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SBOT hosts Breakfast with Federal Minister of Immigration - The Honourable Ahmed D. Hussen

9-05-2018

On Tuesday August 21, 2018 - Surrey Board of Trade hosted a Breakfast with Federal Minister of Immigration -The Honourable Ahmed D. Hussen MP.

Local business leaders had a chance to meet and have a conversation with the Minister over breakfast.

The Minister in his speech talked about, "Why Immigration Matters to our Economy".

Once a newcomer to Canada himself, Minister Hussen combined storytelling with facts to dispel common myths about immigrants and refugees.  

This event is part of the Minister’s cross-country tour on “Why Immigration Matters” to start a conversation about the importance of immigration to grow our economy and the benefits at the local/community level.

The Minister in his address highlighted some facts that would change the perception of Immigrants to Canada.

He mentioned that we have an aging population and 5 million Canadians will retire by 2025. In the Fraser valley region about 935 000 workers will retire. This will have a huge impact on our economy. Therefore, Business will loose billions.

By 2035 there will be 2 working Canadians supporting retiring workers. That will have a burden on our health care and other services.

 In light of the need of new workers, the Canadian Govt. has a plan to bring more people to Canada.

This year alone there will be about 310 000 permanent immigrants. By next year it will be 320000 reaching to 340 000 by 2020.

The minister said, "Our Govt has reduced the spousal backlogs from 75000 to 15000", and "Living in Caregiver from 62000 to 12000", Citizenship times have been reduced to 12 months from 24 months."

He also acknowledged this is having a toll on housing and the government is responding by allocating $40B for 10-years in their national housing strategy.

The minister also highlighted some positive contributions on immigrants such a Tony Singh CEO of Fruiticana who now employs hundreds across the region.






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Article Source: ALAMEENPOST.COM