Canada will have one retiree for every two workers in less than ten years, indicating a labor shortage. To address this problem, the Canadian government has announced its new goal to accept 1.45 million immigrants by 2025. Of this number, sixty percent will be immigrants trained in health care and other urgently needed job skills.
On the other hand, a similar immigration policy has stalled in the United States as Republican and Democratic efforts are at par. The Republicans maintain that until the US-Mexico border is more secure, it will block Democratic efforts to spur the influx of skilled workers.
Plans to Bring More Immigrants Into Canada
The United States brought in about 275,000 legal, employment-based immigrants in the fiscal year of 2022. Canada plans to bring the same amount, even though the U.S. is ten times larger than Canada. The last U.S. congress session that ended in December came with bills being proposed to increase foreigners, although they failed.
If passed into law, the bills would have meant more foreign-born entrepreneurs, farm workers, microchip manufacturers, and high-skilled workers in the U.S. Thirty Republicans and one Democrat opposed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, the only Act to make it out of the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, the Liberals and Conservatives, Canada’s two biggest national political parties, describe themselves as pro-immigration. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s immigration goal is to attract highly educated workers in different sectors, including healthcare and technology.
Canada’s Need for More Labor
Meanwhile, in Canada, the Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, comments on the country’s obvious need for more labor. The need is so apparent that nativist arguments, such as Canadian jobs belonging to Canadians, have very little traction. According to Fraser, Canada needs more people for economic and demographic reasons to make Canadian communities more vibrant and dynamic.
However, many jobs still need to be filled, especially in certain areas such as healthcare. For instance, Brenda Perkins-Mingast of Toronto’s University Health Network said they are in a healthcare crisis and significant nursing shortage. Thus, the UHN began a program to bring more internationally educated nurses to Canada.
The U.S. Immigration Policies vs. Canada’s
The chair of the Immigration and Citizenship’s House Judiciary Subcommittee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif, introduced two bills. The bills were both aimed at increasing employment-based visas, but they did not pass the House.
As he pressed for change, Lofgreen directly compared policies in the United States with those in Canada. According to Lofgren, the last major overhaul of the U.S. legal immigration system occurred in 1990.
On the other hand, Canada, among other countries, has made great strides toward building recruitment incentives into their systems. “By building immigration policy flexibility, they have attracted highly skilled immigrants, even those the United States cannot accommodate.” Says Mario Godoy of Godoy Law Office Immigration Lawyers.
However, Thomas McClintock of California, her Republican counterpart, opposed her proposal, reechoing what many Republican opponents have said. According to the opposition, the country should not consider legislation to reform legal immigration pathways. At least only when the Biden administration more passionately addresses illegal migration at the southern border.
Conclusion
The U.S.’s refusal to bring in more immigrants may be its undoing, says Rebecca Shi, American Immigration Business Coalition head. If the U.S. does not increase the number of foreign workers employers can hire, the country will likely suffer in the coming years. For example, the United States could become a milk importer, which would cause a rise in prices and food insecurity.
The USCIS, in a statement, comments that it is committed to the efficient and fair administration of the lawful immigration system. Also, it is committed to increasing access to eligible immigration benefits and breaking down barriers in the immigration system.
