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With apologies to Ernie here's 10 pages of statistics on the Liberal-Conservative Party .

.................................The Liberal and Conservative Abuse of the Central Economies of Canada:
......................................................The economics, politics and solutions.
..................................................................(work-in-progress)

In the past 35 year, since 1973, some 85% of immigrants have gone to Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. These cities have been abused by the Immigration Department on the basis that experts say there is no statistical proof immigration causes unemployment. So now these cities' vital statistics tell a story. It is that the Liberals and Conservatives have damaged them despite the fact they have healthy, robust economies. Some statistics follow. Talking about it aloud in Parliament would be taboo, for fear of repercussions.

Child Poverty in Main Canadian Cities

The 2006 Census gives child poverty in Canada's main cities as follows:

Montreal City……..36.8%......(pop. 1,620,000)
City of Toronto……31.8%......(pop. 2,503,000)
Vancouver City……28.7%......(pop. 578,000)

…………………The median income of families with children, 2005.

ONTARIO…………………..$54.3k
The City of Toronto (416)…..$41.5k
Arithmetic Difference……….$12.8k

The City of Toronto has been hollowed out.


………………………………Low wage Data

City………………………..Percent of workers over 20
…………………………….earning $12 an hour or less

Calgary (at full employment)....7%

Montreal...................................17%
Toronto……............................17%
Vancouver...............................15%


Real Unemployment in Main Canadian Cities

...................................................Calgary.............Montreal........Toronto........Vancouver

2008 Employment Rate...............73.6%........59.5%..........62.1..........62.4%
2008 Official ..............................3.5..........7.4..........6.9..........4.3%
2008 Real Unemployment..........3.5..........17.5..........16.0..........14.8%

*Here the lowish level of employment in the three biggest cities is contrasted with the full employment of Calgary (and all of Alberta). It's adjusted for differences in people over 64. Technically this is the "participation rate", a standard statistic.


Robust Growth of Main Canadian Cities

Here's the growth in employment in the 10 years to 2005. It's been robust but was overwhelmed by aggressive immigration.

. ………………… Percent Employment Growth over 10 Years

Calgary……………………42.0%

Montreal……......................20.3%
Toronto……........................31.4%
Vancouver….......................24.3%.

In the last 19 years some 1.5 million foreigners have been moved into the Greater Toronto Area. In the City of Toronto half of the greater area the child poverty rate arched up to 37% in 1997 and was at 32% in the 2006 Census. It's unacceptable. Toronto is the economic heartland of Canada. The only thing serial Immigration Department cabinet ministers, about 10 of them now, knew is that the Department brief tells them immigrants bring skills, ideas and energy. To a man they have been naive, almost apolitical but definitely program spending hungry. The Immigration Department's data to the Minister was a pack of lies sold as politically correct reasoning. The Immigration Department is dysfunctional as the bankrupt banks we are seeing currently around the world. The federal Human Resources Department has been a hand maiden to the process.

The pervasive poverty and low wages in these main cities is high enough now to touch almost every family. It's that political.

This is all the result of targeting long term growth as an economic strategy.

I'm very terse in person Ernie. You should come out to a Fest so we can meet you.

A legislated $13 an hour minimum wage for Alberta is reasonable.

People think a minimum wage increase will screw the economy, cost jobs and inflate. In fact the numbers are not that bad and there are compelling reasons to do it.

Here is the low wage data for four cites.


City………………………..Percent of workers over 20
…………………………….earning $12 an hour or less

Calgary....................................7%

Montreal...................................17%
Toronto……............................17%
Vancouver...............................15%


If you raise the bottom ten percent $2 an hour on average the inflation is about ½%. That's what would be required in Alberta to come to a minimum wage of $13. Here's the calculation using the national figures:

In 2009 there were 17,100 people working and raising 10% some $2 an hour would cost $6.8 billion. As the 2008 GDP was $1,398 billion that is 0.49%.

It's a transfer, a tax, and it would cost jobs the amount of the inflation - 0.49% of jobs. (The jobs lost at the bottom would be more than that amount but the consumers lost go down the street, spend and replace some of the jobs.)

A higher minimum wage does the following:

*Cuts low pay jobs that are subsidized.
*The transfer is mostly within a family because many families have someone working at low wages.
*Is less exploitive. Canada has this exploitive wage problem.
*A higher minimum wage would slow economic growth but only at the bottom where there is a net subsidy
*In particular applies to women who's first job is child rearing and do not have skills training.

The business cycle impacts on minimum wage and people there need some protection. Unions, at 30% of jobs in Canada, are protected presently as are skilled and professional workers, some 50% of the labour force. Skilled and professionals are protected by virtue of the fact there is a barrier to entry to any field of the training costs. This keeps the markets tight and the wages up. It's a privileged position.

The real kicker is that if the labour market was allowed to work without immigration there would be prices rises at the bottom. Immigration always begets a little unemployment and this keeps the defacto minimum wage down. If you are going to immigrate you should protect the least well off workers with a minimum wage equal to what their market value would be.

Median wage in Calgary is $23 an hour and $13 an hour is only 56% of that.

One in Six Workers will drop out of labour force and stay at home.

I've looked at the labour force data carefully and found in the worst major city in Canada, Saguenay in Quebec, one in six workers has dropped out of the labour force because of the difficulty of finding a job. The data is Saguenay's employment rate amongst adults compared to the best employment rate around, Calgary in 2008. The official unemployment in Saguenay in the 2006 Census was 8.8% but the comparison to Calgary makes it 23.1%. One in six workers had the means and inclination to drop out of the labour force and do other things. This hidden unemployment is a major economic shock absorber for society. The real unemployment in Canada in 2008, pre-recession, was 12.4% using the Calgary comparison. The data had to be corrected for people over 64, who are typically retired.

Here's the direct cost of unemployment from inappropriate immigration. Circa 2005 it was $45 billion annually. I posted this table last year but the following is my new Excel spreadsheet data rather than my less accurate days of calculator work. It's tweeked for a differenct best case figure and such things as more old people in some cities.



Annual Cost of Long Term Inappropriate Immigration
.........................2005 Data

The table below compares immigration to Canadian cities over 19 years to the real unemployment and the resultant immigrants that were actually needed and absorbed into employment. The data is for the 19 years to 2005. The real unemployment is relative to the gold standard of 72.7% adult participation which has been reached by the best cities. I allow a 3% baseline unemployment as full employment, that is an additional 3% of the urban population as absorbed immigrants in good cases.


………………………….......Official………………........Real……...............Immigrants….Immigrants
………………………......Unemployment……........Unemployment……………….........absorbed
………………………………………………....................Estimate….……………………...........into
……………………………………………………………………………….......................................employment

Montreal……......................8.7%.......................15.6% ……….13.2%............ 0.6%
Toronto……........................7.0%........................13.5%.............26.5%……… 16.0%
Vancouver….......................5.7%.......................13.9%............. 22.9% ………12.0%

Ottawa-Gatineau..................6.6%.......................11.2%………..13.3%............ 5.1%
Oshawa……........................6.4%.......................11.7%……….. 4.0%...............nil
Hamilton……......................5.5%.......................11.7%………..9.2%................0.5%
St. Catherines.......................7.0%.......................13.9%………..5.5%............... nil
London……………………...........6.6%.......................10.4%………..10.4%...............3.0%
Windsor……........................7.9%.......................17.9%………..13.9%............. nil
Kitchener……......................5.7%.......................8.4%…………12.1%.............6.7%
Sudbury…………………….......7.7%.......................19.6%……….1.7%............. nil
Thunder Bay……………….....7.0%.......................12.4%………..3.2%............. nil

Winnipeg……......................4.8%.......................9.2%………….9.2%..............3.0%
Regina……….......................4.9%.......................7.3%……….. 5.4%...............1.1%
Saskatoon……......................5.0%.......................8.8%……….. 5.6%...............nil
Calgary………......................3.9%.......................8.2%…………11.9%............6.7%
Edmonton……......................4.5%.......................10.8%………..8.2%..............0.4%
Victoria……………………........./.4.4%.......................9.4%…………5.6%..............nil

St. John's.…………………........8.9%.......................19.3%………..2.8%..............nil
Halifax…………………….........5.8%.......................11.9%………..6.6%...............nil
St. John…………………….........1%.......................17.3%………..1.7%..............nil
Saquenay……………………....9.9%.......................24.2%………..2.7%.............nil
Quebec……………………........5.6%.......................11.4%………...4.2%..............nil
Trois-Rivieres………………....8.8%.......................15.3%………..1.8%..............nil
Sherbrooke………………….....7.3%.......................15.7%………..8.4%..............nil


Over 19 years there were some 3,711,000 immigrants to the main cities for which there were jobs available for 1,328,000 (that'd be a corresponding work force of 810,000).

Allowing that 15% of immigrants returned home, the immigrant population is similar to the Canadian population demographically so the same proportion will work and that immigrants earn as much as Canadians over the long term a figure for the annual cost to the economy of the unemployment associated with inappropriate immigration accumulated over 19 years is arrived at. It is well known that immigrants do not go on welfare disproportionately rather they work which means some else sits out of employment in the case of a soft economy, so there's that cost to family income of this employment musical chairs. The jobs market is very dynamic, people being trained and retrained all the time, so except for true skills shortages, which are rare in the modern situation, ill-timed immigration just displaces citizens. Some 51% of immigrants were needed for jobs or returned home while 49% of immigrants were absorbed into unemployment indirectly after 19 years. This unemployment is 6.4% of the 2005 labour force nationally. The cost of the inappropriate immigration is thus 6.4% of the annual national Labour Income of $694 billion (50.47% of the GDP of $1.375 trillion) for a sum of $45 billion annually circa 2005. That's 3.24% of the GDP, an amount equal to 19% of all federal taxes.

Over the long term, 20 years, the accrued cost from the unemployment from inappropriate immigration would be over $500 billion. I have diplomatic communication from about 100 elected officials on this, they get the problem, but there will be no mention of it in public forums by them as it's irresponsible and unresolved.

You can get approximately the same data from looking at the "Community Profiles" from the census data listed on Statistics Canada home page. You look up a city and scroll down to the labour force data. It's for free, takes five minutes.

Oh, here
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-591/index.cfm?Lang=E