AMONG the discussions that the Growth Commission has given new impetus to is how we ensure our population supports our ambitions for Scotland and how we attract the people we need to our country.
One place that we can learn significant lessons from is Canada, as the SNP’s Home Affairs team will be discussing this Saturday at a conference fringe event.
We have had the privilege of visiting Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City to hear first-hand how Canada has become a country that sees “newcomers” as having as a key role in maximising its potential; and how it has achieved such a broad consensus around doing so.
No system can simply be lifted from one to the other, but as one senator pointed out there are significant similarities between Scotland and Canada, in terms of geography and population ambitions.
We came home with lots of ideas about how Scotland could shape its own immigration system – ideally independently – but even while still part of the UK. Because, of course, Canada is one of the leading examples of countries that allow “provincial” flexibility in immigration policy, with provinces – particularly Quebec – exercising significant autonomy over migration programmes.
Within an agreed framework, provinces set about establishing the criteria it would like newcomers to have before drawing “nominees” from a pool of potential applicants. The Ottawa government’s role in this process is essentially to carry out health and security screening – it does not revisit the substance of the application itself.
There is absolutely no reason why we can’t have something similar in Scotland, even while part of the UK.
But that is not all that we learned from our Canadian visit.
In Canada there is no ludicrous “net migration target” plucked from thin air. Instead there is ongoing consultation, annual reports and forward planning on population needs. There has recently been a “national conversation” on future migration policy, starting from the premise that today’s newcomers are “helping to ensure the Canada of tomorrow remains as dynamic as the country of yesterday.”
We were also interested in the Express Entry System. This means rather than having a fixed points-based system and working through a perpetual backlog of applications chronologically, in Canada “expressions of interest” are sought and an ever-evolving points ranking applied before any application (and fee) is actually submitted. Points are awarded both for long-term “human capital” that people can bring and whether they match shorter-term skills shortages – as well as factors such as links to a particular province. Full applications are then invited so individuals and officials spend less time on applications that were never likely to succeed, while those that qualify benefit from faster turnaround times.
The Post Study Work visa puts the UK’s to shame – illustrating exactly why the SNP has long advocated a similar system to attract international students.
On asylum, we heard first-hand of the remarkable community sponsorship scheme that has attracted global attention, and about how a more generous family reunion scheme is seen as vital in allowing refugees to fully settle and integrate.
Speaking of which, there is no doubt that Canada is among world leaders on integration more generally. The Canadians invest in integration even from before arrival, and there are lessons to learn about how pathways to citizenship can be pivotal in encouraging integration.
Every country can learn from others – but Canada is definitely a place that can do much more teaching than most and we should look to learn from their best practice.
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