Off base

Dear editor:
In response to the letter to the editor in last week’s Times entitled “Policy not working” as submitted by Mr. Ken McDonald of Stratton, Ont.
I recently became a subscriber to this newspaper and must admit I was a little taken aback by the letter. Having read some of Mr. McDonald’s xenophobic commentary I decided the best response would be to follow up with actual statistics as provided by the Government of Canada.
According to Immigration Canada, 2004, among the 184,907 new immigrants that year over the age of 15, 59,740 had a Bachelor’s degree (32.3 percent), 20,840 had a Master’s degree (11.2 percent), and 3,714 had a doctorate (2.0 percent).
According to Statistics Canada (2001 census), Canada had a population of 23,901,360 people over the age of 15, of 2,411,475 had a Bachelor’s degree (10.0 percent), 642,055 had a Master’s degree (2.7 percent), and 128,625 had a doctorate (0.5 percent).
As these numbers clearly show, new immigrants to Canada have a 323 percent higher chance of holding a Bachelor’s degree than do resident Canadians, a 414 percent higher chance of holding a Master’s degree, and a 400 percent higher chance of holding a doctorate.
This statistic denotes a comparative that is not even close to Mr. McDonald’s implication—and completely justifies Ms. Jessie Zhang’s commentary to which he was responding.
Further, the simple truth of economics is that population leads to business enterprise. So, in short, if many more youthful immigrants (either foreign or from other regions of Canada) entered the district, they would stimulate growth which, in turn, would attract further business.
Economic growth in a free market system requires growth in consumption, which only can be maintained by:
a). a growth in population (and since the birth rate is declining, it must be made up by immigration); or
b). a growth in consumption by existing people (we North Americans are already obese enough).
I would venture, based on my personal experiences with the many immigrants that I have known, that if there is a discrepancy between immigrant and non-immigrant populations (in terms of economic achievement), it is due to the non-recognition of their credentials and sporadic discrimination.
Next time you have an ethnic taxi cab driver, janitor, restaurant operator, waiter/ress, or garbage handler, talk to them and, in the course of your conversation, ask if he/she has a degree or higher education.
You might be very surprised with the answer that you get.
I trust that I have made my response thorough enough to bring truthful light to this debate.
Regards,
Daniel Young
Emo, Ont.