Free The Truth About Canada by Mel Hurtig Page B

percent.
    Canada’s record in this respect is much better than all the other OECD countries, and much better than all the G7 countries, including the United States. 1
    “Brain drain?” Nineteen OECD countries have a higher percentage of persons with a post-secondary education leaving to emigrate to other OECD countries, and emigration of such persons from Canada is far below the OECD average. 2 As I have pointed out often elsewhere, the brain drain mythology promoted by the likes of Conrad Black and the National Post has been grossly overstated. There is abundant evidence that rather than a brain drain, Canada has a huge brain gain , every year, year after year. Between 1986 and 2006, emigration from Canada fell by 24 percent.
    In 1930, there were 1,310,000 Canadian-born people living in the United States. By 1960, there were only 953,000. By 1970, only some 812,000. And by 2000, just 678,000. In 1990, Canada had a net gain of 1.5 million people with post-secondary education. Ten years later, the net gain was 2.25 million people.
    In 1981, 16.1 percent of Canada’s population was foreign-born. By 2004, it was 18.0 percent. 3 In 1981, only 5 percent of Canadians were “visible minorities” other than aboriginal persons. By 1996, this was up to 11 percent, and by 2006 it was 16 percent. Statistics Canada has forecast that by 2017 about one in five Canadians could be from a visible minority. South Asians and Chinese will continue to be the largest visible minority groups.
    In February 2006, Dr. Ivan Fellegi, the head of Statistics Canada, reported that about 35 percent of the Canadian population are either first-generation immigrants or the children of immigrants. While Australia had almost 25 percent of their population of immigrant stock by 2000, Canada was next at almost 19 percent, followed by the United States at 12.4 percent, France at 10.6 percent, Germany at 9 percent, and the United Kingdom at 6.8 percent. In Italy it was only 2.8 percent.
    Today, about 20 percent of Canada’s population is foreign-born, compared to the OECD average of only about 8 percent. Only New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, and Luxembourg have higher foreign-bornpercentages. Canada has the fifth highest percentage of foreign-born residents in the OECD. By the end of 2006, foreign-born people in Canada accounted for almost one in five of the total population, the highest proportion in 75 years.
    In 2005, about 53 percent of the 262,236 permanent residents admitted to Canada came from the Asia and Pacific regions, just under 19 percent came from Africa and the Middle East, 16 percent from Europe, 9 percent from South and Central America, and 3.5 percent from the United States. 4
    In 2006, the number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada, 10,942, was at a 30-year high. Jack Jedwab of the Association of Canadian Studies says that the Americans who are coming to Canada “have the highest level of education. They’re coming because many of them don’t like the politics [in the United States], the Iraq War and the security situation in the U.S. By comparison, Canada is a tension-free place. People feel safer.”
    The highest percentage of immigrants to Canada in 2005 came from China, 16 percent, followed by 13 percent from India, 7 percent from the Philippines, and 5 percent from Pakistan.
    In 2007, there was a terrible and inexcusable backlog of some 800,000 applicants waiting to come to Canada. Some potential immigrants have been kept waiting up to five years before being given a decision on their application. And even if granted citizenship, many professionals must wait years to have their working credentials recognized.
    About 80 percent of new immigrants settle in Canada’s big cities. And, as has often been pointed out, because of our regrettable reluctance to accept foreign credentials, “in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver the taxi driver is often better educated than the passenger.” 5 In 2001, almost 44 percent of the people in