Immigrants send money to their homeland
July 24, 2008 · By Charles Anthony
Before people get their knickers tied up in a knot over the news that so many immigrants send money out of Canada, just remember: at most, it is just paper exclusively produced in Canada.
Immigrants should be free to do whatever they want with their own wealth. If foreigners value Canadian paper, so be it.
A Toronto university economics professor said this “cash leakage” has little effect on the Canadian economy, which reportedly has a GDP of about $1.6 trillion.
“It’s definitely a positive from a global social perspective because it’s allowing people in these overseas countries to have food, clothing, shelter — things they wouldn’t be able to get any other way,” York University professor Perry Sadorsky said Wednesday. “But from a Canadian perspective, it’s money that is leaking out of the country that could be spent here.”
Consumer industries such as cellphone companies, car and electronic manufacturers and restaurants are the ones that suffer most when money is sent away. Sadorsky predicts that with the direction the global economy is going, this trend of financially supporting family overseas is not going to stop.
Cash leakage? Suffering when money is sent away??? Shame on Perry Sadorsky for feeding such a myopic representation of economics. What about the welfare of the Canadian immigrants? The arbitrary accounting methods of Gross Domestic Product do not have an entry for all things that comprise welfare and value. That is why it is called Gross.
Immigrants have freely chosen to send their money away over all other choices. They have demonstrated their preferences over cellphones, cars, electronics and restaurants. Denying free choice would be bad.
You can look at things from a different way: sending money overseas is exporting inflation.
If all of that money was spent in Canada, the alleviated “suffering” of the “industries such as cellphone companies, car and electronic manufacturers and restaurants” could go hand in hand with inflated prices for the Canadian consumer!
Things could be worse: the immigrants could let their money sit in a Canadian bank account. That would lead the banks to increase lending further increasing the money supply and contributing to inflation.
the brits tried restricting money leaving their country many years ago. it didn’t work for them and it won’t work for us.
You can search out a study published by the BC Metropolis Centre (DeVoretz?) that indicated remittances flowing into Canada are almost equal to the funds flowing out.
Well what makes it bad is when white males are denied jobs that if they were hired instead of being shown the door, they might have spent the money here.
Giving bigoted hiring, [IE affirmative action etc,] to people more likely to spend the money elsewhere is hardly in the nations best interest.
“The brits tried restricting money leaving their country many years ago. it didn’t work for them and it won’t work for us.”
You can restrict immigration though, something most Canadians want in our democracy.
Hey dinosaur. Do you know many “white males” willing to go work in the Fraser Valley picking blueberries? What an idiotic comment. The amount of “affirmitive action” hiring in Canada is microscopic. Unemployment has consistently been going down in this country and employers have been struggling to find, and keep, staff.
The amount of money immigrants send out of the country is a fraction of the growth to the economy they contribute to. Companies can grow and make more revenue and thus pay more taxes. The immigrant workers pay for their accomodations, buy their food and clothes here. Think about the negative impact to the economy if you sent them all home and slashed those jobs. It would be enormous.
No the small amount of money that “leaks” out of the country is insignificant to the net positive benefits immigrants provide to Canada.
I don’t know how many in BC but I do know that near niagra falls they stopped hiring locals after nafta was brought in so they can hire mexicans for 6 months to work the vinyards and the people who wanted the jobs and had done them previously were upset because they are no longer allowed to apply.
Usually when people say no one wants to do the job you mean you don’t want to. I know white males doing janitorial work you probably wouldn’t do that either.
If immigration is so good and most go to Toronto why is it’s unemployment there so high all that enriching diversity around and still 6.7% unemployed.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/lfss03e.htm
If employers can’t find people there are 1,079,400 unemployed in this country. Or would it be bad to try them?
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cs.....unemployed
What website do they list the jobs at?
Their growth has to be offset against the 1 million who want jobs.
The affirmative action is hardly microscopic, Every level of government in Manitoba uses it, the RCMP and public works have announced out and out bans on hiring white males. In fact the Canadian Human rights comission annually audits about 600 of Canadas largest companies to make sure they don’t hire too many white males. And at times they have even subsidized, I have an aunt who used to work for motor coach in winnipeg [they build buses] she was getting 11 bucks an hour they brought in a crew of phillipinos and the government subsidized them 7 bucks an hour paid them more I think 12 an hour thus the employer only paid 5 and poof all the lower caste euro types were out of work. Course she was just microscopic too.
If it’s minor why not drop it? Like you say it’s minor. And we ‘need’ them right?
If you are one of the people who are unemployed it’s hardly of benefit to you.
In Ontario you can’t even get legal aid but at least your taxes pay so other better caste types can.
http://www.canlaw.com/legalaid/aidoffice.htm
“the net positive benefits immigrants provide to Canada.”
LOL more carbon emissions, more roads, aqueducts, coal plants, higher house prices, inflation, schools, malls, places of worship, we need more more more just to keep up, and higher unemployment,….
“Companies can grow and make more revenue and thus pay more taxes.”
they could if they hired some of the over a million unemployed too,…
Interesting post Charles. Thank you.
Dinosaur wrote:
“If immigration is so good and most go to Toronto why is it’s unemployment there so high all that enriching diversity around and still 6.7% unemployed.”
Literacy?
[...] http://www.thepolitic.com/arch.....-homeland/ [...]
Inferiority Complex Dinosaur asks the following absurd questions : “Um what about the welfare of domestic Canadians? Are we chopped liver?”
1) The freedoms of domestic Canadians are not being denied when money is sent overseas.
2) Immigrant Canadians are domestic Canadians
3) What difference does it make?? Do we force tourists to leave all of their Canadian cash at the border after their visit in Canada is over? No!
4) Other than the divine right of the ever-reaching arms of big government to control everything that citizens own, what right do you have to tell immigrants what to do with their own money??????
Dinosaur,
You are advocating government control into the private lives of Canadians. Shame on you.
How much money do Canadian spend on vacations per year when abroad? Who cares how much money immigrants send abroad. How much money do Canadians invest abroad? Peter Sardorky is a cash leakage - his public salary could have been spent on something productive, like dishwashing.