Maxime Bernier

[pudubny]

First the bolded text - I believe (from the way I read it) the $30B (or $2B) figure represents the cost associated with ALL immigrants, not just those who come in a given year.

Secondly, I'm not against family reunification for spouses and children, but there is no economic benefit to bringing the parents or grandparents of immigrants to Canada who are likely in the latter half of their working career or seniors. These are people who will inevitably use more social services than their tax contribution. If we were posting surplus budgets it would be a different story, but why do we feel the need to provide care for foreign born adults/seniors when our system is already struggling to care for our own senior citizen population? Should I tell my grandmother that she needs to sacrifice her quality of care to ensure somebody from Iraq receives healthcare?

I wasn't disputing the investment number, it's irrelevant to the real question. I was asking in view of the positive economic outcome immigrants provide, what is the expected rate of return and the window?
Their may be no economic benefit, we don't know that because it hasn't been studied. We don't know if we can attract skilled workers if we cut back family admissions. We don't know how many family admissions allow both working age admission to work while they care for grandchildren (very common in Asia).
We do know that they are looking at family admissions for parents and grandparents as more of a sponsor option which obligates the initial immigrant to be more financially responsible for them for up to 20 years. Some of this is being looked at now according to immigration canada briefs.
in fact, the details are here, you must agree to repay benefits of sponsored family.

https://www.canadavisa.com/parent-and-grandparent-sponsorship.html#gs.zdbavn

[Bern]

This is a loophole we should close given it's a tax avoidance measure.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2125153/many-millionaire-migrants-are-exiting-canada-leaving

[73monte]

@SeanAvery said:Regardless, the conversation was about Bernier's billboard. Which requires a pretty big leap of faith to call it identity politics. Most rational people see it as his belief that immigration at it's current levels is too high. That's not racist. To see it as racist, you have to WANT to see it that way.

This part of your post is exactly correct. Trudeau has invited the world to come to Canada. Asylum seekers are literally walking into this country unchecked. We hand them a stipend, and have no where to put them. Immigration levels too high? This is anarchy.

[Ignatius Reilly]

Bernier's team has ditched that billboard and come up with a newer, better one:

[Arthur Dailey]

This is a loophole we should close given it's a tax avoidance measure.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/unit...canada-leaving

This is common and not just limited to the ethnic/national group identified in the article.

If you are rich and live in a 3rd world or some 2nd world nations, your freedom and wealth are at the 'pleasure of the government'.

So if you can move as much money as possible to a 'safe sanctuary' then you have an 'escape route'.
Canada is the safe haven of choice due to its political stability, proximity to the USA, British Commonwealth connection, education system and immigration policies. Your get 'investor status', move your children here so that they can attend Canadian schools.

But you continue to make your money in your birth nation. And divert as much as possible into Canada. Real estate being a prime example. Relatively creditor free. Inexpensive compared to many other areas. So we have reports of multi-million dollar homes or condos in Vancouver and Toronto sitting empty, or being inhabited by students or those with minimal reported income.

In reality you don't even care if you lose some money on your real estate in Canada, because you have at least gotten it safely out of your home nation. And when/if the coup/revolution/change of regime/civil war occurs there, you have a Canadian passport and enough money in Canada to live on, when you need to escape.

[Arthur Dailey]

Much of this wasn't relevant to the points I was making, thus I have removed the parts I thought were unrelated.

My point was this: the world as a whole is a much better place for the overwhelming majority of the global population today than it has ever been by almost every metric, and our financial position is historically poor. This combination provides no justification for our current immigration level.

As to your statement that my first point was incorrect - it is exactly what you said. Our immigration levels in 2018 are the highest they've been in absolute terms since 1913 when we were promoting the settlement of western Canada.

I don't think anybody disputes that we have an official immigration policy, I do think that many people disagree with that policy under current circumstances both domestic and global. In fact, according to polls, roughly half of Canadians want less immigration.

Do we need immigration to sustain our economy because of an aging population? Absolutely. Which is why we should be targeting young and highly skilled economic immigrants. At the same time we should be restricting/reducing family-based immigration for parents and grandparents of our current immigration population, who when they arrive will almost uniformly have a lower income and an equal or higher consumption of social benefits (like healthcare) compared to our citizen population. .

1) The difference in ratio of immigrants to population now and per WWI is astronomic. More immigrants then with a population less than 1/3 of what it is now. And with less control over immigration requirements then.

2) The key is and you start to mention it, is if you are against current immigration levels, which of the 3 forms would you decrease? You seem to focus on family reunification. The rules regarding this have been tightened. Many others focus on refugees. Yet in order to achieve refugee status, someone has to appear before the IRB and prove that they deserve that status. So what/how would you change these routes?

[Bern]

This is common and not just limited to the ethnic/national group identified in the article.

If you are rich and live in a 3rd world or some 2nd world nations, your freedom and wealth are at the 'pleasure of the government'.

So if you can move as much money as possible to a 'safe sanctuary' then you have an 'escape route'.
Canada is the safe haven of choice due to its political stability, proximity to the USA, British Commonwealth connection, education system and immigration policies. Your get 'investor status', move your children here so that they can attend Canadian schools.

But you continue to make your money in your birth nation. And divert as much as possible into Canada. Real estate being a prime example. Relatively creditor free. Inexpensive compared to many other areas. So we have reports of multi-million dollar homes or condos in Vancouver and Toronto sitting empty, or being inhabited by students or those with minimal reported income.

In reality you don't even care if you lose some money on your real estate in Canada, because you have at least gotten it safely out of your home nation. And when/if the coup/revolution/change of regime/civil war occurs there, you have a Canadian passport and enough money in Canada to live on, when you need to escape.

I understand that it's all nationalities, I definitely was not restricting the commentary to Chinese. My criticism of the policy is it's an easy loophole to close. Ensure that there is a guaranteed remittance of tax over an extended period that is guaranteed by the money lent to the government. Otherwise, this is a drain on our economy from people who could easily afford to pay.

[bl8d]

If HongKong is annexed, BC will see a planned Tsunami, that much we know.

How a promising investor plan, as it played out for the locals in Dayton, turned into
a rude kick in the head and a gut check for the locals, watch American Factory on Netflix.



You'd think the Americans would have remembered from when Mercedes created their management team to change Chrysler.

So,what has this to do with Canada?
When the absentee "manager" finally arrives at his new roost, he will try to operate the way that made him his money back home.

Panda spots don't change.lol

[68shark]

I understand that it's all nationalities, I definitely was not restricting the commentary to Chinese. My criticism of the policy is it's an easy loophole to close. Ensure that there is a guaranteed remittance of tax over an extended period that is guaranteed by the money lent to the government. Otherwise, this is a drain on our economy from people who could easily afford to pay.

A lady at work is from HK. Her husband emigrated with her in the 1980's. Had a child here and all are Canadian citizens. With Canadian passport in hand, he went right back to HK. He comes "home" about 2 or 3 weeks a year. But he will be returning next year on a permanent basis as he's now in his late 60's, has some health concerns and guess what, wants to make sure he's eligible for OHIP cover. She claims he doesn't file Canadian tax returns and never has. So pays no tax here at all, but will milk OHIP dry in his later years. Nice for us eh?

[Bern]

A lady at work is from HK. Her husband emigrated with her in the 1980's. Had a child here and all are Canadian citizens. With Canadian passport in hand, he went right back to HK. He comes "home" about 2 or 3 weeks a year. But he will be returning next year on a permanent basis as he's now in his late 60's, has some health concerns and guess what, wants to make sure he's eligible for OHIP cover. She claims he doesn't file Canadian tax returns and never has. So pays no tax here at all, but will milk OHIP dry in his later years. Nice for us eh?

Like I said a loophole that is easy to fix and we should, this does not represent the typical immigrant.

[68shark]

Like I said a loophole that is easy to fix and we should, this does not represent the typical immigrant.

Just curious, is the comment in bold supported by evidence? In particular, with respect to HK/China immigrants?

[Bern]

Just curious, is the comment in bold supported by evidence? In particular, with respect to HK/China immigrants?

Most immigrants don't have the money to live this lifestyle nor do most people want to live separate from their family and spouse.

[SeanAvery2point0]

Most immigrants don't have the money to live this lifestyle nor do most people want to live separate from their family and spouse.

Clearly the person given in the example doesn't have the money to live that lifestyle either, or they wouldn't need to come to Canada to take advantage of our public health coverage.

[Bern]

Clearly the person given in the example doesn't have the money to live that lifestyle either, or they wouldn't need to come to Canada to take advantage of our public health coverage.

You want to nitpick something where someone is agreeing that it's a loophole that should be changed? It's a loophole, it's bad, it should stop. We can't do anything about those who are Canadian citizens, but we can fix it going forward.

[pudubny]

If HongKong is annexed, BC will see a planned Tsunami, that much we know.

How a promising investor plan, as it played out for the locals in Dayton, turned into
a rude kick in the head and a gut check for the locals, watch American Factory on Netflix.



You'd think the Americans would have remembered from when Mercedes created their management team to change Chrysler.

So,what has this to do with Canada?
When the absentee "manager" finally arrives at his new roost, he will try to operate the way that made him his money back home.

Panda spots don't change.lol

Just a couple of notes.
The original Hong Kong Tsunami in the late 80's through 97 didn't hurt Canada. Some say it helps us avoid the economic slowdown that hit the US at that time.
As for the "absentee manager" comment as it applies to Chinese, it's not really possible, the business culture and laws are completely different in Canada. Many of those businessmen have worked with foreign business partners for decades, they understand the differences. It also concerns me that you may(emphasis) be implying some have come into their money in nefarious ways. In the majority of cases, that's simply not true.
As for American Factory, good documentary and displayed the learning curve and cultural differences quite well. The opposite of what I went through from 2005--2008. But the company has gotten through it and I'll bet the employees they have now are quite satisfied, although I'm sure it's not perfect. Few employers are.
While some of these families have breadwinners who continue to live and work overseas, let's not forget they still send money back and contribute to the economy in general. But a tweaking of the "non resident" tax code would probably help.