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I think this was a great video. I’m glad you mentioned the difference in wages because what that really indicates is that Canada doesn’t suffer from a shortage of skilled labour if anything we have the opposite: a glut. What we need is more business investment in our economy but the federal government seems completely uninterested in that topic. Well at least for the immigrants that do come here once they get their citizenship it becomes much easier to work in the states under NAFTA so I guess we’re kinda a back door.

I was born in Canada and studied here and it was harder to find a job in Canada than the US. Luckily, TN is far easier than H1B so I can at least work here temporarily. But if I wanted to stay for more than 3-6 years, I’d want to look at a green card. But because TN is non-immigrant, I’d have to stay in the US between applying for a green card and getting it. Luckily, there is not much of a wait for Canadians. And I guess given that H1B people need permission to leave, our ability to leave and comeback however much we want is a luxury (though you could always get a difficult officer)

Only the uneducated would think Sikhs are Muslim terrorists. \nThey've been here for 8 yrs and it doesn't seem like they know a lick of English or care to even learn. I'm sure when they came they knew the risks of being illegal immigrants. There's a reason why these ppl come here either for medical benefits or working under the table. \nIf they're not paying into the Canadian economy and leeching off the taxpayers they need to be deported back to their country. Sorry if this may sound harsh, but i'm tired of working day and night to pay taxes to support these refugees and lazy welfare Canadians.

Not entirely accurate. It's pro-wealthy immigration here in Canada absolutely. It's citizenship for sale. Not necessarily wealthy in terms of really wealthy (like Switzerland) but it's definitely citizenship for sale, so if you don't have money, don't bother. Newcomers with medical and engineering expertise can't get jobs here in Canada, in spite of our healthcare system being on the point of collapse and our supposed hi-tech push. Regulatory boards here have made it impossible. Estimates are around 175000 qualified, internationally trained doctors and nurses who gave up trying to practice here and moved into other careers. Ukrainian doctors, for eg, with extensive trauma experience and willing to staff our emergency departments have been told they have to requalify by going to Canadian medical school to retrain for at least 4 years. Same story in engineering. By IT, our government seems to mean low-paid call center IT work, moving the IT sweatshop racket from India onto Canadian soil. If you can afford to buy a business - I believe the total business investment was 500 000 pre-pandemic - that's another way in. Not sure if thats gone up now. So many of our franchise businesses are essentially being used as citizenship tickets. The big ticket item: If you can afford 4 years of postgraduate or undergrad university program, or 3 to 4 year college program - and if you don't have the cash, loan sharks in India will distribute debt across the whole family for decades so one student can go . There us a very good documentary by an Indian filmmaker on the Canadian college/University recruitment drive in India and its consequences. Several of our colleges have student enrollments at over 70% of the entire student body, direct entry from India. Additional problems like grade inflation, different education standards, and outright fraud on ESL testing also mean that Indian students are not well prepared for school here. Many do not have enough English to succeed in their studies. They either need to spend for additional tutoring, take a qualifying year or two ESL (on top of the 3 or 4 program), or fail courses. Universities and colleges keep the tuition though. Honestly our colleges and universities are staying afloat because of Indian students. They're being treated like cash cows - and Indian recruiters are scamming the system, taking fees on their end with unsuspecting students getting falsified documents, or being told they passed their ESL when they didn't. It's a national disgrace. I'm a prof here, I've seen all of this firsthand. Your data may be correct, but the narrative you've constructed for it is not the real picture.

Brown people move to white countries. White people don’t go to Brown countries. If I a white man went to a Muslim country and tried to open a Christian church I would be killed or Jailed. Or if you, a white woman, immigrated to Iran the morality police would jail you for not wearing a haji. I’m sure their banks would have no white people on their board. See how that works!!!

My mother immigrated with me and my 2 sisters to the U.S from Tanzania in 1999 on a work visa. Within months we all had our SSNs and within a couple of yrs we all had our green cards. My sisters and I have been citizens for a while now but my point is that watching this video has truly opened my eyes to the struggles my mother faced. She never complained or made us privy to her challenges. We never once had to think about our immigration status because we were all enrolled in elementary school within a month of arriving in this country. My mother is now deceased but watching this video has truly made me grateful for all the sacrifices and work she put in to ensure we stayed here permanently.

I am a Canadian citizen who worked in the US. Please stop blindly extolling Canada for accepting more immigrants. There is nothing inherently good or bad about immigration. It is a simply a socioeconomic policy decision that every country needs to make for itself, for the benefit of its EXISTING citizens. I’m not going to blindly applaud any country, including my own, just because it welcomed xyz immigrants.

House prices have increased because of businesses and law firms investing in the housing market. Ask your landlord who owns the house. They knew the market trend with the immigrants surging in. Brain drain comes from companies in Canada hiring immigrants with education, and accept lower wages. Americans work harder because they get paid more and know most of it does not go to tax. In Canada, its better to not work overtime because you get put into another tax bracket and you end getting pennies on the dollar. Nobody mentions the Colonial political system we have. A Governor General??

Canada accepts many immigrants to work as factory workers, or servants.

Sky high inflation. Housing costs through the roof. Unaffordable for most. Refugees living on the street. The Federal Government lets all these immigrants in and then does not fund the provinces and municipalities to take care of them. Doctors and professional trades cannot get certification to work in Canada.

Generations of Americans have worked their asses off to improve America and instead of people trying to better their country they just give up and flee to America. Wait until America is so over populated it no longer is a free country. Greedy lazy immigrants will destroy america

Im an immigrant here in Canada for 12 years now, but me and my family are happy and we have saved money for the future im so sad it doesn't work for you. Everyone has different experiences, I love my tropical country but I feel safer and contented in Canada anyway im living and working in Edmonton as a red seal welder and grateful for this country for paying me 65 dollars an hour which very impossible to get if im living in my country. My Two boys work as Barbers at their own shop and the youngest is a Nurse... I hope it will work for you two ladies also. Thank you and GoD Bless You ALL!!!

Those immigrants will get Canadian citizenship and use TN visa to get back to work in the US, so the US will still win and Canada will still lose.

The issue with expecting to be sponsored when applying for a job is that LMIAs are costly for employers, and employers don't like spending money. Employers will typically prefer to hire local candidates who have a Canadian work permit. Why do people have such an aversion to consulting an immigration lawyer while still in their home country coming to Canada with an open work permit? Can someone please clarify this for me, because I keep coming across people who reach out to me on LinkedIn from overseas expecting my employer connections to sponsor them, and I have to say no to them every time because so few employers are willing to sponsor. Any insight on this will be much appreciated!

The summary touched on but didn't expand on one aspect: many use Canada as a back door entry into the US.\n\nSpeaking as a professional level Canadian living in the US, the Canadian brain drain is very much real. The cost of living discrepancy and wage limitations make the US a constant appeal for Canadian professionals.\n\nBecomes more realistic to immigrate to Canada, get a good education, residency/citizenship, work for a couple of years to gain experience... and then start job hunting in the US.\nMight take a few years but likely shorter and better odds than a lottery.

I'm not an immigration expert or an economist, but the problem with Canada isn't our immigration system, but WHAT the immigrants do afterwards. Sure, we take in hundreds of thousands of them...but for what jobs? Is Canada, for example, a truly dynamic tech hub? At one point yes, but only briefly and it seems like that process has stalled out considerably since the pandemic.\nDo we have the infrastructure for all of these people or are we adding hundreds of thousands of new competitors for housing? We have population growth, but the wages are so uncompetitive that it increasingly feels like Canada is inviting immigrants in to build the country...but Canadians have to create things for them to build or else, this doesn't really work, and these highly mobile, educated people will end up leaving (which is already a problem).

@polymatter: \nI have enjoyed your videos for a long time. You do great job in explaining the finer details.\nThis video particularly hits hard to me as I am Indian living in USA on a H1B visa. I did my masters here in US and have been working for past 5 yrs, in total 7 years. My company just initiated my i140 application which will take around 3 yrs to complete then the wait for GC will start for 15yrs (for Indians only). During this time we are at the employers mercy. We do get high salaries. But we are in a perpetually limbo. Its hard to find a spouse, start a family or invest in property as your future here is uncertain. \n\nThe H1B lottery system was introduced to keep the selection fair, as there are limited number of applications accepted each year. Hence it is a gamble for immigrants wanting to come here to study and work. The chance of getting H1B is almost 50/50. H1B visa is a temporary work visa, it was designed to be applicable for 3-4yrs until one gets the GC. But because of GC country backlog folks are on it for 15-20yrs.\n\nThe Greencard country limits were introduced in 2009 as the US government felt they needed diversity in the country. They were scared that US will be filled with Indians and Chinese immigrants. Hence the country caps on each country on GC. So if one is born in Nepal, Sri Lanka or Pakistan they get their GC within 1-3 yrs. Where as Indians need to wait 15-20yrs. But here is the wired part, they only consider the country of birth NOT citizenship. Ex: My friend was born in Oman and was raised in India, he is Indian and has Indian citizenship. He got his GC in 1 yr. \n\nThese H1B policies are not a priority to the US government as H1B folks do not have voting rights. They do not have any incentives to change the legacy policies. And we as immigrants in US have no voice except to sit back and pray we get lucky. \n \nThanks for shining a light on this issue. Appreciate it!!

Every single sentence in this video is a brief summary of another immigration nightmare that takes another 15 mnutes to explain. Only an immigrant can feel this pain. Oh and btw, if Sanjay brings over his partner while on H1B, the partner does not have the right to work in the US by default. Sanjay has to provide for the whole family. If Sanjay's families are living in India? Choose between the risk of being denied US re-entry, or not visiting them for decades until getting the green card. The choice between US and Canada is a choice amongst family, career, freedom, and affordable housing. You can't have them all. Although that said, life's struggles are not just for immigrants. I suppose everyone faces them in certain forms.

Canada has another problem that you forgot to cover. Canada isn't an entrepreneurial nation like America. Canadians are less risk taking compared to Americans which means you can have an influx of immigrants but less jobs for them therefore they will leave back to their own countries again. Most of the top employers of engineers in Canada are foreign companies, not local. Salaries in America are high due to the immense labor competition for engineers as there are more startups and entrepreneurial people. \n\nThen in Canada they require certain Canadian certifications especially for doctors which isn't as bad as in the US. So you have some engineers or doctors that end up working low paid jobs since they would have to repeat school in Canada from an accredited Canadian university. I don't see this as a problem for the US at all because these immigrants aren't going to create new companies and are merely looking for a job. Canadians not being as entrepreneurial and not starting companies to compete for the talents of these professionals will just result in these professionals working out of the Canadian offices of American and Asian tech companies.\n\nOverall not a win or loss for America. Even if these guys end up working in the Canadian division of American companies, American companies will still have the benefit of their talent which is a win at a lower cost for the US companies.

I think this is the sauce of America. The system wants immigrants to work and use their skills to build up America then the government doesn't want them to get a slice of the pie

US doesnt need to open to new workers since immigrants to CA will eventually join the citizenship, get a TN VISA and work in US anyways.

My cousin immigrated in USA from India, working as a highly skilled tech worker went to Canada just due to how scuffed USA immigration policies are and is now living in Vancouver. He's trying to come back to USA though lmao

Lemme skip to the end and take a guess as to what's actually happening.\n\nIndians go to Canada first so they can get to their final destination, America, faster. Once they're Canadian citizens, they can apply for US green card and travel easily to America in the meantime. They can work and bide their time in Canada while working in America only having to return to Canada every six months or so instead of back to India.\nBottom line:\nEvery foreigner who goes through the trouble to become a US citizen (clearly worth all that trouble) should be absolutely against ALL illegal immigrants who just walk across the southern border and demand to stay.

Canada is not the only county seeing this, and the US not the only country turning it's back on the benifits of immigration. You could have made the exact same video about Ireland vs the UK (except wages in Ireland are far high rather than lower than the UK) Here in Ireland we have long benefitted a great level of immigration fuelling rapid economic growth but since 2016 with Brexit, Trump ect. making it clear that immigrents aren't welcome in some other counrties we have seen a whole new type of immigrent from countries like Mexico where recent graduates seaking work experence in English pick Ireland rather than the US or UK as we have a better immigration system but also a culture which welcomes immigration as an endorcment of our country. Here the more you are proud of you country and culture the more you go out of your way to welcome immigrents who are the living embodyment of your belief that we are the greatest counrty in the world, not the welcome immigrents can expect from nationalists in the US or UK. The big winners here are countries like Canada & Ireland who have recognised that in the 21st Century it's not coal, iron or even oil that brings wealth but rather being able to attract the best & brightest talent in the world.

I can't help but wonder if Canada was a more attractive place to immigrate to, if they'd be forced to make it more difficult. Essentially the US is hard because it's more desirable, and Canada is easy because it's less desirable. Additionally, the fact that Canada has an easier time giving people work visas/permeant residence, I wonder if that's what drives their tech wages down so much. They don't seem to have the same requirement as the US, that a foreign-born worker be paid the same as a locally born one? The fact that it's a flat number from each country, and not based on population or applicants, is really broken imo.

As a Yank ?? who immigrated to ?? Canada, it was the best move I could have made. As a teacher I had better working conditions, respect, and take home pay. (Oregon spends more per teacher but because health care insurance, the teachers get less money in their pockets. ) An retirement in Canada is even better.

I am a Canadian immigrant myself.. was forced to voluntarily leave the country after 20+ years of living and working there.. it's a well known fact that Canada is taking in almost an un capped number people that can't make it to the US or other countries.. the numbers are high and nowhere near sustainable for the economy to support so many. It's common for us H1B workers to migrate to Canada permanently and their employers normally move their US Jobs to Canada as well, with a lower pay and pushing healthcare and retirement costs over to the Canadian system while doing so.. just make a trip to Canada to see for yourself what this has done to Canada.. unaffordable housing, salaries that don't cover the cost of living, a healthcare, retirement and education system that is on the brink of collapse, widespread homelessness and fentanyl abuse, just a destruction of society and the nation overall.

I have mixed feelings about this video. This video does a good job outlining the immigration process but it does not highlight any of the negative consequences of immigration that Canada is experiencing. One of the main reasons why cost of living is so high in Toronto and Vancouver is precisely because we have so many immigrants coming in without enough housing supply. This is by design because politicians and the upper class have a vested interest in keeping real estate prices high because so much of their net worth is tied up in the housing market.\n\nAnother negative is that employers hire immigrants working low skilled jobs and pay them less than Canadians because the immigrants are willing to be taken advantage of since they're just happy to have a job in Canada which pays better than their country. \n\nAnother myth that gets repeated is that Canadian takes immigrants out of compassion and unfortunately a lot of Canadians believe this. It was never about compassion, it's about bringing more people to 1) pay taxes to support our social welfare as Canadian birth rates decline and boomers retire, 2) keep housing costs high and 3) pay immigrants lower wages for the same work because immigrants are fine being exploited since they have a job in a first world country.\n\nAnother problem is the cultural shift. In the most immigrant-dense regions you'll find that many immigrants themselves surprisingly don't want more immigrants coming to Canada because they see these negative consequences. The people who are most pro-immigration have no problem cramming 8+ people in a basement and exploiting their labour because they make enough money to live in communities that immigrants can't afford, and so they don't have to deal with the cultural shift that's taking place. This is NOT the fault of immigrants, but rather the politicians who put economic growth over quality of life. Over HALF the people in the GTA weren't born in Canada, so they didn't go through our school system and have no connection to our culture. Canada is unfortunately going to become very racist over the next 10-20 years as Canadians start feeling like outsiders in their own country. It's somehow considered racists to criticize the effect of multiculturalism on social unity, yet the cultures we accept in Canada only became distinct cultures because of monoculturalism.

Wow! This video is very informative and eye-opening for many prospective immigrants. Thank you. Keep up the excellent work!

There have been numerous cases of CBP/DHS officers at airports (most commonly LAX) tricking unsuspecting immigrants into signing an I-407 form, i.e. voiding the green card they spent decades working for. Apparently the officers did this for shits and giggles.\n\nProminent case law examples include Matter of Y-G-, 20 I&N Dec. 794 (BIA 1994), Matter of Wood, No. A24-653-925 (BIA Jan. 13, 1992), and the Tareq and Ammar Brothers case.

Immigrants who've illegally crossed the US Southern border won't have their cases heard until 2030. Chicago city council meeting recently turned into chaos as citizens complained that these new immigrants are making life miserable for them\n Once these migrants get work permits they'll take jobs Americans refuse to take.\nIt's idiot policies of the Democrat party to take in the world's refuse; ie, criminals,mentally ill and other undesirables while blocking the best. It doesn't make sense. \nCanada, land of the million dollar homes and extreme taxation.

The one thing this video doesn't mention is the TN visa which lets Canadians work in the US without going through the H1-B lottery. In the best case, an immigrant to Canada can be a citizen in 3.5 years and then easily work in the US via the TN visa. Boom.

As a European I would say don’t complain! Neither Canada or the US! At least the bulk of your immigrants are educated! We here in Europe get all the uneducated and unwilling immigrants who’s sole purpose is to leech of our welfare system! \n\nAs that scene in South Park “they toook our jobsss”. they didn’t take our jobs, they just straight up take our money and sit on their ass having us to work to support them.

The US immigration system works well for employers, not for the immigrants.

As someone who works for an immigration firm, I didn't quite understand why there were so many Canadian foreign national until now. Well done

To the anti-immigrant fools in the comments, who hate that productive, rich, taxible people come to work in Canada: remeber that the enemies of affordable housing are those NIMBYs who stop us from building houses and apartments. We will all be swimming in gold once we actually start building at higher rates--which is the historical norm.

I suspect that the wages paid referenced in the video reflect, at least in part, the fact the US immigration and work permit system is so restrictive.\n\nThose restrictions can artificially inflate the wages due to the small supply. It would be informative to look at how both countries compare to other major markets. Maybe Canadian wages are ridiculously low. Or maybe US ones ridiculously high.

Yep. I work on H-1B visas. This year’s selection was pretty bad. Which is why we’re having a second lottery drawing sometime this year. Some other options are continuing to remain in school or looking into other visa types. Best to speak to an immigration attorney to see if you have other options.\n\nYou don’t have to leave the US to extend your H-1B status though… if you’ve been outside the us for any length of time you can also “recapture” those days to extend the length of your H-1B. Example: if you’ve been outside the US or in a different visa status, like H-4, for 30 days, you can push out your H-1B expiry date by an extra 30 days the next time you are submitting an extension.

US immigration isn't broken it's working exactly as intended. you aren't entitled to live here just because you make above the median income.

As an American, I would have felt sorry for our strict immigration policies. Then I lived abroad and realized it's far more generous than where these immigrants are coming from. Work visa are more strict in other countries, the path to citizenship is denied, and property ownership is precarious. The Golden Rule should apply, treat immigrants to your country the way you want to be treated. Otherwise, don't complain and be grateful for the opportunity. Our immigration polcies should not change until it is reciprocated.

As someone who works within the immigration system in Canada, I feel you did a good job on this and presented this in a simple way that is consumable for most people. Obviously our system has its flaws and it is quite difficult for some people however at the end of the day it is a much more transparent and fair system.

This is something that could really help my industry if that 65,000 was raised. Everybody knows aviation is a tight industry, and with a massive labor shortage. The flight school I attend is half immigrants, mostly Japanese and Korean with a moderate minority of Europeans and Africans. The Asian students are for the most part wanting to stay in the US, despite not coming from poor nations. The opportunity for a pilot here is leagues above anywhere else bar Europe, but most will likely not even be able to maintain a work visa, let alone a green card. This also means (as pointed out) that leaving the country is hard, and they would only be allowed to fly domestic flights within the country (no flying to Canada). The issues that these highly qualified pilots could solve by being allowed to work in the US airline industry are inconceivable.\n\nIt took my mum (I was born British-American) took 9 years to become a US citizen, I was there for her first swearing in, and the UK is America’s closest ally. Imagine how difficult it is for immigrants not of such nationality.

It's cute that you think immigration in canada works. It's actually broken and hurts the quality of life of every canadian.

Canada wants permanent immigrants, not temporary workers, and makes it harder to hire foreign workers by requiring companies to apply for LMIA that takes months to be approved, if approved. The US (and most other countries) wants the opposite, and as soon as you are no longer necessary they kick you out. This gives visa holders a disadvantage related to other workers in the same industry since they are tied to an employer and can't just quit. In fact, they are at a mercy of the employer and are likely to work harder for a lower salary. Yeah, their average pay is higher than the country average, but it is still lower than other workers with the same skills.

I graduated from the one of the top engineering universities in Canada (a place that Facebook hires the most engineers from). I was born in India and moved here as a kid. despite the fact I am Canadian Citizen and specialize in semiconductor engineering (something that is needed badly in US) it is nearly impossible for me to emigrate there and have a chance at citizenship or green card. It is quite a frustrating process. US Immigration system and the uncertainty surrounding it is one of the biggest reasons I have not gone down for even work.

One thing I would like to note is that Canada is not welcoming in only highly skilled workers. If you can work at a Tim Horton's you qualify. This has lead to a flood of new workers who HAVE to have a job in order to stay at a time where the existing labour pool is refusing work due to pay lagging far behind inflation for two decades. Those salaries discrepancies you listed are not exclusive to the tech sector, they are economy wide. Often you'll here talk of a labour shortage in Canada, but ask for the number of applicants to jobs and you quickly find out the reason no one accepted is because the full-time job offered requires a part-time job to barely make ends meet. \n\nAnother factor is that housing happens to be the bread and butter of ~40% of our MP's. Hell our Minister of Housing himself owns properties that have appreciated massively due to the lack of supply and high demand. He then goes on national TV and says high immigration will solve the housing crisis despite Canada already having over 4% of our entire labour force already in the construction industries (America is a little over 3%) and the men and women who build our houses being unable to afford the homes they build ($22.07/hr CAD average or ~$16.66 USD. compared to $22.29/hr USD). 14% of our national GDP is housing. 14% of our entire economy is just money changing hands internally with nothing of value made. \n\nThen you have the combo of landlords benefiting from the immigration programs who try and evict the tenants on their properties to replace them with immigrant labour. They then take the cost of rent right out of their salaries. The workers can't quit their jobs because if they don't have a job they are at risk of being deported and also loosing their homes so they end up shacking 8 to an apartment to try and make ends meet. This becomes the standard the rest of the economy has to meet. \n\nIt is a rare sight to see someone who is anti-immigrant in Canada, but the majority of people here understand that immigration is a problem the way it is currently run. You have people who come here hoping for a new life being forced to sleep outside under bridges because while they may have a job they don't have a home and the shelters are already 200% capacity. Tent cities are the norm in any major urban centre now. There are crack dens in Toronto that are the same price as Castles in the UK. And this problem is only going to get worse.

It sounds like America’s immigration system is working as intended, to restrict the number of immigrants. If we let everyone in it would just depress wages and create more brain drain in the countries the would be immigrants are from.

And WHY is the pay laughable in Canada for programming? BECAUSE they allow so many immigrants in that will work for less, where as it's more protected in the USA by the difficult immigration system... Is America's system perfect? Far from... But there ARE reasons behind the madness...

Totally unacceptable. There were babies in that stampede.\nI get them wanting to be here, as America only really cares about immigrants and giving them the American opportunity and dreams. But I just find it unfair how they turn around with their nose up in the air at Americans and call us lazy while they take jobs and strategically fire anyone that’s not their kind. I’ve been working all my life and always get band wagon bullied and harassed out of my jobs by their lies. They cross over and become very racist

Ashir bai i m your fan being an actor and writer. I had to take handshake from Novartis (working in sales and marketing) 2 yrs ago because the division of co in which i was working discontinued. After that i worked as dairy farm manager. But right now i m free planning to start my small business. Can you guide me how I can apply for immigration of cannada. I always believed in honesty and doing my work with my own hands but I always found myself misfit in this society bec never got any undue favour from anybody. Plz guide. \nTariq Gujrat Pakistan.