[Bruce_the_vii]

There's no stinking economists, my boy.

In the early 1990's Canada experienced a deep recession and a slow recovery. In the Greater Toronto Area the recovery to the former jobs peak took 6 years and 5 months. That's from the peak of June 1990 to November 1996. In that time span the Immigration Department added 558,579 people to the area. That's five army group equivalence standing by for the recovery, before a single net new job was created. The 558,579 people simply disappeared down the dysfunctional hole that is the field of economics and no one knew any better. There are probably no economists in Canada watching these statistics, the field being small and short of funding.

The city has not yet recovered, as immigration has been held at a high level. The area has had some 1.5 million new comers since 1990. This shows up in the statistics as a depressed employment rate, something economists also ignor.

…………Statistics Canada labour force survey
………………for GTA (Toronto CMA)

year GTA employment in 1000s
2007 2865
2006 2802
2005 2763
2004 2707
2003 2648
2002 2590
2001 2537
2000 2455
1999 2354
1998 2290
1997 2223
1996 2127
1995 2089
1994 1994
1993 1996
1992 1996
1991 2024
1990 2135


Peak employment in 1980’s business cycle
Jun-90 2184.08


Recovery point to that peak in GTA
Nov-96 2183.97




Statistics Canada table 051-0039
..Immigration to Toronto area

1986/1987 43,256
1987/1988 56,120
1988/1989 66,671
1989/1990 72,228
1990/1991 79,047
1991/1992 86,872
1992/1993 98,762
1993/1994 83,762
1994/1995 86,997
1995/1996 84,670
1996/1997 92,316
1997/1998 82,285
1998/1999 70,804
1999/2000 88,256
2000/2001 117,602
2001/2002 123,836
2002/2003 87,495
2003/2004 102,536
2004/2005 103,948
2005/2006 109,349
2006/2007 93,341

[Bruce_the_vii]

There is, however, awareness in the population that all is not well. The people do not need any stinking statistics. Problems with employment are widespread and have been for a long time. You get any group of adults together in Toronto and there will be people in the group with employment problems. While some people are inured to this there is a general resentment. And this is pretty much across Canada. This is politics. On a political forum such as this people should be able to see that this is a grass roots issue.

[Axeman]

Even if I believed what you'd written, I'm not sure how anything you've said is to be blamed on economists. If you want to blame 1990s job losses on someone, blame the government. Economists didn't pass the FTA or make any of the horrible municipal decisions in the GTA. Economists don't run Immigration.

[Bruce_the_vii]

I didn't say they were responsible for this exactly, I said they had no idea how the economy is working. My boy.

As for believing it I gave the Statistics Canada table references so you can check it for $6 plus tax.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Any who, these are by way of broad hints for the politicos of this board. My boy.

[mstob]

hmm.. what does this have to do with economists?

[Bruce_the_vii]

Well, we are sort of flying without a compass, it's a general feeling around, and economists aren't fullfiling their role. Lack of funding I suppose. But thanks for responding. Of course the government should be shot. In fact they sort of did.

[Axeman]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

I didn't say they were responsible for this exactly, I said they had no idea how the economy is working. My boy.

As for believing it I gave the Statistics Canada table references so you can check it for $6 plus tax.

I'm not your boy, and you're making blanket statements. I believed where you GOT your stats, it was your misuse of them that I questioned.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Well, blanket statement. You know immigration is actually the force behind the growth of the nation - it's a national economic strategy and economists have not paid attention to it. That's the state of the science, or art as it is.

[Bruce_the_vii]

The term, my boy is pretty mild. However I can see it getting a lot of use around here.

[Axeman]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

Well, blanket statement. You know immigration is actually the force behind the growth of the nation - it's a national economic strategy and economists have not paid attention to it. That's the state of the science, or art as it is.

Which economists? Why economists? Why not lawyers or politicians? You're talking out your ass. Maybe the reason we don't pay attention to it is that we either don't care about it or are not employed to research it or have areas of economic skill and interest that are totally unreleated. You blame a dentist if your knee surgery goes bad? How about you just start at the beginning and state your thesis coherently. Then I'll lend you my education in a thoughtful response.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Ok, my post was very brief. A major aspect of our economy is immigration. Yet economists do not pay attention to what is going on in that area. My statistic shows that it is out of control but unreported. What has gone wrong. Very probably there are few economists paying attention to the situation simply because of lack of funding. So this is a social problem. I phrased this "there are no economists". Makes sense to me. Anyway, thanks for asking.

[CommanderSock]

There are plenty of research papers out there that deal with the economical impact of immigration in Canada.

Just check the research websites of Canada's biggest universities and you'll find plenty of economical research analysis and essays.

[Bruce_the_vii]

That's true. I've followed immigration for 17 years and read 7 books on the topic. Most of these research papers are pretty limited. For example in Canada they tend to measure the income of recent immigrants compared to the Canadian average. The idea is that immigrants should do average and Canadians do the working class jobs. The statistic I posted indicates just how limited the information of these experts is.

[CommanderSock]

Canada has been trying to increase its population since it was a British colony. There will always be pro and anti immigration folks. They've been around since the first French settlers.

Why would economists spend all their time documenting and researching immigration. We have jist of what is going on, and we realize we need a higher population to sustain the country and its growing infrastructure in the long run.