What Canada Thinks Of You Threatening To Move There
You'd think they would be happy. Extra bodies to huddle together for warmth.
Note an interesting comment section! One of our Canadian readers argues that this article is full of beans. I can't speak for Canadians, of course, but I think he makes valid points. (I linked to the article for its giggle value, not because I agree with it.)
As a Canadian myself I think I can tell you that this article hardly represents anything approaching a universal sentiment in Canada.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of Canadians, myself included, who would love to take your best and brightest who according to many of the people who voted for Trump are now part of the despised 'elite.'
It's a bit more complicated because we're already going to take 300,000 immigrants and refugees for the next several years and a lot of those positions have likely already been filled up with family reunifications and the like.
Also, there are a lot of people in the Greater Vancouver Area and the Greater Toronto Area who don't want any more people to live there, which is understandable given the traffic problems, the other problems with public service delivery brought on by the population increases and the increasing housing prices which is great for people who already own their homes and are looking to sell, but not really for anybody else.
To prove I'm a Canadian, one reason I know many Canadians of all political views would love for say 300,000 to 500,000 of your best and brightest to immigrate here over the next four years is that the Americans that would be most likely to move here already share our "Canadian values."
Most Canadians would know what that is in reference to, but I virtually nobody outside of Canada would.
"If you're considering running away from that anti-immigration nutjob, don't come here."
ReplyDeleteClean up on aisle irony.
Adam T
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your points, but I think you're probably mistaken about one thing. People with good jobs in the States that took them decades to obtain are not going to pick up and move to a place where they would have to start from scratch. You won't get liberal college professors. You're likely to get people with nothing to lose, like hippies, and people who can choose to live anywhere they want, like A-list entertainers.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteA fair point. Those who have started up small businesses or are self employed or are tied to high paying jobs where they can't ask their company to relocate them to Canada likely won't leave, but I think you might not be familiar with the NAFTA rules on relocation. Right now NAFTA is still in effect.
Delete"Although it's difficult for someone from another country to get enough points to be granted express immigration status, Taub said the odds of getting permanent residency in Canada increases for applicants under 40, those who are university educated and those fluent in English or French.
Americans have an advantage in that they can obtain work permits under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
NAFTA lists more than 60 categories of professions in which Americans and Mexicans can find employment in Canada, all requiring a post-secondary degree."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/trump-election-clinton-loss-drives-immigration-canada-1.3844242
These are the favored jobs:
http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/nafta-alena/temp05-3.aspx?lang=en
U.S college professors are recruited to Canada all the time, and the same the other way. This effort will likely increase on Canada's part.
It's the same jobs given this favored status for all three NAFTA countries.
A lot of these are the jobs where there is great demand and a lot of skilled workers to take them.
I certainly don't think it's impossible if Canada were to actually try and take your best and brightest in these areas that around 300,000-500,000 Americans could relocate to Canada over the next four years.
As I'm sure you know, in economics and business this is referred to as 'voting with your feet.'
The only real issue facing the Canadian government if Trump behaves as President as he behaved in the campaign is whether they'd have the guts to increase the number of immigrants from the U.S knowing that Trump would almost certainly regard that as a personal slight.
If Canada actively recruited, the scenario you propose is possible, but it is something that would happen gradually, over an indeterminate amount of time, as jobs and opportunities match up with those seeking ... I guess I'll call it "asylum," for lack of a better word.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like a North American version of the Syrian refugee crisis, where hundreds of thousand will come streaming across the border clad only in their bermuda shorts and Hawaiian print shirts.
As you know if you're a regular reader, I'm from upstate NY and probably spent as much time in Canada as in my own home town, simply because Toronto was the nearest major city and Montreal was the nearest exotic one. I loved all of SE Canada (well, OK, maybe not Hamilton), so I have a certain amount of envy for those with the courage to make the move to pastel money, but I'm too old and listless to think about it.
I don't think you're right in the last paragraph. Trump would probably not take it as an insult, but would make some comment about how Canada is welcome to take our "losers."
The jobs and opportunities are already available.
DeleteThis doesn't give the amount of jobs, but it does give an indication. The shortage of highly skilled labor is a well noted phenomena in all the advanced economies.
http://careers.workopolis.com/advice/help-wanted-the-10-hardest-jobs-for-canadian-employers-to-fill-in-2015/
There are about 125m full time workers in the U.S (that may include 'full time equivalents'), so 300,000 to 500,000 isn't that large a number.
It certainly isn't even that large a number in Canada where we will be accepting over 1 million immigrants and refugees over the next four years, and most of them will get settled (we hope.) Of course, this also includes the family reunification class, so they won't all be expected to join the labor force.
I think Trump would do both. It seems to be his nature to take all sides to all issues. Publicly he would call them losers, but privately I certainly would take it as a personal slight, both those leaving and for Canada recruiting them.
This is especially the case since these high skilled workers can be important since its sometimes the case (I don't know how frequently) that an entire business has to shut down or find a new way to operate for the lack of one essential employee.
So, if Trump is serious about creating millions of jobs, losing these people would be the last thing he wants.
I should also add on this that it isn't just the 40-50 highly skilled workers that Canada should be trying to recruit from the U.S, especially in those NAFTA categories, it's also your best and brightest college students, especially those with new masters or PhDs.
Losers... yeah, Like Rosie O'Donnell and Al Sharpton. You folks will love those two!
ReplyDeleteRosie O'Donnell is very wealthy and seems to be somewhat entreprenurial as well. I think most Canadians would love to have her.
DeleteYou can keep Al Sharpton, not only does he not have Canadain values, he doesn't have any values. He's your problem.
That should read 'but privately I think he will take it as a personal slight.'
ReplyDeleteI want to make one other point about the Latinos in the U.S when I wrote that they don't all vote based on their race.
You are certainly correct that Latinos come from different parts of Central America, South America and the Caribbean and don't all have the same interests, even if their interests are tied up in their heritage.
However, for my point that doesn't matter. In economics (I'm not an economist because I couldn't pass integral calculus, but I'm familiar with most of the concepts in economics) this is referred to as the "Asymmetrical Information problem" and the related concept of 'signaling.'
If these Latino voters had a way of making it known to people who don't know them, and had a way of making them believe that they are in the United States legally, then I would agree with you.
I know many conservatives/Republicans say "Most Latinos will vote for us, because they don't like the illegals either as they regard them as queue jumpers whereas they took the years it takes to enter legally and become citizens."
I think for most Latino voters that it probably true. I doubt most of them have all that much sympathy for the illegal aliens.
However, the problem for them is that they know their in the United States legally, but any new person they have to deal with has know way of knowing that (asymmetrical information.) And, if they tell them, "I'm here legally" they have no way of making the person they have to deal with believe that (signalling.)
I'm a white male, but I'm barely five feet tall so I've experienced nastiness especially in my youth, so I think I can understand what most Latinos feel when a demagogue like Donald Trump comes along. Even if Trump himself he isn't racist, the attitudes he exploits he also encourages and virtually all Latinos, whether legal all illegal, and no matter where they came from or where they live in the United States (except maybe in South Florida) have to deal with this encouragement of racism.
We experienced this to a much lesser degree in Canada in the last election (which is where the 'Canadian values' reference comes from) and those in the Conservative Party which had worked successfully for years to win over the votes of Canadian immigrants and those with an ethnic heritage (as I'm sure you're aware most of our immigrants are either of Asian heritage either from China or from India/Pakistan where, due to their religion, they tend to be socially conservative. Those from China tend to be economically conservative as well.) Those in the Conservative Party who had courted these immigrant Canadians with increasing success for years said after the election "all that we did to gain their trusts and their votes we threw away in this election just to win a few seats in Quebec."
Sorry for my long posts, Scoopy, but I think I've made all the points I've wanted to make here for awhile.
ReplyDeleteOne final thing here though, asymmetrical information/signalling is better known by the lay public, at least those old enough, as the "used lemon problem", as in used cars as lemons and the inability to trust those who sold used cars.