"I'm not sure where the TFWs in the coffee shops are supposed to live."
Exactly. Looking at the issue from a housing perspective, just as it makes sense to reduce population growth when unemployment is high, it also makes sense to reduce population growth when vacancy rates are low.
I saw a comment on Twitter saying that one source of political pressure for less restrictions on TFWs is small businesses contacting their local MP. Again, maybe that made sense in the immediate aftermath of Covid, with more people than usual retiring from the workforce, or not wanting to take the risk of working in retail or restaurants. But not now.
I'm not sure where the TFW in the coffee shops are supposed to live. When you import tolerance for low wages, you're importing tolerance for low lifestyles, down to tents.
I think the coffee shops could stay open if the minimum wage would just bring out existing Canadians for staff. A high minimum wage would mean the whole coffee-house market would shrink a bit, but how much, really? People shell out $9 for those calorific frappuccinos.
Good stuff. I mostly agree, thought I think that it should be a goal to try and keep as many highly educated graduates that we produce as possible; these are typically enterprising, intelligent people with some familiarity with the country and networks developed while studying. Why not keep as many as possible, and expand the share of overall immigration that we count on coming via our post secondary system?
Incidentally, Heath currently has a post out (you might’ve been the one to tell me that InDueCourse was now on Substack?) and he’s argued that Canada should lean into its comparative advantage in educating foreigners at scale and treat it as a high-end “export” industry.
"I think that it should be a goal to try and keep as many highly educated graduates that we produce as possible"
A big challenge is, there simply aren't enough permanent-resident spots to absorb all of them. In addition, a number of post-secondary institutions (especially Ontario colleges) have been completely unselective, mass-recruiting international students because of the lucrative tuition fees, and then outsourcing the actual education to private colleges in the GTA. There's some pretty bad incentives here.
If we want to make Canadian post-secondary education a high-end export, instead of an extremely expensive lottery ticket to immigrate to Canada, Canadian post-secondary institutions are going to have to be a lot more selective.
"If the newcomers bring opportunity, they also present new risks. The single largest threat is that shifts in the countries that send international students affect how willing voters in receiving countries are to accept them. Debates about immigration in rich countries are increasingly toxic. As the numbers of international students rise, the more often they are drawn into these rows.
"Indeed, Indian students differ from their Chinese counterparts in ways that seem likely to inflame these fights. The Indians are far less wealthy, for a start. They usually favour more affordable, lower-tier universities and incline towards shorter courses. They are much more likely, for example, to study at postgraduate level than as undergraduates. That is because funding a one- or two-year master’s is more manageable than funding a full bachelor’s degree overseas. In Britain, a typical Indian student spends only about half as much on tuition fees as a Chinese one.
"Indian students are also much keener than Chinese ones to remain in the countries where they have studied after graduation. Most big destination countries operate some kind of 'post-study' visa scheme, which permits youngsters to stay on for a few years after they graduate, often with few strings attached. The Chinese, who tend to head home quickly, did not make great use of these. Indians, by contrast, are very keen on them. They look for these schemes when deciding where in the world to study."
Ha it’s funny but I almost view the Indian situation as a positive! (Though I get the main point of the article.)
Maybe for language reasons, and having studied in the UK and at U of T, I found anecdotally that Chinese students have had a worse time assimilating during their studies (and also faced wider accusations of cheating, though I’ve got no data to support this). If you _were_ to want a group of students to stay after a degree, I’d imagine Indians with strong English, a desire and ability to assimilate, and graduate degrees would be preferable to Chinese students who are more insular.
On the other hand, if it is viewed strictly as an export good, then undergrads whose cost to teach is next to nil and who leave to their home country (even if they learned little and absorbed little of the local culture) is of course the preferable customer.
"I'm not sure where the TFWs in the coffee shops are supposed to live."
Exactly. Looking at the issue from a housing perspective, just as it makes sense to reduce population growth when unemployment is high, it also makes sense to reduce population growth when vacancy rates are low.
I saw a comment on Twitter saying that one source of political pressure for less restrictions on TFWs is small businesses contacting their local MP. Again, maybe that made sense in the immediate aftermath of Covid, with more people than usual retiring from the workforce, or not wanting to take the risk of working in retail or restaurants. But not now.
I'm not sure where the TFW in the coffee shops are supposed to live. When you import tolerance for low wages, you're importing tolerance for low lifestyles, down to tents.
I think the coffee shops could stay open if the minimum wage would just bring out existing Canadians for staff. A high minimum wage would mean the whole coffee-house market would shrink a bit, but how much, really? People shell out $9 for those calorific frappuccinos.
Good stuff. I mostly agree, thought I think that it should be a goal to try and keep as many highly educated graduates that we produce as possible; these are typically enterprising, intelligent people with some familiarity with the country and networks developed while studying. Why not keep as many as possible, and expand the share of overall immigration that we count on coming via our post secondary system?
Incidentally, Heath currently has a post out (you might’ve been the one to tell me that InDueCourse was now on Substack?) and he’s argued that Canada should lean into its comparative advantage in educating foreigners at scale and treat it as a high-end “export” industry.
"I think that it should be a goal to try and keep as many highly educated graduates that we produce as possible"
A big challenge is, there simply aren't enough permanent-resident spots to absorb all of them. In addition, a number of post-secondary institutions (especially Ontario colleges) have been completely unselective, mass-recruiting international students because of the lucrative tuition fees, and then outsourcing the actual education to private colleges in the GTA. There's some pretty bad incentives here.
If we want to make Canadian post-secondary education a high-end export, instead of an extremely expensive lottery ticket to immigrate to Canada, Canadian post-secondary institutions are going to have to be a lot more selective.
There was an interesting article in the Economist a couple months ago, talking about the number of students from India at international universities overtaking those from China. One big difference is that students from China were more likely to return after graduating. https://www.economist.com/international/2024/06/20/brainy-indians-are-piling-into-western-universities
"If the newcomers bring opportunity, they also present new risks. The single largest threat is that shifts in the countries that send international students affect how willing voters in receiving countries are to accept them. Debates about immigration in rich countries are increasingly toxic. As the numbers of international students rise, the more often they are drawn into these rows.
"Indeed, Indian students differ from their Chinese counterparts in ways that seem likely to inflame these fights. The Indians are far less wealthy, for a start. They usually favour more affordable, lower-tier universities and incline towards shorter courses. They are much more likely, for example, to study at postgraduate level than as undergraduates. That is because funding a one- or two-year master’s is more manageable than funding a full bachelor’s degree overseas. In Britain, a typical Indian student spends only about half as much on tuition fees as a Chinese one.
"Indian students are also much keener than Chinese ones to remain in the countries where they have studied after graduation. Most big destination countries operate some kind of 'post-study' visa scheme, which permits youngsters to stay on for a few years after they graduate, often with few strings attached. The Chinese, who tend to head home quickly, did not make great use of these. Indians, by contrast, are very keen on them. They look for these schemes when deciding where in the world to study."
Ha it’s funny but I almost view the Indian situation as a positive! (Though I get the main point of the article.)
Maybe for language reasons, and having studied in the UK and at U of T, I found anecdotally that Chinese students have had a worse time assimilating during their studies (and also faced wider accusations of cheating, though I’ve got no data to support this). If you _were_ to want a group of students to stay after a degree, I’d imagine Indians with strong English, a desire and ability to assimilate, and graduate degrees would be preferable to Chinese students who are more insular.
On the other hand, if it is viewed strictly as an export good, then undergrads whose cost to teach is next to nil and who leave to their home country (even if they learned little and absorbed little of the local culture) is of course the preferable customer.