Canada - how immigration policy changes under successive governments

Recent changes to Canadian citizenship laws show what a hot potato immigration issues have become. The European refugee crises seems to have shifted voters in western countries to polarisingly opposite positions - almost mirroring the socialist versus capitalist narrative that so often defines and dominates political debates.

While many citizens likely fall somewhere in between the opposing camps, those at the polar ends either see immigration as a self seeking policy tool - to encourage skills and cheap labour but protect the existing workforce - or as a tool of social justice - to be a haven and a beacon of hope for the disenfranchised and destitute.

immigration is seen either as a self seeking policy tool or as a tool of social justice

The sweeping and speedy reforms in Canadian policy are on the back of the current party making good on specific election campaign promises and show how the issue played a major role in the pysche of voters and therefore the political landscape.

It is as if citizens want the immigration and citizenship policy to reflect the heart and soul of the nation - much like a home with either a welcome mat in front of the door or a beware of the dog sign at the gate. As if the invitation you extend will define who you are as a people and how you react to international crises will mould you as a society into what values you want your children to stand for and fight for and pass on to their children.

It is as if citizens want the immigration and citizenship policy to reflect the heart and soul of the nation - much like a home with either a welcome mat in front of the door or a beware of the dog sign at the gate

Let's be honest, we all know anecdotal stories of border control staff that say so much about a country and before we even set foot within the place we often have a pre-conceived notion of what the residents will be like. Why? Because the border control staff are employed by the government to represent to outsiders what their policy represents. You are welcome here or beware of the dog. 

As I've said before, immigration policy is primarily designed for the benefit of the host nation and any benefit a new migrant receives is incidental to that primary purpose. The current Canadian government is shifting that somewhat and creating an image of an administration that is thinking outside of itself and beyond purely selfish gains to one where it selflessly wants to share some of its highly held val

ues with those who may not have more to give right now.

Some will view this as altruistic nobleness and others as a soft touch with likely damaging effects - either way the effects will be felt into the next generation for citizens and migrants alike. 

House prices in Auckland

Much is made in the media of the expensive housing costs in Auckland and some other parts of New Zealand which usually mirror many of the same stories in Australian media about Sydney and other large cities like Melbourne. This is a concern to many new migrants who travel across without bringing much capital to try buy property early on and many find themselves, along with locals, in a rental trap where rentals are so expensive they cannot save for the 20% deposit the Reserve Bank recently imposed for some crazy reason. 

This is sadly a common trend worldwide as can be viewed on this handy map of house prices to annual earnings index where you can see it is not limited to Auckland.  Having said this, I have two young married kids who have, in the last 2 years, managed to enter the Auckland housing market in a lovely area on the North Shore of Auckland. Prices in their area were a little below average due to a bit longer travel time in peak hour traffic but they work on the North Shore so have no issue. They are both within a 3 minute drive to a stunning beach and love the area.  

One good aspect about New Zealand is that salaries in some of the bigger cities outside Auckland are similar or only slightly below the Auckland ones whereas house prices can be significantly below Auckland. It is surprising that more businesses and migrants have not found their way outside of Auckland. Seek and Trade Me is a good web site to check for salaries in different fields and areas and Trade Me is also excellent for checking rentals and selling prices of houses. 

Australia media seems to be a bit more open about what all New Zealanders are talking about privately, namely allowing New Zealand to sell property unrestricted to foreigners who often have no intention of living here. Currently it is the Chinese who seem to be taking advantage of this and becoming major landlords. Interestingly, I doubt foreigners are as welcome in China to buy and own land and propertybut that seems to be conveniently dismissed by politicians and the press. For so long the kiwi mindset of a good life is the car, house, bach (beachside cottage) and boat. Owning one's own home and a rental or two has been a major part of the average kiwi pysche of a good retirement, so it is baffling that the powers that be have never moved to ensure that land and property remains largely in the hands of citizens and genuine permanent residents. In fact, the Reserve Bank of NZ (RBNZ) has increased the deposit required to 20% which makes it even more difficult for first time home buyers. Yet foreigners waltz in with cash from who knows where (lower offshore borrowings?) and buy up local property.

Another shift happening in Auckland is the unified Council which is essentially a redistribution of rates and taxes from affluent suburbs to very low docile areas. For many years New Zealand has managed to avoid major class distinction in property and hid council (NZ Housing) houses within normal middle class suburbs. The housing bubble has turned that strategy on its head with NZH houses now worth so much in areas that have grown in affluence that NZH cannot afford not to grab the cash on offer of the market prices it can achieve by offloading them. So along comes the poorer suburbs. The point is that property rates in those affluent areas have risen dramatically with no real added services to show for it. Again, the press makes a huge deal of this as though property owners will suffer except that landlords simply add the costs to rentals and up goes the rental market returns while rent locked tenants become more cash strapped.

If one wonders why more businesses and employees don't move out of Auckland, the answer lies in a very poor roading and rail infrastructure that has not kept pace with immigration and tourism growth, so that a trip that would take and hour and a half in other countries would likely take twice as long in NZ.  

New Zealand has also avoided capital gains taxes although it has recenty introduced a watered down version with rules that will tax investment properties if sold within a certain time frame. While I am not in favour of additional taxes, the result of this lack of CGT has been that there is more incentive for kiwis to leverage any equity in their existing property and buy more property than to invest in the stock market. This means that a limited stock of housing gets even less for new entrants who have no equity and their dream of home ownership floats even further away. In most countries a healthy stock market is vital to the economy encouraging industry and business and admittedly NZ has a very limited industrial / manufacturing sector so most of new equity investment will likely head off to Australia anwyay as has probably happened with KiwiSaver investment funds. The question remains though is that if investment rules and taxes favour houses, why open up this major source of retirement fund strategy to foreigners and drive prices up?


NZ authorities have also had a terrible record of controlling the quality of houses and the standard of builders. Houses are notoriously damp and cold and energy inefficient in a cold climate country. In an overly regulated country where homeowners are controlled and need plans for car ports and decks, the same authorities were unable to hold themselves or the building industry to account for a leaky home blight where houses were built but basically need to be rebuilt or demolished due to soggy materials. This was the result, so I'm told, of both a change in treatment of timber allowed in houses as well as to the structural design. Many, many people have lost fortunes but nobody was deemed to blame which is a strange outcome in a country obsessed with blaming. So as a double whammy kick-in-the-teeth to those who followed the crowd and invested in property believing all the crazy regulation was for their protection, they have been told to suck up the losses and lose their investment while the same authorities make it nice and easy for foreigners to coast in with wads of cash and drive prices up. 

Stunning Coromandel Loop just outside Auckland

The worst of winter seems to have passed and the Auckland skies are clearer for longer patches now, which is great news for me, a fair weather biker. On Saturday I went for ride through the beautiful Waitakeres with my wife and on Monday I managed to get out on my bike for an amazing run to the Coromandel Peninsula Loop which I must confess is aboslutley overwhelming in its beauty. Having scoured the internet for great motorcycle rides, I have seen very little to rival what I experienced.

Here's my biker blog on the recent biking events in and around Auckland which, if you take the time to read, I hope will convey a sense of the beauty that is so close by to enjoy in and around Auckland and the North and South Islands . Of course there are equally bicycle rides, hiking (or as kiwi's say "tramping") trails and other great outdoor pursuit opportunities but my passion is motorcycles so this is just my angle.

On a map New Zealand is a small geographical place on the globe but there remains a sense of vastness and granduer that I imagine is becoming harder to find these days and even more difficult to access and enjoy in relative safety. 

New Zealand ranks for solo travellers

New Zealand ranks for Solo Travellers according to this news article...

Editors at Travel + Leisure magazine have given New Zealand the title of best country for solo, independent travellers.

The magazine says it's where adventure seekers can trek glaciers and rainforests, bungee jump and jet boat and meet some of the "friendliest and most open-minded people in the world."

While a country's safety and security may be easy to evaluate, editors say they wanted to consider other factors that are important to solo travellers.

For instance, "…is the country you've chosen a happy place?"

"Is it a country where you'll be made to feel welcome, a nation where you can easily interact with the locals, where conversation flows easily even if you're struggling with a new language? For truly rewarding solo travel, it's crucial that you can connect with the culture and not feel like an outsider."

For that, editors say they consulted the Happy Planet Index which looks at environmental impact and human well-being in 151 countries.

For safety, editors consulted the Global Peace Index.

Top 10 countries for solo travellers according to Travel + Leisure

1. New Zealand
2. Norway
3. Switzerland
4. Costa Rica
5. Austria
6. Vietnam
7. Chile
8. Tie: Japan and Sweden
9. Indonesia
10. Germany

Queenstown- worth the trip!

Many travel and expat forums will tell the entrepid traveller that if they visit only one place in New Zealand, make sure it's Queenstown.  

There is so much material on the internet - tourism,  activity marketing and personal travel stories - that it would be like throwing a match on a bonfire to make an inadequate attempt to add to the mass of excellent material available. There are also so many pictures of the unbelievably endless majestic beauty that surrounds the whole area and which will simply engulf any visitor. 

What I can say is that from personal experience,  it is an absolute "must do" on anyone's travel agenda -  for both tourists and kiwis alike.  It has a magical air and at once conjures up a sense of being in the company of the great travel destinations such as Zurich,  Vancouver or the Alps but likewise a surreal sense of being on an epic movie set. 


I am here at the end of winter and the snow still blankets the ski fields and,  while I love the experience of snow, soft drizzle and misty mountains, my senses are attuned to imagine this beauty in dryer weather that can be enjoyed and consumed on my motorbike with my wife and other close riding buddies. The roads snaking through mountains and valleys beside rivers and lakes seems a dream for any biker and I'm planning to make this the pinnacle point of a South Island trip which is fast becoming more exciting to me than most other holiday options. Apart from the surrounding scenic options,  Queenstown city itself is pretty with all the quaint picturesque options that make this a premier holiday spot. 

Many kiwis say  Queenstown is too expensive and has become a playground only the wealthy can afford and would sooner head off from Auckland International Airport to  the Gold Coast in Australia,  Thailand,  Fiji or one of the many other foreign destinations available through travel packages offered so cheaply. I'm guessing that with so many foreigners flooding Queenstown the locals don't mind that kiwis feel that way. 

We've had $10 all day breakfast special offers with $2.50 coffee in Arrowtown and a $15 all day steak special in central Queenstown.  Yes, every adventure activity is pretty costly but then I'm easy to please.  I'm quite happy driving around and admiring the scenes and sites. Call me old but I just don't need my thrills arranged for me as I would being a foreign visitor.  I get my adrenalin fix from opening the throttle on my Hayabusa - and it's why I can't wait to be here on my "baby" combining my passion for riding and soaking in the most amazing scenery on offer which arguably would rank as some of the finest rugged,  unspoilt available anywhere today. 

Immigration Issues in NZ Elections 2014

An interesting NZ Herald story of Chinese candidates telling Chinese migrants told to vote if they consider NZ home . It notes that many of the 200,000 Chinese migrants from Communist China do not necessarily understand the democratic process and therefore may not prioritise voting or recognise it's relevance and importance.

As a migrant myself I found it quirky that along with Citizens, Residents can also vote, as per this INZ website advising who can vote . Given that Immigration Policy is such an emotive and often explosive topic, it still seems strange to me that Residents can have a say in a governement whose policy may be directed to affect them before they become citizens as in NZ First Winston Peter's stance on Immigration. It seems somewhat counter-intuitive to me but perhaps it is common in other countries.

As with any Immigration political policy debate, New Zealand has some rather specific topical areas of national interest around very current and recent issues. There have been recent enquiries into the extent of politician involvement in the immigration process of certain influental migrants Kim Dotcom MegaUpload Immigration and there are issues of housing prices skyrocketing, particularly in Auckland as noted in this article Immigrant effect on land prices and then there is the ongoing debate on foreign ownership of strategic or farming landsand whether NZ is too lenient with foreign ownership?

All this to say that Immigration policy is designed with Citizens in mind and migrants, while made to feel as welcome as possible, really are a part of the process only to the extent that it serves the interests of the host country. Of course, most immigrants to New Zealand have every intention of a long term settlement vision so in a strange way the "national" interest they may feel somewhat removed from now really is the one that will hopefully protect their status as future citizens for them and their families.

Interesting NZ Migration updates from OECD report

I was at a seminar hosted by Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand recently about the NZ economic outlook and a speaker used some interesting migrant statistics from recent OECD reports to support some of his assumptions on the economy, so I did some reading here at OECD info on NZ Migration and see some positive facts, such as "Relative to its population, NZ has the largest temporary labour migration flows in the OECD, which provides the feeder for permanent migration.."  

In fact this is the opening comment on the web page says "The report finds that by and large, the New Zealand labour migration system is functioning well. Several features of the NZ immigration system, such as the Expression of Interest system, are gradually about to become an example for selection systems elsewhere in the OECD. This also holds true for the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme, which provides a good example of a managed seasonal labour scheme. A further innovative feature is NZ’s elaborate system of labour-market tests and exemptions, which aims at limiting negative impact on the domestic workforce while at the same time responding to employer needs.."    

So I suppose articles reporting the growth in net migrant inflows, such as this one highest gain in 10 years from earlier in the year, are not surprising, along with this website post from Immigration NZ Skilled Migrant Workers Still Needed. 

As a Licensed Immigration Adviser I'm hoping to help prospective migrants into New Zealand to benefit both them, and this wonderful place I have called home since 2003. This is not just a dream, but a reality for many who long to start a new life in a country that has great employment prospects relative to many countries of origin. 

According to an  IAA survey  conducted by the Immigration Adviser Authority, "Almost 90 per cent of migrants surveyed said they would recommend their licensed immigration adviser to family and friends, results of an independent survey show".