Setting the record straight on the benefits, and heavy costs, of immigration to Canada

A lot of roads, affordable housing and cleaner environment could be purchased with the money spent on poorly selected new immigrants who don't carry their share of the fiscal load.Peter J. Thompson/National Post files

Maxime Bernier is a Canadian businessman, lawyer, politician and serving as a member of parliament for riding Beauce since 2006. In addition to being the founder and current leader of the Popular Party of Canada, he has used relevant information to justify your plan to reduce future immigration levels.

And it is that in a recent campaign speech, Maxime Bernier cited the results of studies that showed that recent immigrants are imposing a heavy tax burden on Canadians. Thus, it is understood that the average recent immigrant in Canada imposes a tax burden of $ 5,300 annually

Now, it should be noted that the CBC made the journalist Jonathon Gatehouse do a “fact check” of Bernier’s claim on the tax burden. In a publication sponsored by the CBC, it concludes that this statement is “false.”

Verification of the facts

Because the verdict implies that this study also reached false conclusions, a factual verification of the analysis produced by Gatehouse was carried out.

The author makes much of the well-known fact that immigrants have a positive effect on aggregate national income (GDP), which says nothing about the tax burden. Also, do not note that recent immigrants have reduced Canada’s per capita income since, according to official statistics, they have lower average incomes than other Canadians.

In addition, Gatehouse cites a series of published studies and data that it considers relevant. They imply known facts and again tell us nothing about the tax burden. An example of this could be that he points out that the gap in the unemployment rate between recent immigrants and native Canadian men has narrowed, but does not mention that this always occurs when an economic boom creates a greater demand for labor. and leads to the hiring of workers who were previously unemployed.

Similarly, Gatehouse cites that the salaries received by immigrants who entered the labor market in 2017 were the highest in history. These salaries have been increasing every year, along with the salaries of all new participants in the workforce. The fact that the average income of immigrants who arrived in 2006 steadily increased over the next 10 years simply reflects the normal increase in income of all workers over time due to the increase in skills and work experience.

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Source: Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady | Financial Post