But what's the benefit of citizenship if someone from outside with slightly better skills can just come and displace you? Are Canadian citizens should at least preferred over foreigners?
The thing is, competition is good and healthy. I think you are severely underestimating the value of ecosystem. I am a scout for a well known VC right now, and the pitches are nothing more than a cheap, unscalable knock off of a Silicon valley product. I'd love to see if this could change. We have very few examples like Vidyard, Klue, etc that are worth talking about and even they aren't as great. Add more resistance to talent and this number would go down further. There's PE money even in this economy and our LPs are up again for June, July - but there are barely any worthy takers.
People who do fodder jobs or have a fodder lifestyle aren't what make a country great.
You are saying that citizens should be above PRs, but isn't that already the case? I mean, look at this case of a friend who's moving to Canada in a few months:
1. No job, rarely any relevant job post in his field
2. No one ready to rent out their place to someone with no rental history
3. No idea of how long it would take for them to get a daycare
4. Paying extremely high Airbnb for months and months
5. Fighting low morale and depleting savings
6. Dumb "Canadian exp" excuse
Even if you got 4/6 of those issues, migrating is already hard. If someone can be replaced by such a disadvantaged immigrant, they got no excuse.