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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Canadian federal government announced its intention to increase the number of legal immigrants by 40% in the coming years, passing to 320,000 or approximately 1% of the total population. This news is more than welcomed for those communities asking for more employees. It's certainly a good news for anyone who tries to migrate to Canada given the huge backlog of 600-700,000 candidates waiting for their files to be processed. More people on board are good for economy and certainly good for real estate markets. The federal government not only wants to see quantitative progress, its major goal is to attract people that will start paying taxes sooner rather than later. As in the past, the emphasis will be put on economic migrants instead of family reunifications.

More than 3 years ago we praised the courage illustrated by Canadian government supported by large national consensus to increase legal immigration quotas and thus postpone inevitable economic and social problems related to aging population. Today we can only confirm out last predictions, i.e. strong recent immigration has helped maintain alive and in good competitive shape several industries, it has kept and pushed up real estate market in many areas, everything else being equal, it has also helped economy move forward, and last but not least it has partly contributed to unparalleled federal budget surpluses.

On the other hand, immigration hasn't solved the problem of shortage of workers in many areas of this country. Small communities complain they need more people to fill positions emptied by early retirements. Poorer communities cannot compete with rich urban centers for attracting new immigrants. More than 80% of all new immigrants settle in and around three major urban centers, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, which account for less than half of the total population. Some of those who initially settle in other areas move later to these three principle destinations.

Another serious problem with many of new immigrants is that most of them don't fill well-paid positions, at least not in the first years after arrival. Medical doctors driving taxis in Toronto, engineers delivering pizzas in Montreal and Vancouver, such stories make neither government, nor society and recent immigrants perfectly happy. They work, they pay taxes, their children are going to schools, they all represent no additional burden for state-funded healthcare, but clearly the efficiency of immigration isn't as high as expected. Having invited professional taxi-drivers, pizza-deliverers and truck-drivers to fill all these positions would have been easier and much less stressful for new arrivers.

That's what the new direction of federal immigration policy is all about. It will stress on finding candidates for positions that stand vacant and won't try to recruit professionals with all-purpose university degrees counting only on their high level of mobility and adaptability. Better having high school and good profession like truck-driver than having university degree with no chances of finding corresponding type of job.

I find this new approach a bit shortsighted. In short-term it will produce better outcome, it will save governments, both federal and provincial, lots of money on profession re-education, and it will make immigrants pay sooner their taxes, the main reason they have been selected. This is all in the positive side of equilibrium. On the other hand, however, the problem with some better-paid jobs remaining vacant will be left unsolved. University degree professional can do a survival job for a while driving a taxi. A taxi-driver with unfinished high school can less easily adapt to new technologies.

The present situation when people on identical educational level, but born in different countries, occupy very different social levels looks unfair. Proposed system when local population and immigrants will be totally separated socially because of their educational disparity may create new kinds of problems. One of them will be socially constructed racism. Another will be relative economic decline of Canada. Third will be creation of ethnic ghettos and increased ethnically based violence. None of these will benefit Canada in a long-term.

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