Newsline Canada
 

Immigration Bill C-50 Passes, But Fails To Resolve Fears Thursday June 26 2008 http://www.independentfreepress.com/printArticle/51635 The controversial Immigration Bill C-50 last week passed the House of Commons last week, but continues to create waves. Even as Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, continued to reiterate people with the skills for the jobs available can be brought to Canada more quickly, and is therefore good for the country, the opposition has continued to sound the alarm saying it will allow the minister to arbitrarily discard visa applications. The government has said it will establish processing priorities following consultations with the provinces and stakeholders. It also argues the law will stop the backlog from growing. Under the old system, Canada was required to process every application through to a final decision. This obligation is now removed. It further argues there are now 925,000 people waiting up to six years for a decision on their application. Without the bill, the backlog was projected to grow to 1.5 million by 2012, with corresponding wait times of 10 years. But the Opposition points out the amendments were widely criticized by faith and immigrant communities as well as the Bar Association and Labour Congress. Interestingly, both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party have consistently voiced vociferous opposition to the bill. How then did it pass? Obviously, principle was sacrificed on the altar of political expediency... and now the Opposition is saying it will reverse the law at the first opportunity. In this our politicians have perfected the perpetual motion machine: do something now, undo it tomorrow, do it again the day after, undo it thereafter in a never-ending farcical dance. In this entire episode, once doesn’t quite know what to make of the Liberals who voted against the bill. Was this true bravery... or yet again political expediency? An empty gesture that finally meant nothing— or, worse, a cynical gesture that could come back to haunt them?

Canada's Sliding Performance Masked By High Resource Prices OTTAWA, June 30 /CNW Telbec/ - High commodity prices are masking Canada's sliding socio-economic performance when compared to other advanced countries, The Conference Board of Canada reports in its 12th annual benchmarking results. "Canada is losing ground to other countries that are better at exploiting their own advantages," said Anne Golden, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Conference Board. "We appear to be riding high due to global demand for our resources, but this is not a sustainable course for our country. "Unfortunately, the Conference Board has been telling this story for a dozen years, and the same issues have emerged year after year. At the crux of our lagging performance is our failure to innovate." How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada compares 17 countries-including Canada-that enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the world. In five of the six broad categories assessed, Canada's performance ranks in the bottom half of countries. Economy: Canada's 11th place ranking this year is a significant decline from its third-place position in the 1970s. A low productivity level-Canada ranks 15th-is the strongest drag on the performance of the economy. Canada has also failed to keep pace in the growing competition for global investment. Innovation: The way to raise Canada's productivity is to improve innovation performance. However, Canada has consistently fared poorly in innovation indicators since the 1980s, and ranks 13th in this year's report. Canada has many of the elements needed for innovation, but research is not successfully commercialized and used as a source of advantage for companies seeking global market share. Education and Skills: Canada ranks 2nd, behind only Finland. Canada earns top marks for high-school and college completion rates. But two problem areas emerge. First, four in ten Canadian workers lack the basic literacy skills to cope with the demands of work in the modern economy. Second, Canada does not produce enough graduates in fields that underpin innovation-such as science, math and engineering. And Canada produces too few Ph.D. graduates. Environment: Canada ranks 15th, with poor performances in greenhouse gas emissions, smog and waste generation. Canadians generate more waste per person that any other country in the comparison. And only Australia produces greater per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Health: Canada earns a middle-of-the-pack ranking-9th place-for the health of its population. However, high levels of mortality due to heart disease and increasing levels of mortality from diabetes should raise alarm bells. Furthermore, with soaring child diabetes and obesity rates, this may be the first generation of children in more than a century to have worse health outcomes than their parents. Society: Canada's 10th place ranking is higher than that of the United States, but well behind the leading countries. Some of Canada's results-such as rates of burglary and assault, and levels of child poverty-are shockingly poor. An overview of the findings is available at www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp.

While Ontario Sleeps http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/450059 Excerpt… It is far-fetched to characterize Ontario as a one-crop banana republic but there are some disturbing parallels. Overreliance on three key exports has left the economy weaker with little chance to diversify June 27, 2008 - Livio Di Matteo Reports that Ontario may soon qualify for equalization payments have awakened Ontarians to the fact that they no longer live in the province they thought it was. However, Ontario has been in a process of relative economic decline for almost two decades that was masked by a low dollar, low interest rates and fiscally illiterate American consumers. Nevertheless, Ontario ranked dead last among Canada's provinces for real per capita GDP growth over the period 2001-2006 and the current slowdown threatens to put its real per capita GDP growth rate for 2008 below 1 per cent. Should Ontario's low relative growth rates continue, by 2025 it could rank fifth in real per capita income – behind Saskatchewan and ahead of New Brunswick. While the recent commodity boom and its impact on the dollar have sped up events, it is no surprise that Ontario is about to qualify for equalization given the trends of the last two decades. Ontario is caught in an updated version of what economic historians would term a "staples trap" – the production of a staples product that no longer generates an adequate income – that is in turn amplified by a cultural mindset that leaves Ontario seemingly unable to adjust to economic change. According to the staples approach to Canadian economic history, the pace and pattern of a region's economic growth is determined by exports. Overreliance on one or two key exports can leave an economy weaker in its set of entrepreneurial skills and vulnerable to fluctuations in market demand. After all, when your export sector is doing well, there is no incentive to diversify, whereas when the export sector does poorly, the collapse is so catastrophic that there are no resources to diversify. This leaves your economy at the mercy of external market conditions of boom and bust. While it is far-fetched to characterize Ontario as a one-crop banana republic, there are some disturbing parallels. Exports of goods and services account for almost 60 per cent of Ontario's GDP, which is much higher than the Canadian proportion at about 35 per cent. In addition, more than 80 per cent of Ontario's exports are to the United States, making Ontario's economy extremely dependent on the U.S. market, which is slipping into recession after its debt-fuelled consumption binge.

Canadian Businesses Want Action To Stop Talent Drain To Foreign Countries http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h1Nrg0JU5I68evHxJadYpjR-S2bg OTTAWA — A large majority of domestic employers say governments and businesses are not doing enough to stop the talent drain to foreign countries, nor to attract skilled workers into the country, a new Manpower Canada survey has found. In the survey of 453 employers, 83 per cent said governments and businesses are not doing enough to slow the outward migration of talent or attract skilled workers from abroad, although only 19 per cent said it was a concern at present. The findings come as another business survey conducted by the executive search firm Bedford Consulting Group, also released Tuesday, reported that 70 per cent of executives at 300 Canadian firms are already experiencing a shortage of talent. "Recruiting and retaining the best talent is an ongoing priority for many Canadian companies as the competition for talent remains strong," says Steven Pezim, managing director of the Bedford Group. Despite a slowdown in the economy that began in the fall, Canada's employment picture has remained remarkably robust, with the jobless rate of 6.1 per cent near a 30-year-low and an employment rate at record levels. And Manpower Canada says this is not the only country facing a talent drain. Its Borderless Workforce survey of 28,000 employers in 27 countries and territories shows that most are facing similar concerns about attracting and retaining skilled employees. "I think as Canadians we know its an ongoing trend globally and we are being forward thinking in saying we need to prepare ourselves for what is now very much a defining global issue or our century," said Nadia Ciani, director of human resources for Manpower Canada. Meanwhile, a parallel survey of individuals found that 37 per cent would be willing to relocate to another country for work. Thirty-three per cent of Canadian workers surveyed said they were willing to move abroad, predominately the United States, for more pay or better opportunities. Among workers in the Americas, Canada is the second most cited as their favoured place to relocate, behind the U.S. Other countries workers in the hemisphere said they would consider moving to include Spain, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, France and Italy.