amikety said:
If they live outside Canada: a few years ago, the Canadian government evacuated a number of citizens from Lebanon. A good portion of them had only lived in Canada long enough to obtain their passport, then left and never came back. They are "Canadians of convience" which has angered some people. The cost to evacuate them was high and considering many of them haven't paid any form of tax in a long time, it set some people off. This is just one example (and the only one I'm familiar enough with to share). I've also heard stories of them "abusing" the healthcare system, aka only staying in Canada long enough to get a surgery, etc, then going back to their home country. They don't remain to help put back in tax dollars to the system.
It's been a well known fact in academic circles for some time that immigration isn't having the intended economic benefit that Canada invisioned. This is the driving reason for many of the changes we've seen such as stricter/faster failed refugee deportation and tightening up on parent sponsorship. It's also why the FSW program was re-vamped and the Federal Skilled Trades program was added. There is plenty of academic research available out there if you want to look into it. Go to Google Scholar and search "economic impact of immigration in Canada."
However, immigration does have an overall positive economic impact in Canada, just much smaller than the goverment intended.
This is actually the fault of the government. We needs to ask why are people becoming "Canadians of convenience". There are very good reasons for it. The government has made it easier through their foreign and domestic policies to abuse the system very easily.
Let me give you an example. Engineer from India wants to apply to Canada for better life and future. While applying for permanant residence status he can see that his education and work experience as an engineer give him maximum points. This is coupled with the fact that on the cic website it states eligible occupations for different types of engineers required. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who-instructions.asp
So what would an Indian trained Engineer with an Indian degree with Indian work experience think? "My skills, education, and work experience is what is required in Canada" plus "I qualify according to the Canadian points system"
Once he lands here
1) he is told his degree is not recognized
2) work experience is not recognized
and all his savings are depleted from day to day costs of living, the poor Engineer turns into a bathroom cleaner to make ends meet. The only thing he can hope for is getting the Canadian passport and either move to USA for better prospects or some other country in the world where he can work as an Engineer.
Same thing can be said with healthcare and as you said rightly people stay here to get major surgery and then they take off because other places around the world have more options than what Canada has to offer.
So to sum things up, there are a few questions we need to ask
1) Why are people going back?
2) What positive things do other countries have that Canada does not?
3) What could be done to stop people from going back?
4) How can we change the system so that more engineers, doctors, IT professionals, get jobs in their respective fields without going broke trying to recertify themselves. Because they are clearly getting points for immigration system but those points are meaningless if they dont transfer directly into job prospects for them.
Canada has one of the most educated work forces in the world but its useless if the degrees do not match with occupation, this way the people suffer, the business suffer, the system suffers and finally the country as a whole suffers.
