Thanks to Immigration, Bet on Canada's Future

Skilled migrants are driving Canada's G7-leading population growth.

Back to our coverage of international higher education in the new year: I've featured how the United States is becoming a non-destination for international students, mainly for the reason that the Trump administration is limiting their prospects for future post-educational work in the United States due to ultra-nationalist / racist immigration policies. Hard as it is for some Yanquis to understand, though, the world of higher education is much broader than the United States. There is a bona fide winner in this story of American educational and demographic decline as result of a failure to attract international talent given falling birth rates at home--Canada.

It is not hard to make the argument that many of those who would have otherwise studied in the US have gone to Canada instead due to Trump's blatantly racist immigration policies:

[Ayesha] Chokhani had her pick of elite schools. She turned down Cornell and Duke in the U.S. Her reasons were clear: The anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Trump administration made her nervous. And Canada had an additional draw: She can stay up to three years after she graduates and doesn’t need a job offer to apply for a work permit. “I wanted to be sure that wherever I go to study, I have the opportunity to stay and work for a bit,” she says.

The numbers don't lie. Canada is not only attracting international students but is also hoping that more than a few remain to deal with its shortfalls in domestic birth rates and the usual need to remain competitive in the modern world economy:

In August, there were about 570,000 international students in Canada, a 60 percent jump from three years ago. That surge is helping power the biggest increase in international immigration in more than a century. The country took in 425,000 people in the 12 months through September, boosting population growth to a three-decade high of 1.4 percent, the fastest pace in the Group of Seven club of industrialized nations.

Canada’s immigration system has long targeted the highly skilled. More than 65 percent of foreign-born adults had a post-secondary degree in 2017, the highest share tracked by members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “We are the biggest talent poachers in the OECD,” says Stéfane Marion, chief economist of the National Bank of Canada. As a result, he says, the country is better equipped to deal with globalization and technological change—“it’s a massive, massive advantage.”

To be sure, there are xenophobic political parties in the Canadian polity. However, the significant difference is that while they constitute a fringe minority in Canada, they are the ruling Republican Party in the United States thanks to Trump. 

Make no mistake: American decline and Trumpian xenophobia go hand in hand. Instead of evaluating people based on what they can get done, you do so based on irrelevant criteria like the color of their skin. Ultimately, it's America's loss for pandering to such racism.