. I mean, you should. But if that's a nurse that's no longer healing our patients, that's all the patients in the waiting room who suffer. This is an all of Canada problem,

and we ought to be talking about it more in those terms. Well, follow up on that. We got a minute left here. What should we do? Well, I think first of all, we should have retention targets. There is no one right now in any government in Canada who is mandated to deal with retention as their job. So I think that's

something that we definitely ought to look at. We ought to take a broader view of settlement services beyond just fixing people's deficiencies and thinking about ways to sell them on Canada. Like our canoe program, there are others that are thinking more broadly like this. But most importantly, I think we should try and issue a long-standing Canadian tradition of just pointing our fingers at various governments. This is something that we can all contribute to. Think about what makes your quality of life positive in your community.

Is it government policy? Sometimes. But it's also your experience as an employer, as a colleague, as a neighbor, as standing at the sidelines while your kids are playing soccer. If these people really are hand-selected to be able to address some of our most pressing needs, then each of us can do our best to make that welcome warm and enduring. Because I think Canada really can have and become more.

But we need to be able to say yes to these incredible contributions that people are willing to make. And if they're giving up on Canada, that's a disturbing sign that I think each of us ought to address ourselves towards. Fascinating study. Thanks for coming in and talking about it. Thanks for having me. That's Daniel Bernhardt, CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.