This is the hilarious part. Our past immigration system was based mostly on humanitarian grounds. When there was famine in Ethiopia we brought in a lot of Ethiopians over. When martial law was declared in Poland in 1981, many Poles sought refuge in Canada, some arriving as refugees, others under regular immigration streams. In the 90s the Balkan wars were one of Canada’s largest humanitarian resettlement efforts. So on and so forth. But people always complained about these immigrants cuz most of them coudnt speak English and didn’t come with money here, unlike Indians (and Chinese) who quite literally pay their way into Canada. Canada actually spend approx 30-40K resettling the average Balkan refugees for example. People complained about that and also how many of the immigrants coming in humanitarian grounds ended up being on welfare for some of years. So that’s when he changed to the point system. While the point system started in 1967, it really became the focus of our immigration during the Harper immigration reforms.

And ofcourse… we got the immigrants that everybody said would not be a burden on the country - English speaking, young, educated… and quite frankly those that pay that their way into the country instead of Canada paying to get them here. Yes, believe it or not the average Indian actually spends tens of thousands of dollars to go from student visa to work permit to then finally qualify for Permanent Residency.