Alan G. Green

The Economic Goals of Canada's Immigration Policy, Past and Present

We examine the economic goals of current immigration policy and what role immigration should play in overall economic policy. We proceed by describing the economic goals of immigration policy throughout this century. We then describe current economically targeted elements of immigration policy and relate them to historical trends. Finally, we examine a set of potential economic goals for immigration suggested by Canadas policy history. We conclude that economic goals should not form the defining orientation of immigration policy in the near future since other policies are better situated to meet those goals. Immigration should continue as a defining element in our social fabric.

Impacts of the Point System and Immigration Policy Levers on Skill Characteristics of Canadian Immigrants

This paper examines how changes in immigration policy levers actually affect the skill characteristics of immigrant arrivals using a unique Canadian immigrant landings database. The paper identifies some hypotheses on the possible effects on immigrant skill characteristics of the total immigration rate, the point system weights and immigrant class weights. The “skill” characteristics examined are level of education, age, and fluency in either English or French. Regressions are used to test the hypotheses from Canadian landings data for 1980–2001. It is found that (i) the larger the inflow rate of immigrants the lower the average skill level of the arrivals, (ii) increasing the proportion of skill-evaluated immigrants raises average skill levels, and (iii) increasing point system weights on a specific skill dimension indeed has the intended effect of raising average skill levels in this dimension among arriving principal applicants.

Toward Improving Canada's Skilled Immigration Policy: An Evaluation Approach

Canada’s approach to immigration faces major challenges, and requires reform if Canada is to meet the international competition for skilled immigrants, according to a new policy study. In the Policy Study, the authors assess the strengths and weaknesses of the current point system used to screen new arrivals, identify the policy levers that affect the attributes and success rates of new arrivals, and break new ground by providing a tool to measure those impacts.The past two and a half decades have seen a marked worsening in the adjustment process of new immigrants, as their earnings levels have dropped significantly relative to Canadian-born workers, say the book’s authors. The earnings gap between Canadian- and foreign-born workers has widened, and the catch-up interval between the earnings of immigrants and Canadian-born workers has lengthened. These results have come at the cost of fewer human resources and skills available to the Canadian economy, a potential threat to social cohesion, and the likely loss of skilled immigrants who choose to return home or move on to another country.

Factor and Commodity Flows in the International Economy of 1870–1914: A Multi-Country View

This study focuses primarily on the movements of people and capital between a number of selected European and overseas countries during a phase of mass migration. The data indicate that the international movements of people, capital, and goods were extremely fluid, were adaptable, and took place under highly diverse conditions of population change and economic growth. A number of uniformities emerge, including for example a close relationship between international borrowing, high growth rates, and large flows of immigrants. These and a variety of other general patterns are examined as aspects of the massive demographic shifts of this period.

Dominion or Republic? Migrants to North America from the United Kingdom, 1870-1910

Late nineteenth–century Canada attracted a large number of immigrants from the UK, despite far lower average income per head there than in the US. While urban labour markets in the northern US were much larger than those in Canada, differences in outcomes between UK immigrants in Canadian and in northern US cities were small. Average annual real earnings by occupation group were only 10 to 15 per cent lower in Canadian cities. Individual–level census data indicate that the occupational distribution of UK immigrants in Canada was quite similar to that of their peers in the US.

Regional Aspects of Canada's Economic Growth, 1890-1929 *

One of the most interesting periods of Canadian economic history is that which encompasses the years 1890 to 1929. During this period, the prairie provinces were largely settled, new staple exports emerged, and regional interdependence increased. Any explanation of national economic growth over these years, then, necessarily involves an examination of the different responses among regions to these new sources of growth. In essence, we are asking the question: what is the relation between the spatial reallocation of economic activity and the growth of the Canadian economy over this period? To answer this question and to look at some of its implications, regional (provincial) gross-value-added estimates for selected years were made. Regional estimates of gross value added were made for the years 1890, 1910, and 1929. These three years were chosen to satisfy, as closely as possible, the condition that they represent a similar level of economic activity at each point of time. These years were chosen since they are all years of relatively high economic activity. The first two years faced the additional constraint that they had to coincide with census dates. The choice of years of high level economic activity was made in order to avoid biases in the trend rates of growth which would arise if the initial and terminal dates were at different phases of the business cycle. For example, if the initial year coincided with a year of high unemployment and the terminal year low unemployment, then an upward bias in growth rates might have occurred. Initial and terminal dates chosen at the trough of business cycles would also have avoided this potential slope bias.

Immigration and the Canadian Earnings Distribution in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

We use newly available micro-data from the 1911 to 1941 Canadian Censuses to investigate the impact of immigration on the Canadian earnings distribution in the first half of the twentieth century. We show that Canadian inequality rose sharply in the inter-war years, particularly in the 1920s, coinciding with two of the largest immigration decades in Canadian history. We find that immigration was not the main force driving changes in the earnings distribution. This results from a combination of self-selection by immigrants, occupational adjustments after arrival, and general equilibrium adjustments in the economy.

Policy Forum on the Role of Immigration in Canada's Future

This is a report on a conference held in Kingston Ontario in October 1988 concerning the role of immigration in Canadas future. The first session contains four introductory papers one of which deals with Quebecs perspective. Also included are two papers on labor market adjustment and two papers on social adjustment. The fourth session was a panel discussion on objectives levels composition and directions of future immigration. (ANNOTATION)

Unemployment and Relief in Canada

The structure of the Canadian economy in the interwar era made it particularly vulnerable to the shocks generated in the international economy during the Depression. As a result, the labour market experienced massive dislocation. This chapter examines the impact of the Depression on the labour force, and the nature of government responses to these conditions.

Book Review: Frenchman into Peasants: Modernity and Tradition in the Peopling of French CanadaFrenchman into Peasants: Modernity and Tradition in the Peopling of French Canada. By ChoquetteLesliCambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, Pp. 397.

tion studies and inevitably distorts the general picture of Scottish expatriation (p. 36). Consequently we miss not only the faceless majority of overseas migrants but also those who went to England, as well as the large numbers who returned. The fate of those who stayed behind is another story beyond the present study. Nor do we yet know enough about the impact on Scotland of the virtual closure of emigration in the 1930s. Any evaluation of the long-term fate of the hundreds of thousands of migrants would, of course, require an expensive longitudinal study of representative samples of such migrants, well beyond the resources of an individual historian. Dr. Harpers account is the first systematic exploration of the relevant archives and it clearly deserves to sit next to Michael Roes fine study of Australia, Britain and Migration, 1915-1940 (Cambridge, 1995). Harper now gives Scottish historiography the lead over the rest of the British Isles in the exposure of the great mechanisms of early twentieth-century migration.