a new report says economic migrants who were chosen by the government to come to Canada are leaving the country in record numbers the study was commissioned by The Institute for Canadian citizenship that's an organization that encourages immigrants to become citizens among the reports findings french-speaking immigrants who came to Quebec in Ontario are more likely to leave Canada than their English-speaking counterparts the country's biggest cities Montreal Toronto and Vancouver see high turnover rates of immigrant the cities serve as hubs where newcomers adjust to life here before moving somewhere else and those who immigrate to Atlantic provinces
are more likely to leave Canada within the first s years of arrival but if they stay longer they're more likely to remain in Canada for the Long Haul we're now joined by Daniel burnhard CEO of the institute for Canadian citizenship which authored the report and he joins us from Ottawa thanks so much for being here Daniel thanks for having me so do the findings of this report surprise you yes and no I mean we published the first edition of this report last year this year we find of course that outward migration has risen to record
highs in 2020 which is the last year that we have data for I can only imagine that this year once the data are available the problem will be even worse but I think what we learned this year is that we have a lot more color and a lot more detail around the data than we had before and so there were some surprises for example the difference in the number of frankophones that are departing 20% of immigrants to Canada will leave in the long term but among frankophones is 35% uh things like this really did jump
out at us but fortunately these um these standout points also give us uh opportunities to intervene and to act now that we have more information we can take more strategic action to reverse the outflow of immigrants who are hand selected to address some of Canada's biggest concerns when they leave we lose and so this is I think a hopefully a helpful intervention in that effort any more of the key things that stood out to you the most well as you mentioned in your setup economic immigrants are the most likely to leave the country we also
found that temporary foreign workers who are much maligned these days uh actually are among the most likely to stay in the country once they obtain permanent residence which was an interesting finding and I think you alluded to this earlier in your setup Canada is a really diverse country I don't just mean ethnically uh but by region uh we have a lot of different circumstances at play and the retention performance is very very different across the region so like you said in Atlantic Canada most of the people who leave leave really really quickly they leave from
outside the big cities in Ontario and Quebec they leave from inside the big cities uh so I think this really calls for a diversified approach to retention for different categories of immigrants for different language groups and for different regions of the country it's a complex Federation and we need to approach it with the flexibility adaptability and the localized uh uh sense of ility that can really allow us to combat this problem effectively so there's a lot of interesting data points here but are there any answers to the question of why why are we seeing increasing
numbers of immigrants leaving the country so this study does not talk about why but another study that the institute for Canadian citizenship has done with ipsos um which is a poll of over 20,000 verified adult immigrants shows that housing affordability is the main reason driving immigrants from Canada and of course this is ironic because migrants are blamed for uh uh Canada's housing affordability crisis uh incorrectly in in in my view uh but that is the the prevailing perspective even though mistaken right now um I think we're looking at a situation where immigrants to Canada are
more and more skilled than ever before when my parents came they spoke very little English they had very little education the proverbial $5 in their pocket today we're taking people with Advanced skills and degrees who speak English and French impecably well and have Global options and so Canada's immigration posture is based on the idea that immigration is a manifestation of our generosity that we are just admitting people who are fleeing destitution for a better life we haven't caught up with the fact that actually we need immigrants more than immigrants need us on balance and if
we are going to lower our rates because we think that this is the answer to some of the the Homegrown policy problems that we've developed over Generations I think we're up up for a roote Awakening if we reduce the number of IM immigrants um for example by 10% uh you know we might reduce the number of people in the hospital waiting room by 10% but we'll reduce the number of people in the hospital staff room by 30 or 40% and so this is the math that Canada needs to do it's sensible and fair to talk
about how many people uh are coming and how we select them and all of that but we need also to take into account the number who are able to stay and contribute their talent and energies to our success in the long term and not leave for another country and contribute to their success and if that's your position that that we should be looking at getting more immigrants into the country and that they should be encouraged to stay here how do you think Canada should go about doing that well I'm not talking about more or fewer
I'm simply saying that you know we have um significant objective needs in areas like early childhood education um where a shortage of workers is preventing mothers from getting back into the workforce after having children there's a daycare where my son actually attends which has an empty room in it um because they can't find a staff member to work in it and they're actually a unionized place that pays very very well um in healthcare we have documented shortages in in all kinds of professions home construction is another one where we're facing incredible amounts of pending retirement
at the time when we need to be ramping up our building so we can adjust the levels of people coming into the country all we want and uh but those needs do not disappear um who are disappearing are actually the immigrants who are hand selected to fulfill those needs so we need to to take both supply and demand into account and to recognize that yes there are opportunities for reform of the system to make it smarter but we need to make sure that the people who are selected to come here are able to succeed opening
the door is not enough and this is not just something for the federal government to pay attention to uh provincial governments uh but also all of us as employers as neighbors as colleagues can provide a welcome experience If people really do have the skills and opportunity to contribute to Canada's success and to address some of our shortcomings and our and our our failings really over a long term we all have a vested interest in ensuring that they are satisfied here that they succeed and that they stay it's a big conversation right now Daniel thank you
so much for speaking with us about it I appreciate the opportunity thanks for your time Daniel burnhard is the CEO for the Institute of Canadian citizenship [Music]
