I cry for you, Canada: 92-year-old prof and ex-MP’s warning about immigration & welfare state

Added: 2026-04-30

[00:00:00]Professor Gubell, your five minutes starts now.

[00:00:04]>> Thank you, Madame Chair. I I traveled around the country for two years with finance committee, so I'm very familiar with the atmosphere.

[00:00:14]Most fundamentally, I welcome public hearings as we are having now on the science of our immigration policy.

[00:00:24]I think I hope it will give the deserved publicity and discussion in parliament that has been needed.

[00:00:32]On a personal note, despite my numerous academic publications in the field of immigration economics, I was never asked to participate in the discussions around the setting of official immigration targets and selection criteria.

[00:00:52]Nor as a member of parliament from 93 to 97 was I ever asked to vote on these issues. Only once did a minister tell me privately to keep up my research and publications and hold his feet to the fire.

[00:01:11]I believe that in the that in greatest need of change are policies determining the number and selection criteria of temporary residents. temporary residents who are admitted to work or study in Canada.

[00:01:31]Foreigners who fill seasonal or temporary labor shortages in the economy should be admitted in numbers at frequent regular intervals and set by parliamentary committee.

[00:01:48]The there should be no foreign students attending elementary and secondary schools. They do not benefit Canada and burden our schools resources.

[00:02:01]Foreign students should be admitted to attend Canadian colleges, universities, and graduate schools. They bring valuable benefits to the institutions and economy, especially to the extent that they pay tuition.

[00:02:18]Foreign students who have completed degrees in these institutions should no longer be preferred candidates for permanent resident status. The government should adopt policy to ensure does that temporary workers and students leave Canada after their visas have.

[00:02:42]Now on a separate issue, parents and grandparents should be granted only super visitor visas as they had been practiced before the changes initiated by the government in 2016. It makes eminent sense.

[00:03:02]If a a foreigner does not want to come without his parents, he just should not come. The system dealing with asylum seekers needs to be reformed. Possibly fundamentally much as it is in other western democracies.

[00:03:23]Such reforms may include the development of ways in which the backlog of applications for refugees status is reduced. I'm fully aware that this is one of the most difficult problems our foreign policy faces and there are no easy solutions. There are tradeoffs that involve fundamental human values. the suffering of immigrants, but also the suffering of Canadians who find their uh housing, their medic access to medical >> one minute left. Professor Grubel, >> pardon me.

[00:04:10]>> One minute left.

[00:04:12]>> Fine. Thank you, madam. I'm done.

[00:04:16][laughter] Thank you, professor. You are uh Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, >> Mr. Makus. Over to you.

[00:04:25]>> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses for appearing before us today. Uh like to start my questions with you, Professor Grubal.

[00:04:35]Um, do you believe that the uh Liberal government considered the impact on uh things like health care, housing, and jobs prior to letting in the large number of immigrants that they have allowed in over the past decade?

[00:04:52]I wouldn't know, but it turns out whatever they did, it was very bad for Canada.

[00:04:59]Um would you agree that when uh when there are uh that there are diseconomies of scale when letting in so many people at once and the costs may actually be higher than if immigration was done in a in a slower more sustainable manner?

[00:05:15]>> Exactly. I mean it it turns not into positive it turns for the country as a whole as a negative. I have great sympathy for gentlemen like we heard from the island uh that there a labor shortage but if we bring in too many too much of anything suddenly you will have adjustment problems and it was more than adjustment problems was killing our economy.

[00:05:47]Well, that that you make a very valid point there, uh, sir. Uh, do do you think it it it it has an impact on, uh, uh, the ability of newcomers that coming to Canada to be able to have successful outcomes when there's so many of them coming and of course it creates a problem with with uh, finding jobs and finding a residence to live and, you know, getting healthcare and so forth.

[00:06:12]Do you think it's an environment that that is conducive for them to be able to succeed in Canada as newcomers to our country?

[00:06:20]>> Well, I'm not in contact with immigrants, but I read a lot about what is going on in the economy and I hear that the that the recent immigrants are a strong lobby for reducing the rate of immigrant.

[00:06:39]>> That's right. They they are the ones they are the ones at the front to feel this problem as well as our own les skilled young people whose jobs are being taken.

[00:06:55]Do you think that the government should be in the business of providing um accommodations, housing for uh for for example asylum seekers and refugees and uh uh you know newcomers coming? Should the government >> My commentary Yeah. Yeah. My commentary on this controversy that we're continuing here and was going on before with the asylum seekers is that the more benefits we offer, the more we will have asylum seekers who may may or may not have legitimate claims but are getting benefits from doing so.

[00:07:44]Mhm. Well, yeah. Thank you for that.

[00:07:48]>> A famous economist, Milton Friedman, colleague of mine when I was teaching in Chicago said it is incompatible to have the welfare state and free immigration. And we in the last 10 years have been moving more and more towards free immigration. and that prediction that it is impossible we're paying for.

[00:08:14]>> Along those lines, sir, uh I don't know if you have heard, but you the government ran into quite a bit of controversy because they were uh booking hotels and putting people in hotels uh across across the country uh uh just housing them housing them there at exorbitant costs. Now, to get away from that controversy, they created a new program and recently we found out they gave the city of Ottawa $40 million to purchase an outright purchase a hotel so they can house these people. So, they're not renting anymore. They house them now in a in a hotel that is owned by uh by the city of Ottawa to house these people. Uh yesterday, for example, I I read an article of another 27.35 million uh that was given to uh Pickering, the town of Pickering here in in Ontario to do the same thing to purchase a hotel there. So 40 million to Ottawa, 27 35 million to Pickering. That's only two locations that we know where they've done that so far that we know of. uh they've been very reluctant to provide to be transparent and give us a list of of how many municipalities they've given money to. What do you have to say about that, sir?

[00:09:24]>> You have one minute left.

[00:09:25]>> Well, most generally, I think it will all be said in the book that I'm writing. I cry for you, Canada.

[00:09:38]I came in 1972 having a professorship with tenure in the United States because I love Canada and I love Vancouver.

[00:09:50]I'm now almost sorry for this country.

[00:09:53]I'm glad I'm 92.

[00:09:57]I'll close by saying this. Thank you for appearing before us today. Uh I hope that when I'm 92 years old, somebody will ask me to come and present here if I'm fortunate enough to get there. and thank you for your service to Canada as a member of parliament. Appreciate your presence here today.

[00:10:12]>> You're welcome.

[00:10:13]>> Thank you. Uh thank you, Professor uh Grubel, and thank you, Mr. Managus.

[00:10:17]Next.

[00:10:18]>> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Professor Grubel, [clears throat] when I was looking at your body of work, your impressive body of work over the years.

[00:10:26]It wasn't until later after I'd read some of what what you've been doing that you were a member of Parliament. So, that was a bit of a surprise to me, but I'm happy to um engage with you today.

[00:10:36]In your in your policy history, you have tended to focus on fiscal responsibility, uh labor market competition, infrastructure constraints, and selective economically driven immigration.

[00:10:50]Uh I'm from I'm from the Niagara region in Ontario and we see firsthand um how the pressures that you have written about from housing shortages uh strained infrastructure and employment balancing labor needs with stagnant wages and key sectors.

[00:11:08]We've lived that lived reality raises couple of fundamental questions. But I wonder if you could walk the committee through your framework for assessing what you refer to as net fiscal impact on im of immigration. What variables matter most and how should policymakers interpret those results?

[00:11:30]Well, the book you're referring to was published by the Frasier Institute somewhat reluctantly a co-author uh a an an American who lived long time in Ottawa. It started off and we got away uh our attention was drawn to the following fact that when immigrants enter Canada, Statistics Canada finds out that they have below income that is below Canadian workers of the same age in education.

[00:12:14]And this low income persists for the next 20 years and it never goes completely away. I don't know whether it's discrimination whatever it is that's a fact and it was getting when we were writing our book worse every five years statistic Canada showed that it's gotten worse. At the same time that they settle in Canada, they entitled to all the government benefits that we offer.

[00:12:50]And as a result of this, we have also we have progressive income taxation. So that these immigrants with the low incomes are getting all the benefits which are not tied to income while the taxes they pay are considerably lower because their incomes are lower. And we calculated that this was in the 80s several billion dollars worth of costs that immigrants impose on the rest of Canada that is never mentioned and even then it was disregarded.

[00:13:32]We're being we're being hated for pointing out these kinds of things.

[00:13:37]People go, "Oh, this is wrong. This is wrong."

[00:13:41]The numbers are there. Nobody refuted them.

[00:13:46]But of course, the popular media didn't like the idea because the mood in Canada at the time was still immigrants are cannot do any wrong. We need more and more and more. The question is, do we all want to subsidize as a small businessman in the world?

[00:14:08]That's an issue that we ought to discuss.

[00:14:11]At the time that I was active in writing, these issues were never discussed. We ought to have people from both sides.

[00:14:20]>> Let let me say >> so professor I have limited time so I wonder if >> Yes. Okay. I expected you to interrupt me otherwise I can't keep going. Uh, professor, critics, uh, say your approach may underweight long-term and second generation benefits. How do you respond to that? And how should governments balance short-term fiscal impacts with long-term economic gains?

[00:14:47]>> Well, that is a another question that we have to look at. We >> One minute.

[00:14:53]>> Elon Musk is not typical.

[00:14:57]It's it it we have a lot of uh in in the longer run in the longer run that Kane said. So I I don't know >> in uh in your view how should Canada determine the right level of immigration each year. Uh what economic indicators or capacity constraints should guide in those decisions?

[00:15:20]Have a group of people like this here.

[00:15:24]Listen to those small businessesmen, farmers, even the big companies, the big manufacturing, a lot of cheap labor, cheap importer labor. We listen to that and listen to guys like me who say that if you uh always have cheap labor available, society has no incentive to adopt labor saving devices.

[00:15:54]>> Uh thank you, Professor Grubel, and thank you, Mr. Davies. That is >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh Professor Gubal, uh Canada's productivity has been weakening over the last liberal decade.

[00:16:04]investment is fleeing the country like we've never seen before and this is taken out of the Liberal costly credit card budget uh from 2025. So my question is can radically increasing immigration levels at rates like the Liberals have done in the past few years compensate for poor productivity, weak business investment and low capital formation.

[00:16:24]Quite to the contrary, it reduces uh per capita income unless uh they increase productivity and we don't have the productivity and the productivity is you know when when California reduced the use the inflow of Mexican agricultural worker into the valley everybody said it will kill California.

[00:16:55]Well, it didn't. Instead of tomatoes being picked by hand, they developed machines to pick the tomatoes. And the tomatoes didn't taste as good as the ones that they had before. So, what did they do? They modified genetically the tomatoes so they could stand being to picked and tasted as good as the ones we had before. Thank you, Mr. Grubel. I'm sorry that we had so little time. Thank you, Mr. Ho.