MICHAEL BARONE: Let’s learn from Canada’s ‘bootstrap’ immigration policy.

Our friends and neighbors in Canada are giving us good lessons on immigration policy, as you can see from journalist John Ibbitson’s article in Toronto’s Globe and Mail, forwarded by Minnesota reader David Sturrock. In that article and in this Centre for International Governance Innovation paper, Ibbitson described how Canada’s Conservative government has virtually eliminated family-based immigration and has reduced refugee immigration from “safe” countries (including the United States). Canada has increased immigration places for high-skill immigrants who are fluent in English or French and are ready to prosper in Canada’s economy: “bootstrap” immigration.

Yes, I think that immigration should be based on what they can do for us, rather than what we can do for them.