How can we have so many immigrants yet still lack personnel in essential sectors like healthcare, education, engineering, and technology?
The question shouldn't be whether we are allowing people to immigrate, but what occupations those people are intended to cover for. As it stands, it seems like we are simply importing labour and socializing the cost of a massive population increase. It's not benefiting the Canadian economy by increasing average worker productivity (by allowing high-skill workers to immigrate), it's not helping to cover gaps in our social systems (by allowing healthcare/education workers to immigrate), and often times it's not even benefiting the immigrants themselves (as can be seen by the many "college scams" out there).
Our points-based system needs a revamp to help fill in the loopholes people are using. Since demand for immigration to Canada is so high, we can afford to be more selective in who we take.
The key changes I would make are:
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Constructing a whitelist of permitted Canadian post-secondary institutions (limited primarily to publicly-funded universities that form the core of the Canadian post-secondary system)
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Giving additional points for those coming from well-regarded international schools (think IIT Bombay, Tsinghua, Technion, Sharif University of Technology, Seoul National University, National University of Singapore) to a similar degree as from a Canadian institution
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Accreditation of what is considered "skilled work" under the Canadian skilled work experience clause
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Expansion of the H1B visa transfer program
I would couple this with significantly expanded funding/tax breaks into the startup environment for Canada to create more employment opportunities for skilled workers.
Canada is clearly an extremely desirable place to live (moreso than the US in many ways), so why not use that advantage to attract the best and brightest from around the world and use them to develop burgeoning domestic industries?