Immigration | Fiscal Burden | Canada : Recent immigrants cost an estimate of $16.3G to $23.6G annually

“Canada’s immigrant selection process needs to be revamped to focus on admitting people with Canadian job offers and skills needed by employers, recommends a new report released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank.” This is what says the Press Release on Patrick Grady and Herbert Grubel’s Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State 2011 published on fraserinstitute.org. “Canada’s immigrant selection process should focus on job offers; current policies imposing a heavy fiscal burden on taxpayers” adds the Press release.

“Recent immigrants earn incomes that are, on average, just 72 per cent of those earned by other Canadians and pay only about one-half of the income taxes paid by other Canadians. At the same time, they absorb nearly the same value of government services and transfers as other Canadians,” said Herbert Grubel, a co-author of the study and a Fraser Institute senior fellow and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University.

“As a result of Canada’s welfare-state policies, our progressive income taxes, and universal social programs, these immigrants impose a huge fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers.”

The report “calculates that the difference between immigrants’ tax payments and the value of government services they absorb was about $6,051 per immigrant in 2006, representing a total cost to Canadian taxpayers of $16.3 billion to $23.6 billion annually.

“This is a substantial amount and is expected to continue to grow for as long as the present immigration policies remain in place,” said Patrick Grady, economic consultant and co-author of the report.

Choosen excerpts by JMM from

via  Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State 2011