ABSTRACT
Canada is a major immigrant-receiving country blessed with a continental economy and extensive geographical space. The introduction of almost five million immigrants or approximately 20 percent of Canada’s base population since 1967 has, in fact, had little overall impact on successive generations’ economic prospects. However, this is an aggregate picture. If we focus on citywide effects, for a particular set of skill levels and product types immigrants produce extensive impacts with substantial distributional impacts. For the public treasury, Montreal immigrants represent a net drain while immigrants to Vancouver and Toronto produce large, positive treasury transfers. In the latter two cases as well as Canada-wide, male immigrant households provide the largest subsidy to other Canadian residents. More importantly, the latest immigrant cohort (post-1986) produced the most substantial positive treasury transfers to the rest of the Canadian community regardless of city location.
