(12/01/11) Here in the North Country and across much of Upstate New York, population growth and economic development have been anemic for decades. But just north of the border, Canadian communities like Kingston are working aggressively to attract foreign immigrants willing to bring new energy and new skills.
As part of a partnership with WBEZ public radio in Chicago, Brian Mann has been traveling in Ontario, looking at the different strategies that Canada has used to boost prosperity. Today he reports from the city of Vaughan, just north of Toronto, where immigrants are seen as the key to the future.
It’s just after lunch and
Natalia Gotina’s students are filing in, getting ready for the day’s
English lesson. She says people turn up speaking every language
imaginable.
"It’s Russian language, Moldavian, Mandarin…Albanian," she says.
Gotina arrived from
Belarus a decade ago. She teaches at one of five new Immigrant Welcome
Centre that have opened in neighborhoods and bedroom cities around
Toronto.
It’s all paid for by
Canada’s Federal government. The classes, the daycare for kids, the
computer training and job counseling — it's all free for newcomers like
Susannah who arrived last August from Albania.
"The course is helping me a lot about my language and I think in my future too it is very helpful for me," she says.
The goal here isn’t just
to teach English. Canada uses its immigration system to identify people
like Susannah who already have specific job skills — in healthcare,
engineering, computer science — that can be
plugged in to the economy.
"I am pharmacist back home and they are helping to find a way for my profession here in Canada."
This is very different
from the US, where the vast majority of legal immigration is based on
family connections, not on a person’s professional background or
training.
"We’ve instituted a managed, point-based immigration system," explains Mario Calla, head
of the regional non-profit called COSTI Immigrant Services that runs
these welcome centers for the government.
Canada’s system, he says, actually grades every person who applies for the equivalent of a green card.
People are given points
on everything from health to wealth to education and professional
achievement. If you don’t score high enough, you don’t get in.
"Canadians
understand that while these people coming from other countries may be
very different from us, they’re coming with great talents and skills."
Canada accepts about a
quarter million legal immigrants a year. That’s nearly one percent of
the country’s total population arriving every twelve months.
That level of immigration
enjoys broad political support, in part because Canada is facing the
same
demographic dilemma that now plagues American cities and small
towns around the Great Lakes region.
"People
aren’t having as many children as they were before. And the work force
is growing older. We’ve got a burgeoning seniors population."
Jeff Garrah runs the
Economic Development Corporation in Kingston, a small city on
the shore of Lake Ontario — about three hours east of Vaughan.
If it weren’t for newcomers, Garrah says, Canadian cities would be hollowing out and shrinking, just like many American cities.
He helped create a group that works actively to convince immigrants to make their new life in Kingston.
"We have
to have a very aggressive immigration policy to replace those jobs,
particularly those high skilled jobs," Garrah argues.
No one here thinks Canada’s immigration system is perfect. Especially during the recession, a lot of newcomers – even those with marketable skills — struggled to find work.
And critics like Sayed
Hassan with an immigrant advocacy group called “No One Is Illegal” says
the emphasis on job skills leaves too many really needy people out in
the cold.
"I mean
if you look at the number of refugees coming into Canada as a percentage
of its population, it’s slightly below that of the United States. And
yet Canada says it has the most generous refugee
system in the world."
And there has been
tension as more and more newcomers arrive from non-European countries.
Ibrahim Absiye came from Somalia as a refugee twenty years ago.
"We came
in big numbers and we came with a different look of skin. We came with a
different religion. So there were some barriers to break through," he recalls.
These days, Absiye runs
another immigrant help center called Culturelink. He says there are
flare-ups of racism and cultural misunderstandings. But he says
Canada’s reputation as a truly open and diverse society
is no myth.
"I
think Canada is known for being one of the most welcoming communities in
the world…and especially here in Ontario and especially here in
Toronto, the community is welcoming to the newcomers."
These days, half of Toronto’s population is foreign-born – that’s a higher percentage than in New York City or Miami.
Here in Vaughan, the
foreign-born population jumped by more than forty percent over the last
decade, making this one of the fastest-growing cities in the Great Lakes
region.
Matthew Mendelson, with
Canada’s Mowat Center for Policy Innovation, says he thinks these
multicultural hubs will drive his country's next economic boom.
"Particularly Toronto has been successful at attracting high quality,
talented immigrants from around the world but particularly Asia and
emerging economies – creating clusters and concentrations
of talented people."
One important footnote to all this is the fact that
Canada has developed its immigration system without facing the pressure
of a huge wave of illegal immigration like the one that’s been so
controversial in the US.
By most estimates, Canada has fewer than 200,000 undocumented workers.
In the last decade — as Canada and
US have worked to synchronize border security — officials here have
moved more aggressively to track down and deport people who enter the
country illegally.
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