Opinion

The CBC reported yesterday on an ongoing attempt by the State of North Dakota to attract farmers from Canada. This attempt to incite an “agricultural brain drain” has failed so far (none of the 30 farmers the state has tried to woo so far have accepted the offer), but it reminded me about another type of “brain drain” I became aware of very recently. This form of “brain drain” is quite different, but is an equal or greater threat to Canada’s future.

Preparing for my entrance into the UBC MBA Program, I met several students who were also entering the program. All of them have only been Landed Immigrants for less than a year and came to Canada specifically to attend the MBA program. What’s shocking, at least to me, is that none of these students have any intention of staying in Canada once they have completed their MBA!

Something about this seems wrong. Should these students be counted as part of Canada’s “brain drain”? The term “brain drain” has typically implied losing highly skilled Canadian workers to other markets (primarily the United States). However, I would argue that for this term to apply, the skilled workers in question would have to be truly Canadian in the first place. At this point, it would appear these students are Canadian only for the purpose of short-term gain, rather than long commitment to Canada.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against immigrants. I originally came from Australia, so I’m also an immigrant (though I am now a naturalized Canadian citizen). I’ve lived here twenty-six years, as have my parents. We’ve paid our taxes and contributed our fair share towards building Canada’s social system. For me there seems to be something wrong with allowing people to manipulate the Canadian system to obtain cheap education, healthcare, and other social services at the expense of those of us who have committed to living in Canada. It would seem to me that these students have basically added an extra year to their program in order to bypass the cost of the International Program, before they move onto greener pastures. And they’ve done it at our expense. Who the hell do they think they are?

This is the problem: people are leaving their own country, stopping off in Canada to train up, and then moving onto other countries that are more willing to adequately compensate them for their skills. Is it unethical? Certainly, but it’s also perfectly logical. Why pay for education and healthcare when you can immigrate to Canada, stay long enough get trained (not working or paying taxes during that time), and move on?

What we need is a system that prevents against this kind of abuse. In some ways, we already have this in place; for example, my wife (an American) can’t claim welfare for the next ten years as a condition of her becoming a Landed Immigrant. Suppose that we implemented a sliding scale system for our social services, one that started at 0% coverage by the Canadian government (i.e.: you pay the full cost) to 100% coverage (i.e.: you pay the same as any other Canadian) over a ten-year period.

This would definitely prevent against Canada being taken advantage of by those who would use Canada’s generosity for their own gain. However, such a system would create second-class citizens within the country. Nobody wants to deny rights to those who seek refuge in Canada. But as much as Canada wants to be fair, I think it needs to recognize the world isn’t fair and act to protect itself.

Canada is at risk of turning into a filling station on the “brain drain” freeway. I’d say it’s time we built ourselves a tollbooth.