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MIGRANT FREE TRADE
Immigration Opening borders to select countries promoted by self-sufficiency co-chairman

http://www.canadaeast.com

ROB LINKE
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
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http://www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=18383

It's the "radical" idea Francis McGuire wishes he'd recommended in the report of Premier Shawn Graham's task force on self-sufficiency.

Canada should open its borders to immigrants from a few select countries, becoming as aggressively inviting as it was a century ago when the CPR and Sir Wilfrid Laurier opened up the rural West to settlers.

That kind of policy would address every region's needs for skilled labour, he argues, and would also allow smaller provinces such as New Brunswick that have not been the preferred destination for immigrants to get their share of newcomers.

"We have to pick a couple of countries and say, 'Let's have a free trade agreement - come on in,' " he said.

"That's the only way you're going to solve it." McGuire, a former deputy minister of economic development in the McKenna government, co-chaired the Task Force on Self-Sufficiency. Last month, it issued 91 recommendations to grow the province's economy and population so that New Brunswick will become a "have" province, no longer needing equalization payments from Ottawa, by 2026.

Just one task force recommendation focused on immigration.

It called for New Brunswick to implement an aggressive immigration strategy, with an emphasis on Eastern Europe and South America, and to strengthen the provincial nominee program. That fast tracks approval for immigrants who can fulfil specific gaps in the workforce.

McGuire did not disown the task force recommendation, but he's since become persuaded it didn't go far enough.

Canada, he said, needs something like some members of the European Union have.

"It's well beyond what anybody's talking about," said McGuire."It's a free trade agreement like we've seen with goods and capital. Look at what happened in Europe when Poland and Latvia and Lithuania gained entry into the European Union and therefore had free movement of people.

"Hundreds of thousands of people moved to the U.K. right away." Free movement of labour within member countries is a hallmark of the EU - although a closer look shows a mix of national policies.

Ten new members joined the EU in 2004, and Sweden, Ireland and the United Kingdom allowed unrestricted access to workers from Eastern Europe, formerly part of the communist East Bloc.

Thousands of people flocked to Ireland and the UK, which three years later imposed restrictions when Bulgaria and Romania also joined the EU.

Germany, France and the Netherlands impose special requirements on workers from the former East Bloc.

Sweden kept to its open-door policy for all EU members, including the new members.

Canadian business leaders have called for increased immigration to fill jobs, especially in Alberta's oilsands. New Brunswick's business leaders have sounded the same call.

The New Brunswick government has set a target of boosting immigration from a few hundred arrivals a year to 5,000 a year by 2015.

The task force report warned that to expand the economy and achieve selfsufficiency, New Brunswick's population must increase by more than 100,000 in the next two decades.

"New Brunswick has never experienced sustained population growth of that magnitude," said the report.

Friday, Premier Shawn Graham and Business New Brunswick Minister Greg Byrne announced a summer of public consultations on how to achieve population growth through several means.

That public input, together with the research that officials from Byrne's population growth secretariat do with officials from other provinces and Ottawa, will lead to a strategy to be unveiled in the fall.

The province has not lobbied Ottawa to loosen its immigration criteria or boost overall numbers.

At the most recent meeting between Byrne and federal Immigration Minister Diane Finley, Byrne pushed for more settlement funding and recognition of longhaul truck drivers as skilled workers, said population secretariat spokesman Brendan Langille.

Canada has admitted about 240,000 immigrants a year on average in recent years. The latest census data suggested that immigration is likely to become responsible for all population growth by about 2030, given the flat fertility rate.

For its population, Canada takes in more immigrants than any other country in the world, at 6.5 immigrants per 1,000 population, ahead of Australia or the U.S., according to the OECD.

Economic immigrants are accepted into Canada based on a points system that considers such factors as education.

There's no shortage of people waiting to get into Canada. There are 500,000 applications (representing 800,000 people) in the federal government's hands, and a four- to five-year wait for processing, according to a study released last month by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

But "as far as getting people into our province, we have a real asset in the provincial nominee program," said Langille.

"We can get people into the province in six months." As far as McGuire's concerned, Canada's not taking a liberal enough approach.

Atlantic Canada could siphon a higher share of newcomers to Canada if the overall numbers are boosted and the provinces deploy recruiting agents in targeted countries - just like the government and the CPR did in eastern Europe 100 years ago.

McGuire didn't omit the idea of an open-door policy from the task force report out of hesitation - but because the idea didn't come to him until he was on vacation in Europe recently. That's when he learned how much massive migration occurs - and how relatively freely it occurs - in the expanded European Union.

"This is the model," he's concluded - to have an EU or NAFTA-type agreement on human resources.

McGuire said it doesn't necessarily matter what country people originate from - targeting certain countries is about being effective, not about discriminating.

Francophone Africans could come as readily as eastern Europeans or Mexicans, he said.

"You could pick up 100,000 people from the Ukraine in a heartbeat, let me tell you,"said McGuire."Life is pretty depressing there.

"And these are educated, hard-working people - all they want is a chance to get ahead in life.

"Selling them won't be a problem. What we need to do is open the door."

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