Quote:
Originally Posted by CaramonLS
If anyone thinks that the anti-immigration crowd will just quiet down, or this is just a phase, they haven't seen anything yet.
Wait until human capital becomes a net negative in society.
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Immigration is at the fulcrum of old and new economy. Contrary to what we want to believe, Canada doesn't welcome large numbers of immigrants out of some king of utopian ideal around diversity. We do it because we have low birthrates, and our health care, pensions, and other public services are a kind of pyramid scheme where citizens receive far more in value than they pay in taxes during their lifetime, but we can keep the game going if each generation has more taxpayers than the previous one. And Canada is good at integrating immigrants, especially the highly-educated ones we favour.
So high immigration makes perfect sense, so long as each younger taxpayer is a net positive to the calculus. We don't have to sustain the pain of an ageing population relying on a relatively small group of younger taxpayers to pay for their health care and pensions. However, as you say, once that's no longer the case because automation has rendered most new citizens a net cost to the public balance sheet, we have a big problem on our hands.