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Comment by monkeybutton | Hacker News Reader

My country (Canada) is intent on making up for falling birth rates by increasing immigration. Sometimes I wonder if it is unethical for a rich country like Canada to effectively outsource (offload?) child rearing costs and to some extent education costs to the poorer countries that we are taking immigrants from.

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Glad you brought up the ethics, because it is definitely interesting.

E.g. if Canada only searches out the best and brightest from struggling countries, that delays the success of those countries be decreasing the average capability level of improving conditions. This of course works in Canada’s favor, because it needs poor countries with conditions that facilitate child rearing.

You're not wrong, but the struggling countries may not have the infrastructure to fully take advantage of the skills and talents of the 'best and brightest'. By going to Canada (or wherever) they could be leveraged more effectively.

A lot of technology is making things easier in struggling countries, and if that technology can be made cheaper and commoditized it can improve more lives at more points of the income spectrum. The best and brightest may be helping to eliminate their own positions by making certain jobs easier to do in more places on the planet.

Right, on one hand if you wanted to maximize everyone's contribution, a 'top performer' moving to a rich country and being more productive there is ultimately a good thing. And like you said, if their work leads towards equalization between the two countries its even better.

On the other hand if the output of their productivity isn't flowing back to their home country, Canada/USA/UK/wherever are reaping the rewards tax/tariff-free and the increase in productivity isn't being redistributed.

You wouldn't let a foreign power extract oil or gold for "free" from your country, would you? I don't want to argue against personal liberties but at the same time it could be argued that those rights are being exploited by rich countries to the detriment of poorer countries.

Then there's the whole TFW (temporary foreign worker) program that looks a whole lot like serfdom where landowners in Canada buy labour at below market costs without even extending the notion of citizenship to the workers...

What’s the solution though? If Canadians don’t want to have more children, you can’t force them and you probably can’t influence them much, so your other choice is to close down the immigration, which seems like it’s less ethical than the present condition.

I don't know! The cost of living and high cost of raising children here are popular scape goats for why Canadians are having less children. There's already baby bonuses, nationalized child care (in QC) but they do not have enough effect? One thing that isn't addressed is housing. Couples aren't going to want to have kids when all they can afford in a major city is a shoebox condo.

>One thing that isn't addressed is housing

Yeah, I'm not from Canada so you obviously know a lot more about this than me, but essentially 100% of my Canadian friends and family cite this as their top or near top concern right now. Toronto in particular seems wild, though Vancouver may be worse.

Child care costs are a false excuse. If raising children was entirely free, I think the birthrate would barely nudge higher.

How is that not a win-win scenario?

Moving to Canada improves their standard of living.

Partial Sentence: Countries can increase their population through immigration without increasing domestic birth rates. Countries can decrease their domestic birth rates without decreasing immigration.

Global Sentence: Global Population = People born.

Once every country is pro immigration without being pro birth there will not be enough births to maintain the current population. The can is being kicked down the road.

The problem isn't the shrinking population though. It's the aging of the entire world. Someone has to take care of these people or they die alone with nobody to attend their funeral.

The truth is letting people die by the millions in a war tends to take care of problems like this.

We can say it's a win for Canada (gain people) and a win for the people coming (gain standard of living). But then, it's a loss for the place the people come from since that place loses the people that Canada gains.

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