The Effects of Mass Immigration

Since 1990, Canada's annual rate of immigration has been extremely high-the highest in the world, averaging 0.75% of the population-and has had a significant impact on the size of the population, adding, between 1990 and 2006, 3.9 million (14.2%) to the 1990 level of 27.4 million. Such mass immigration has profound effects on economic, demographic, social, and political conditions in Canada that affect the well-being of all Canadians, including past immigrants. Unfortunately, Canadians are insufficiently aware of these effects partly because a code of political correctness tends to identify any examination of immigration policies with racism and partly because Canada's electoral system rewards politicians who are in favor of the current high intake. As a result of these conditions, during the 2008 federal election, politicians typically promised to maintain or even raise this rate of immigration without any public discussion of the consequences of such policies or any significant input from Canadians affected by them.

The papers in this volume provide the Canadian public with analytically sound and well-documented empirical information about the significant positive and negative effects mass immigration has on their well-being and that of their offspring. It is hoped that this information will mobilize public opinion, lead politicians to engage in debate of the issues, and ultimately result in an improvement in official immigration policies.

The chapters are organized into five sections. The first presents an overview of the issues and some international perspectives. The three papers in this group deal with Canadian, American, and French immigration policies and the economic and social effects they have on the residents of those countries. The second part contains three papers focusing on the economic effects of mass immigration in Canada.

In part three, two papers are dedicated to the analysis of the demographic effects of immigration and the relief from the financial troubles of Canada's social programs that immigration is alleged to bring. The fourth part contains two papers that examine the social challenges brought on by mass immigration, such as threats to national identity, culture, unity, and security. Part five comprises two papers that analyze the political and other obstacles that prevent changes to existing immigration policies in Canada and Britain.