WHO ARE WE? WHY HAVE WE ORGANIZED?
Number of Immigrants To Canada From 1860 to 2008 (Immigrants = Non-Canadian-Born Given Permanent Resident Status In Canada)
Immigration Watch Canada is an organization of Canadians advocating a major reduction to Canada's current record-high immigration levels and major reform to Canada's immigration policies.
We believe Canada should have some immigration, but that immigration levels should be reduced to about 50,000, that is, to about 20% of the current annual 260,000 intake.
The graph above explains much about Canada's immigration history.
AS THE GRAPH SHOWS, THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IMMIGRATION LEVELS BEFORE AND AFTER 1990.
THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT CANADA HAS NEVER HAD A PERIOD OF PROLONGED HIGH IMMIGRANT INTAKE LIKE THE ONE IT HAS HAD SINCE 1990
This means that with the exception of two years around the year 2000, the post-1990 immigration period is the first time in Canada's immigration history when immigration intake has remained so high. And unless a significant groundswell of opposition rises, those in control of this policy will try to maintain the status quo.
AS THE GRAPH SHOWS, OVER ALL OF CANADA'S IMMIGRATION HISTORY, IMMIGRATION HAS RISEN AND FALLEN. THIS WAS SO PARTICULARLY FROM THE 1920'S TO 1990. THIS POLICY WAS LOGICAL AND SENSIBLE AND IT BECAME A NORM.
This has been described as a TAP-ON and TAP-OFF policy. This meant that when Canada had labour shortages, it turned the immigration tap on to satisfy Canada's needs. (The post World War 2 period is an example.) Similarly, when Canada had an excess of labour, it turned the immigration tap down or off to protect its unemployed. (The 1930's are one of the best examples.)
After 1990, Canada's immigration levels became an abnormality in Canada's immigration history.
THE BIG QUESTIONS ARE THESE ; WHY WAS THE NORM REJECTED? WHY DID CANADA INCREASE ITS IMMIGRANT INTAKE TO ABOUT 250,000 IMMIGRANTS PER YEAR?
In 1984, when the Mulroney government was first elected, Canada was taking about 85,000 immigrants. Despite an ongoing recession, it began increasing immigration.
Incredible as it may sound, the Mulroney government went even further. It completely rejected the norm of keeping immigration low in a recession. In the fall of 1990, Canada's immigration Minister Barbara MacDougall and her Progressive Conservative colleagues agreed that they would increase immigration levels in order to cast themselves in a good light with recent immigrants. By doing that , they hoped to to compete with the Liberal Party for the immigrant vote. Specifically, they decided in 1990 to increase immigration levels significantly to 250,000 per year.
From that year to now, high immigrant intake has been virtually institutionalized and immigration policy has abandoned the needs of Canadian workers.
WHY HAS IMMIGRANT INTAKE REMAINED AT ABOUT 250,00 PER YEAR?
The blunt answer is that since 1990, all of Canada's federal political parties have subscribed to the policy of competing for the immigrant vote. In that time, the interests of Canada's political parties and the corrupt immigration industry have become almost identical.
Furthermore, the Former Liberal government has a policy goal of raising Canada's intake to 1% of its population annually. If that 1% policy were adopted, around 340,000+ immigrants would enter Canada every year. The NDP has pressured for a 1%+ goal. This would permit even higher numbers to enter Canada.)
At present, to compound the problem, Canada is allowing an additional 200,000+ Temporary Foreign Workers to work in Canada.
DESPITE CLEAR EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, MANY POLITICIANS AT ALL 3 LEVELS HAVE CLAIMED THAT POST-1990 IMMIGRATION IS NORMAL
The abnormality, however, is clear.
In fact, it is so clear that many Canadians feel that an immigration tsunami has struck Canada. However, they feel that our government and the country's immigration industry have so badly distorted immigration information to conceal their deceit that most people do not know what is going on. In addition, many Canadians feel that they have been intimidated into silence by Canada's immigration industry and its supporters.
As a result, no other Canadian public policy issue arouses as much irrationality as does the immigration issue. No other issue gets as muddied by irrelevant arguments as does immigration policy.
TO JUSTIFY HIGH IMMIGRATION, ALL PARTIES HAVE INVENTED EXCUSES TO JUSTIFY HIGH IMMIGRATION AND HAVE IGNORED THE RESULTS OF EXCELLENT GOVERNMENT RESEARCH ON IMMIGRATION.
For example, at different times, all parties have claimed that Canada is bringing in large numbers of people to stimulate Canada's economy, to stop an alleged population decline, or to prevent problems created by an aging population.
However, the federal government's own research in the late 1980's told it that if it was looking for a way to stimulate Canada's economy, it should not expect immigration to do it. With regard to population decline, in 1990, when Canada had a population of 26+ million, Health and Welfare Canada's demographic research told the federal government that Canada's population would continue growing until 2026 with half (130,000) the immigration we have today, so it was not necessary to announce in 1990 an increase in immigration to 250,000 per year. The same Health and Welfare study concluded that Made-In-Canada alternatives (such as making use of 45+ year old unemployed males and encouraging more females to enter the workforce) were superior to immigration in dealing with an aging population.
In other words, the federal government's research contradicts the excuses many politicians have invented. (See highlights of the major federally-sponsored studies entitled "Charting Canada's Future" and New Faces In the Crowd" in the "Research" section of this web site.)
DESPERATE TO JUSTIFY THEIR ACTIONS, ALL PARTIES HAVE RESORTED TO EXCUSES LIKE, "CANADA HAS A WIDESPREAD WORKER SHORTAGE", BUT THAT CLAIM IS NOT TRUE
For example, Statistics Canada says that the country has over 1.5 million officially unemployed. Anyone who is familiar with unemployment statistics knows that many of the country's unemployed are not even counted in this number. Therefore, it is probably safe to say that Canada has well over 2 million unemployed. The number that are underemployed is probably much higher.
Like our federal government, Canada's immigration industry has provided an abundance of hysteria, but no concrete evidence to justify an intake of so many people. In fact, recent newspaper reports reveal that Canada's immigration industry is committing a large amount of fraud in Canada's regular immigration programme; in addition, our federal government is not monitoring the temporary worker programme.
The lack of any rational explanation for Canada's regular immigration programme and the sloppiness in administering the temporary worker programme have been especially disturbing recently when around 500,000 workers lost their jobs.
Why are we hearing politicians and others telling us that recent immigrant professionals are under-employed and need immediate attention when tens of thousands of Canadian-born have been in that situation for years and little has been done for them?
WHO DOES CANADA'S IMMIGRATION INTAKE NOW SERVE?
For many years, Canada has had a humanitarian component to satisfy the interests (within the limits of sanity) of immigrant families and genuine refugees. Measures to assist refugees have been based on Canada's signing of the U.N. Convention on Refugees under which we have accepted people fleeing from genuine persecution.
But, in general, Canada followed a policy of using immigration to look after the interests of its own citizens for the obvious reason that if the Canadian government did not do this, what government would?
Since 1990, the interests of Canada's work force (the "Canadian family") have been displaced by the interests of the so-called "family class" (that is, the interests of recent immigrants). And the term "refugee" has been expanded far beyond its original limits. The term "refugee" now includes people "fleeing" from such things as spousal abuse, discrimination against gays, parental abuse, ridicule of an obese condition, and a number of other matters which have nothing to do with the original idea of the refugee fleeing political persecution. Moreover, large numbers of refugee claimants actually come from countries with democratic governments and say they are "fleeing" from torture or some other form of persecution.
SINCE THE BIG CHANGE IN 1990, CANADA'S IMMIGRATION INTAKE HAS BECOME A FLOOD
Canada's current immigration policy has been described as "mass immigration" because the numbers of immigrants accepted in the past 19 years have been continuously high. In addition, both the numbers since 1990 and the numbers projected for the future are unrelated to our economic or demographic needs or absorptive capacity. As many commentators have observed, immigration to Canada has turned into an uncontrolled, irrational flood.
CANADA'S HIGH IMMIGRATION INTAKE CONTINUES BECAUSE ALL OF OUR FEDERAL PARTIES ARE AFRAID TO REDUCE CURRENT HIGH LEVELS. ALL FEAR A BACKLASH FROM ETHNIC GROUPS AND THE REST OF CANADA'S IMMIGRATION INDUSTRY.
The blunt truth is that a small minority of Canadians is dictating Canada's immigration policies. This group is Canada's immigration industry which consists of immigration lawyers, immigration/refugee advocates, ethnic groups and a number of urban MP's. As many observers have noted, these MP's have pandered to the recent immigrant vote to get elected.
To sum up the situation, Canada has had almost 20 years of senseless high immigration.
CANADIANS HAVE TO TAKE BACK THEIR COUNTRY
THESE ARE THE BASICS OF THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE.
(See the section, "What We Believe", the "CBC And Immigration" and "Assumptions" for details.)