A top Canadian bank said in a statement that three key areas, one of which is immigration, will boost the Canadian economy if it is well managed.  The Bank of Canada said that three areas of Canadian life have helped the country in the past and could do so again: education, immigration and trade liberalization.

The bank’s official statement was that Canada could get a bigger boost from trade by opening up new avenues, lowering more barriers through focusing on the country’s education system, immigration policies and numbers and liberating international trade.

In a speech in Ottawa, Bank of Canada deputy governor Lawrence Schembri said the country’s potential output gauges what the economy can achieve on a sustainable basis over the long run.

Schembri said that “Canada, like most advanced economies, has watched its growth in potential output follow a general, downward trend in recent decades — in large part due to the “formidable challenge” of aging populations, “ adding that Canada can should turn to policy solutions that have helped support potential growth in the past.

Schembri stated that education and training will help workers keep up with the acceleration of technological change, make them more productive and help reduce income inequality.

He added that the expansion of immigration levels delivers an obvious injection to the labour supply, however, he adds that the country must do a better job of matching newcomers’ skills with the needs of the workforce.

These sentiments were echoed by Canada’s Immigration Minister when he said at a press conference last year, "If we are going to be able to keep our commitments for health care and pensions and all our social programs and to continue to grow our economy and meet our labour market needs in the decades to come, we must respond to this clear demographic challenge."

Canada have been steadily opening its doors to immigrants from last year and this trend is set to continue until at least 2020.  The hopes are that migrants will grow the Canadian population by 1 per cent of its population within the next two years.

According to Statistics Canada projections, the proportion of working-age members of the population will continue to decline until 2036, by which point the number of seniors in the country will likely be more than double the figure in 2009.

"There are more and more countries that are closing their doors to people. They're closing their doors to talent, to skills, and yes, to those who are seeking protection from persecution. We are emphatically and unapologetically taking the opposite approach," commented Minister Ahmed Hussen referring to the immigration plan launched in 2017.

Statistics Canada has projected that by 2036, immigrants could make up 30 per cent of the total population of the country.

In its 2018-to-2020 plan, the government has put an emphasis on highly skilled immigrants, who will make up more than 40 per cent of all economic class immigrants in the next three years.

Source: Canadian Press Society