Barriers at the Border: The Costs of Impediments to Business Mobility

Are Canada’s immigration policies and systems in line with a world that is experiencing considerable growth in the exchange of goods, services, and investment, and, correspondingly, movements in people? In Barriers at the Border: The Costs of Impediments to Business Mobility, The Conference Board of Canada explains how language differences, the shortage of Canadian foreign offices, and visa processing systems reduce trade, investment, and visits to Canada. Particularly, temporary resident visa requirements dampen trade in services, investment, and visitors. To alleviate the costs due to this lost economic activity, policy makers should reduce wait times for visas, increase the use of multi-entry visas, and expand outsourcing of visa processing. Some Canadian overseas offices should be expanded, and if necessary, resources could be reallocated from low-impact offices to those with potentially higher impact. These efforts should be focused on large, emerging economies where Canada has visa requirements, such as China, Russia, India, and Turkey. The resulting increased trade and investment flows would benefit the Canadian economy directly as well as indirectly, through reduced operating costs, productivity gains, and technology transfers.