Mansoor’s Musings: Population milestone lacks proper strategies

By MANSOOR LADHA on July 13, 2023.

Canada has reached a historic milestone by surging its population to 40 million people. While it’s a cause for celebration, it’s also a time to reflect upon the future.

The milestone comes following a wave of new immigrants in accordance with Canada’s open-door policy and as the most welcoming nation in the world. Ottawa has pledged to bring 500,000 people by 2025. There are newcomers who regard Canada as their favourite destination to live and raise their families.

According to Statistics Canada, the 40-million mark came faster than expected as the country added 1.1 million people in 2022, most of them permanent and temporary immigrants. It was the first year Canada’s population grew by more than a million people in a 12-month period, Statistics Canada said, with 95.9 per cent of that growth through international migration.

Ontario has the distinction of being Canada’s most populous province with almost 15.6 million people, while Quebec comes a distant second at 8.8 million.

Historically, Eastern European migrants headed to the Prairies at the start of the 20th century. Canada welcomed Hungarians in the 1950s, opened its doors to non-European immigrants in the 1960s, welcoming Vietnamese and Ugandan refugees in the 1970s and, more recently, offering a new home to those fleeing the chaos of Syria and Afghanistan.

Former Premier Jason Kenney launched a campaign named Alberta is Calling to lure skilled workers from Toronto and Vancouver to Alberta. Continuing their campaign to lure other Canadians to Alberta, the UCP government is dishing out a $1,200 bonus to move to the province, especially aimed at health care and child care professionals, apprentices and certified trades people. People are moving to Alberta anyway, with or without these incentives, due to affordable housing, job opportunities, higher wages and excellent quality of life.

While Canada’s immigrant policy of welcoming the world’s banished migrants is commendable and should be applauded, the policymakers and the federal and provincial governments have failed to plan for the influx of immigrants. The immigrants have placed an extra burden on the already overheated home prices and rental accommodations.

Apart from worsening the shortage of housing, there is tremendous pressure on the strained heath-care system. There are Canadians who will not be able to afford a home or have been without a family doctor for years. Our hospitals and ERs are overcrowded and it’s a nightmare to have the misfortune to attend one of the above.

A welcoming immigration policy is of course needed as Canada’s population is aging and newcomers will be able to fill the void, but governments will have to devise policies on housing, employment, education and health care so everyone is accommodated. Bringing 500,000 immigrants to an overheated economy without concrete policies to accommodate them is ridiculous.

Our rural areas are suffering from declining population, and they lack such professionals as doctors. High Prairie Health Complex, population 15,000, which opened in 2017, has been closed since 2020 due to staff shortages, forcing residents to travel hours for emergency surgeries and to give birth.

Governments should consider providing incentives for doctors and other health personnel, to settle in smaller towns instead of watching such people driving taxis in our major cities.

A recent Scotiabank Economics report indicates that two-thirds of immigrants arrive with university degrees, whereas only one-third of Canadians hold them. Two-thirds of native-born, university-educated Canadians are in jobs that require a degree, whereas only one-third of immigrants with degrees are in jobs that require one. In health care, the numbers are almost shocking because more than 60 per cent of internationally trained doctors and nurses are not working in their profession in a country which has a shortage of medical professionals such as nurses, doctors and pharmacists. Many of these health professionals are working in fast-food service or driving for Uber because they can’t afford the cost of accreditation and spend years underemployed.

Canada’s accreditation policy appears to be strict, barring foreign professional to practice in Canada. The time has come to review, modify and amend the country’s accreditation rules to ease the shortage of health professionals facing us. I don’t see why a foreign trained doctor, for example, can’t be absorbed in our hospitals in a junior capacity or trained to meet Canadian standards.

Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary-based writer and author of Memoirs of a Muhindi: Fleeing East Africa for the West, Off the Cuff and A Portrait in Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.

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