Op-Eds
As it contemplates the possibility of a modernized NAFTA, Canada should seek to improve labour mobility throughout North America to address skill shortages in Canada.
The narrative around the Trump regime focuses on Canada's increased advantage in attracting skilled international workers. But those same tougher U.S. immigration policies bring a threat: American employers may try to hire more Canadians who can easily cross the border to meet the demand for high skills.
As a result of rapid technological changes, employers' needs for high-skilled workers grow every year. Since the North American free-trade agreement came into force more than 20 years ago, new occupations have been created. The Canadian market faces a…
Earlier this week, The Globe and Mail revealed internal research by government officials showing a global trend toward older normal pension ages, with most OECD countries’ target policy retirement age to be raised to at least 67 by around 2050. An eventual increase in the normal retirement age, here in Canada, appears inevitable.
Despite this trend, Ottawa recently reversed course and cancelled a scheduled gradual increase in the Old Age Security (OAS) eligibility age from 65 to 67, to be fully implemented by 2030. The recent decision fails to recognize longer life expectancy since the 65-year-old benchmark was adopted, and the current marked trend towards later retirements. Projections show that by 2030, about 40 per…
The federal government announced changes to Canada’s immigration system this week. It will make it easier for foreign students in Canada to stay and work after they graduate – these are the kind of immigrants Canada needs. But it also quietly approved changes that allow Atlantic Canadian seafood processors to use temporary foreign workers in seasonal jobs in place of Canadian workers.
The previous government changed the rules of the two main economic immigration channels: the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program and the permanent immigrant system that awards points to prospective immigrants. The changes were substantial and are likely to profoundly change the type of people who migrate to Canada.
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Published in the Globe and Mail on Mail on May 8, 2013
By John Richards
The most important social policy agenda facing Canada is to relieve the poverty and social distress among Aboriginals. And the old joke remains relevant: If you don’t know where you are, you’re not likely to get where you want to go. The census is crucial in learning “where we are.”
According to the National Household Survey (NHS) data released Wednesday, 1.4 million Canadians identified in 2011 as Aboriginal, 61 per cent as Indian/First Nation, 32 per cent as Métis and 4 per cent as Inuit.
The Aboriginal population is much younger than the non-Aboriginal population and its fertility is higher. Forty-six percent of the Aboriginal…
Published in the Telegraph Journal on October 2, 2010
By William Robson
Demographic change affects government budgets only gradually. In the mid-1990s, some advocates of a relaxed attitude toward aging-related increases in Canadian health-care costs compared them, not to an avalanche, but to a glacier. Intended to be soothing, the image is apt in a way those authors did not intend.
Even at a glacial pace, such a mass of ice grinds with tremendous force. The impacts of demographic change on Canada's fiscal landscape will be profound, and as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, they are no longer far away.
The net public debts of Canadian governments get keen attention. Figures on the unfunded…