Immigration Laws: November, 1998 - Number #5

Immigration to Canada is expected to be reduced up to 25,000 due to the Asian financial crisis, from the planned 225,000 to 200,000. Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard said that many of the Asians planning to migrate to Canada could not sell their houses in Asia, or had seen the savings that they were going to use to get started in Canada evaporate as stock markets crashed.

The target level of immigration for 1999 is set at 225,000, including 29,300 refugees.

The most recent volume of the Canada Year Book finds that Canadian society is aging rapidly. Without an influx of young immigrants, say demographers, the current social security system cannot deliver promised benefits to retirees. For more information: http://www.statcan.ca/english/ads/11-402-XPE/index.htm

Canada is considering reforms to its asylum system. About 60 percent of asylum seekers are rejected, a percentage similar to that of the US. Advocates such as Mary Jo Leddy, author of the 1997 book, "At the Border Called Hope," say that the independent 200-member Immigration and Refugee Board is so worried about permitting criminals to stay in Canada that many legitimate asylum seekers are rejected when the Board finds their stories "not credible." The Board has a backlog of 29,000 cases.

Most of those rejected by the Board attempt to stay; appeals can allow rejected asylum seekers remain for another year or two. However, only about 300 of the 30,000 appeals between 1993 and 1997 overturned the rejection of an asylum application.

In September 1998, the asylum issue was highlighted when 67 Chileans occupied a church in Montreal's Little Italy district to prevent their deportation. Some 4,000 Chileans migrated to Canada in 1995 and, although all parties agree that most do not face persecution in Chile, critics of the Immigration and Refugee Board claim that it treats Chile as a safe country and rejects practically all asylum applicants from there, regardless of individual circumstances.

Between 1990 and 1996, some 31,000 professionals and managers emigrated from Canada. Many of these emigrants, the equivalent of 10 to 20 percent of those who graduate from Canadian schools as doctors and scientists, reportedly moved to the US for greater opportunities and lower taxes. The net value of the movement of Canadian professionals and managers to the United States (after subtracting for US immigrants to Canada) over the 1982-96 period, as measured by the total value of education embodied in these emigrants, is estimated to be $6.6 billion in 1993/94 dollars; most of this is the value of education acquired in Canada.

Quebec's language law, Bill 101, passed in 1977, made French Quebec's official language and prohibited French-speaking children from attending English -language schools. Children of immigrants must also attend French schools. Only children who have a parent who attended an English school may go to an English-language school. Some parents now worry that their children, monolingual in French, will not be able to compete in the North American job market. Some send their children to summer camps to learn English.

Before the passage of Bill 101, most immigrants sent their children to English-language schools.

Statistics Canada, a federal government agency, reported in 1996 that 82 percent of English-speakers in Quebec can converse in both English and French, double the percentage of 1971. However, only 42 percent of French-speakers aged 15 to 24 can speak English.

Quebec goes to the polls in November 1998, and the maintenance of and access to English schools is expected to be a major campaign issue. In the 1970s, there were 250,000 students in English schools in Quebec; today there are about 100,000. Immigrants from English-speaking countries would like permission to send their children to English-language schools. Currently, only immigrants with temporary-work permits can enroll their children in English schools.

A study of 23,000 children headed by Dr. Morton Beiser, director of the Center of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement at Toronto's three universities, found that immigrant and refugee children do better emotionally and academically than their Canadian-born peers, even though more immigrant children are poor: "It's a paradox, in a way, that immigrant and refugee kids seem to do better and yet they're more likely to be poor."

The study found that immigrant children have lower rates of hyperactivity and fewer conduct and emotional problems. Beiser concluded that unemployment and poverty are part of the process of becoming Canadian for many immigrants, but "that the promise of better things to come sustains people during an initial period of adversity." Poor Canadian-born families, on the other hand, are more likely to be headed by a single, often-depressed parent and poverty is part of a cycle of dysfunction, single parenthood, poor parenting, alcohol abuse and mental illness. About 59 percent of poor Canadian families, compared to 33 percent of poor immigrant families, are headed by a single parent.

One third of immigrant children live below Canada's low-income level, $32,238 for a family of four in 1996 in Toronto, versus 13 percent of Canadian-born children.

Elaine Carey, "Immigrant Kids Better Adjusted," Study Says," Toronto Sun, October 27, 1998. Mark Bourrie, "No Longer a Haven for Refugees, Critics Say," Ottawa Sune, October 22, 1998. Brenda Branswell, "A precarious peace," McLean's, October 12, 1998. Keith Henderson," Montreal's bilingual reality has little hope of becoming official," Financial post, September 23, 1998. "Wanted: More Young Immigrants," Canadian Press, October 18, 1998. Anne Dawson, "Immigration Down Canada's target falls 20,000," Calgary Sun, October 8, 1998. Fred Langan, "Quebec Parents Drive Bid for Bilingualism," Christian Science Monitor, August 21, 1998. DeVoretz, Don and Samuel A.

Laryea. 1998. Canadian Human Capital Transfers: The United States and Beyond. C.D. Howe Institute. http://www.cdhowe.org