Former migration director calls for Canadian immigration boost

Robert Vineberg is now a Research Fellow at the Canada West Foundation, an organisation which aims to bring the perspectives of Western Canada to national policy debates. Mr Vineberg has previously held a number of prominent positions with Immigration Canada, including Director of Federal-Provincial Relations and Director, Immigration Case Analysis.

Mr Vineberg is arguing that, due to Canada's own population and labour force growth stagnating, the country should now look to increase the number of arrivals coming via Canadian immigration.

His comments have been made as a result of Canada's major political parties failing to address the over-arching issue of how many immigrants Canada needs, despite all of them expressing support for an increase in Canadian immigration.

Mr Vineberg said: "Most provinces, and particularly the western provinces, want to increase their population and see increased immigration as a major way to do so. The way to expand the federal immigration streams is not to freeze growth in provincial programs but to increase overall levels during the next several years.

"An increase in immigration levels by 50,000 to 300,000 per year would bring the ratio back to the 0.87-per-cent figure of two decades ago. An increase of 100,000 to 350,000 per year would see Canada finally achieve the one-percent-per-year goal that all parties ostensibly espouse."

The Canadian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people make their Canada Visa application to the Canadian Embassy.