Canadian Immigration Policies: Blueprint for Europe?

In Europe discussions about immigration policies have been wide-spread and heated ever since a flood of illegal immigrants have reached Europe’s shores and caused problems with labour markets, housing, fiscal, social and cultural institutions. Some commentators see the solution to some of these problems in the adoption of the Canadian model for the selection of immigrants. This paper contributes to this discussion by a description of current Canadian immigration policies and a discussion of the negative economic and social effects it has produced. It concludes with a presentation of reforms of the existing system that have been proposed and speculates why politicians have been unwilling to adopt any of these reforms.