On Immigration...

On Immigration...

By: Ryan Young

The most common theme I heard from my political colleagues this past weekend was: “What is Gerry Byrne smoking?”

The question comes on the heels of an announcement by Byrne on Friday that the Newfoundland and Labrador Government is planning to boost immigration by 50% over the next five years. The target is 1700 new immigrants by 2022, although like every Liberal “plan” so far, the announcement was high on spin and rhetoric but very low on details.

During the announcement, Byrne also stated that the plan will include attracting expat NL’ers who have left the province to come back. It’s nice for the Liberals to keep taking their cues from the old Clyde Wells playbook, but much like when Wells promised to bring every mothers son home (just prior to overseeing the largest out-migration in NL history) the statement carries very little weight when you consider the current economic state of the province and the fact that people are leaving in droves for better opportunities and less taxes.

When you look at the numbers, NL has the second highest consumer price index in the country, after only Alberta. What that means in simple terms is that we have one of the highest costs of living in Canada and it is trending up instead of down. We have come a long way from leading the country in growth. Our GDP is shrinking and by the end of the mess that will be harshly remembered as the “Dwight Ball Years,” unemployment in the province is expected to top 20%.
  

The numbers hardly seem to match up with Byrne’s assertion that now is the best time to move to Newfoundland. It should not be too much of a shock for people to see Byrne speaking so out of touch. After a long twenty years in Ottawa as an MP, Byrne himself came home to take a stab at provincial politics. According to him, 2016 was the best year of his political career. That was certainly a curious statement when you consider the hardships that his government has placed on the people of this province in the past year. I’m sure it was a wonderful year for Gerry and his Liberal cronies, but unfortunately the people he was elected to represent are experiencing their worst year in recent history, all because of the decisions that Byrne and his government made on their behalf.

Many people in this province have strong opinions about immigration. Some are very much in favor, while others are vehemently opposed. The reasons are varied, but I did not want to turn this post into a debate about immigration. The truth of the matter is that with a declining population, more immigration is likely needed to keep our tax base afloat in the years to come. The problem that I see when I look at the issue is not one of security but one of plain economics.

Traditionally our immigrant retention rates have been extremely low. A recent report indicated that less than 40% of immigrants that come to NL stay here to live and work. There are many reasons for the low retention rate. NL does not have any large ethnic communities compared to many other places in Canada. Many of our jobs are low paying and do not provide benefits. The cost of living here is very high, with very little support for families when it comes to things like housing, child care, and parental benefits.

With these things in mind, I think we have to approach immigration in a different way. Instead of trying to attract immigrants to replace all the people that are being driven away by the high cost of living, what we really need to do is create a positive environment in the province that will not only allow our own residents to stay home and flourish, but it will also provide a very attractive destination for potential immigrants to move and raise families, and thereby building our own ethnic communities.

It makes absolutely no sense to initiate a government program aimed at increasing immigration when the government has no obvious plan to tackle the high unemployment rates and cost of living. Why in the world would an immigrant want to come and live here and suffer under our regressive economic policies when there are so many better options out there for them to pursue? The only way it would work is if our government was paying subsidies for people to stay here. I’m not sure how much political capital that will earn them when so many native NL’ers are lined up at the ferry terminal each day to leave in search of the better life their own government promised, but could not provide.

What is likely to happen is that the government will spend millions on their immigration “plan” in the coming years, without addressing any of the real issues that keep retention rates low. This means that our tax dollars will be used to help bring immigrants in and get them established in the province, but when the benefits run out, they will likely move on and settle elsewhere in Canada and become productive tax paying contributors to another provincial economy. Personally, I find that hard to justify when we could use that money to improve social programs which would likely be more effective in the long run when it comes to attracting immigrants and keeping them here.

The scariest part about it all is thinking about who is sitting in the driver’s seat. So far, we have not seen any of the evidence-based policy that we were promised during the 2015 election campaign. What we have seen over and over are reactionary decisions, many of which have already been reversed when it became apparent that people were doing their own research that was not matching up with what the government was saying. I fear that this will be another example of this government wanting to do something for good publicity without really thinking through the consequences of their decisions. If they want people to start believing in them, they need to start making decisions based on good policy research and evidence, and not on what they think will win back a few votes in 2019.

At the end of the day, we certainly do need to have an open and honest discussion about immigration in this province. With an aging population and a growing out-migration rate, NL will need to find new ways to increase our tax base to provide the revenue we will need to pay for basic programs and services in the future. Unfortunately, just throwing a bit of money at the problem is not going to fix it. We need to re-think the way we support families in this province and we need to address the root causes of why immigrant retention rates are so low. Most importantly we need to make Newfoundland and Labrador a great place to live so that when we do attract people to move to this province, (or move home) we are able to keep them here to contribute to the economy in a meaningful way. 

Immigration does not have to be a dirty word for Newfoundland and Labrador, but in order for the masses to get behind the government's new immigration plan, they are going to have to convince people that they know what they are doing. We live in a dangerous world and people are wary of the unknown. If the government really wants this plan to work they need the people behind it and that will require a great deal of communication and discussion, neither of which are things that the Liberals seem to be fond of. It won’t be an easy sell.  

Out-Migration 2.0

Out-Migration 2.0

By: Ryan Young

It was just over a year ago that the former PC government announced their strategy to tackle negative population growth in this province. The plan: Live Here, Work Here, Belong Here, certainly lacked measurable goals, which was the major flaw of most PC policy, but it did mean that the government was at least acknowledging that the issue of population growth needed to be addressed.

To get a real accurate look at our population change, we need to go back to the last glory days of rural Newfoundland. In 1992, Newfoundland reached its peak population of 580 000. That same year saw the cod moratorium and the beginning of the largest out-migration in our history. Around the bay, no matter how bad things were, you could always fish. When that birthright was taken away in 1992, the exodus began. Over the next 15 years, the population had dropped by more than 70 000 people to just 509 000 in 2007. Many of the ones who left the province for greener pastures were the young families with children.

Although the population of Newfoundland and Labrador actually grew by 19 000 people between 2008 and 2013, the overall downward trend has led the Conference Board of Canada to predict that our population will decrease by more than 45 000 people, to around 485 000 by 2035. Perhaps even more disturbing is that by 2035, more than 30% of the total population will be made up of seniors. The cumulative effect of all of those young families leaving the province is catching up with us, and we are not ready for this major demographic shift.

Last week it was announced that the provincial population had dropped by 2500 people in 2015. With the measures contained in Budget 2016 and the total abandonment of the population growth strategy, we can expect that the numbers for 2016 will be much larger than 2500. Many have already left in search of better opportunities, and with little opportunity for new, debt-laden graduates, there is not much to entice our young families to stay and contribute to a real stronger tomorrow.

If you are asking yourself why all of this is important to you, I’ll put it in the simple terms that anyone can understand. If our population continues to drop, that means a smaller tax base for the government to collect from. That means that in order to maintain revenue levels, governments will have to continue to raise taxes to provide services. Simply put, it will cost you more money if we don’t find a way to fix the problem. On top of the tax base, an aging population also means increased healthcare costs, which again will have to be paid for by the limited number of tax payers left in the province. It is a dangerous combination, and our government seems quite content to leave the problem for future generations to figure out.

The measures contained in Budget 2016 were short sighted for a number of reasons, but maybe most important of all is the effect that it will have on our population. The Conference Board predictions were based on natural trends and did not take into account the extra financial burdens that would contribute to a new wave of out-migration. With the province in a recession and no relief in sight, it is reasonable to assume that the rate of depopulation will continue to increase. A perfect storm is gathering that has the potential to leave our province in financial ruin, without enough capital to provide adequate services to our aging population.

So how do we turn the trend around? There is no quick fix or magic solution. It will take a combination of new measures and policy shifts that will need to be implemented with long-term, measurable, goals. It will take time, but if we act now we can attempt to reverse the trend and start to grow our population.

Immigration is certainly part of the solution, but I am skeptical of how much long-term growth we can realistically expect from attracting new residents to the province. The biggest problem is that Newfoundland and Labrador does not have any large ethnic communities. While some immigrants come and build a new life here, the vast majority end up moving on to larger centers such as Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver where there are more social and economic opportunities, and often large communities from their native homes, established by previous immigrants. It is unlikely that this trend will change anytime soon, and for that reason, immigration can only act as a partial solution to the population problem.

In order to grow our population, the most important thing we need to do is provide a stable economy and better support for our families and young people. We need to invest in real economic diversification that includes investing in Newfoundlander's. We need to provide better support for small business and to think outside the box to find solutions to renewing our rural economy. We are blessed with an abundance of talent and ingenuity in this province and we need to find ways to tap into that spirit through targeted investments in order to create a stable economy that will encourage our young leaders to stay at home and raise a family.

While we rebuild our economy, we must also do better in supporting our young families. Increased child care supports and subsidies are needed to ensure greater workplace participation, especially by women. We must also work with our federal government to develop better parental leave options that encourage families to have more children. In my work with the provincial child care coalition, one reoccurring theme has been that people want to have more children, but it is just too expensive. When you consider that a family with an infant and a toddler in St. John’s will pay around $25 000 a year for child care, it is easy to see why they don’t consider having a third child. In rural areas of the province, the problem is often lack of any child care supports at all. ¾ of all children in Newfoundland and Labrador have no access to registered child care. If we really want to encourage our young families to stay here and have more children, we need to support them.

Keeping our young graduates in the province is another major issue that needs to be addressed if we are going to grow our population. “Brain Drain” has been an ongoing issue for this province for decades. Many of our best and brightest minds leave the province in search of opportunities that are not available to them here. The first thing we need to do is facilitate more of our young people to receive a post-secondary education. Cancelling tuition grants was another very short-sighted decision by this government. It will lead to lower enrollment numbers and less qualified people in our workforce. We need to encourage our youth to be educated and available for future growth opportunities. In order to keep our youth here we must also continue to invest in research and development and to support our graduates to become entrepreneurs and the new leaders of our economy.

We can do it. We can turn it around. All we need is someone with the political will to realize how big the problem is, and how important it is that we tackle it head on. There are many solutions that we could explore to grow our population but unfortunately none of them can be found in Budget 2016. Unless we want to see another mass out-migration like1992, we need to start working together to build a Newfoundland and Labrador that can support its own people. We have everything we need, except the will to change.