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Canada's Immigration Public Policies and Possible Applications in The Canada’s immigration public policies and possible applications in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) Roberto Rodolfo Georg Uebel PhD student in International Strategic Studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). MSc in Geography. Economist. Researcher at the Laboratory of International Studies (LEIn/UFSM), Laboratory State and Territory (LABETER/UFRGS) and Centre of Political Culture, State and International Relations (CESPRI/UFRGS). E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT: The economic, social and labor conditions in Brazil and, especially, from the State of Rio Grande do Sul, over the past two decades has allowed the increase of the immigration flow of individuals from all over the world, with the most varied academic and professional skills. Moreover, the reduction of population growth and the labor force of the state, and the increasing demand for skilled workers vis-à-vis the immanent need to re-develop the state’s economic sector, place this immigration as a window of opportunity. In this sense, this research, through the comparative methodology of public policies, will hold a theoretical, normative and practical approach between the immigration public policies of Canada, a referential country in Public Administration and the formulation of immigration policies to the specific case of Rio Grande do Sul. Finally, we identified possible points of convergence and applicability, and proposed among the future tools to the state public managers, an immigration points system, aiming at the optimization of immigration flows as a resource for the state growth, considering the different micro-regional characteristics and needs, as in Canada and its provinces. Keywords: Public Policies. Immigration Policy. Canada. Rio Grande do Sul. INTRODUCTION The role of immigration as a builder of the social, economic and cultural bases of Brazil is unquestionable and studied from the first flows, which occurred in the sixteenth century, passing through the first generation of great migrations, between the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries; by the second generation, shortly after the World War II; and now with the two immigration booms of the twenty-first century (Uebel, 2015). This builder role was commonly analysed in the country from the perspective of the Social Sciences and Humanities, such as demography, anthropology, sociology and history, as well notes Rocha-Trindade (1995). The Administration and the scholarship of Public Management, as well as their agents, started to pay more attention to immigration phenomena in a very recent period, led by the Canadian and European schools, serving as a model for later studies in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and more recently, in the third millennium, in Latin America, with special emphasis on Argentina and Ecuador (Esteban & López Sala, 2010). Although Brazil has always produced considerable reference literature for the analysis of immigration flows, the studies conducted by the Administration (Administrative Science) and its researchers in this field have always been restricted to interdisciplinary research and to very specific cases, such as the works of Cavalcanti (1946) and Diégues Junior (1964) or those of Administrative Law, such as the work of Gomes & Leão (2010). Despite the fact that the administrative and managerial scientific production has followed a path of not approaching immigration during the last decades in Brazil and in Rio Grande do Sul, state of analysis of this paper, the flows toward these two territories grew exponentially after the year 2000, with an immigrant population that represents about one percent of the total Brazilian population in 2015 and considerable participation in the Rio Grande do Sul’s demographics. Therefore, considering that the debate on immigration legislation occurs in both countries at the federal level - although in Canada with relevant provincial autonomy - the research problem is first inserted in the comparison between the national policies of the two countries. At a second stage, we chose for the approach and possible exclusive application to the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Figure 1), the spatial cut of the article, due to the considerable increase of immigration flows in the last two decades towards the state and for being the state that proportionally received the most immigrants after São Paulo and Acre (this temporarily between 2010 and 2014). [Insert Figure 1 here] Graph 1 shows the evolution of the number of immigrants in the State of Rio Grande do Sul for the years 2000 and from 2007 to 2015 (with statistical projections for 2016 and 2017), in order to prove this significant growth: [Insert Graph 1 here] It is observed that the behaviour of the immigration flows towards the state presents in the years of change - points of inflection - a growth above the tendency line - red points -, which had forecast an immigration rate about five to fifteen thousand immigrants in a period of fifteen years. We point that the annual immigration stocks specifically in the years 2000, 2010 and 2014 had a very significant quantitative jump, showing a growth of 198.8% between 2000 and 2010 and of 125% between 2010 and 2014, that is, it grew in four years the number of immigrants in Rio Grande do Sul almost what it took in a decade. Accordingly, this data, in combination with the difference of nationalities of these immigrants (Table 1), lead the public policy researcher and the Public Manager (as well as the policymakers) to inquire about the consequences of the sharp and unexpected growth of the migration of individuals who, despite different origins, have common goals: employment, economic and social stability and housing. [Insert Table 1 here] In this sense, this article will present the public policies of immigration implanted in Canada and its provinces over the last decades, since that country observed a proportionally similar growth to that of Rio Grande do Sul in its immigration flows. Using a specific methodology and combined with the adoption of multicultural immigration public policies, Canada optimized the inclusion and direction of immigrants to the jobs, regions and sectors of the economy that most needed it, which is desired by our study of case for the Southern Brazil. The choice of Canada, as a reference country for this feasibility study of the application of public immigration policies, derives from its historical experience as an aggregator of immigrant communities, especially of Asians, Africans and Latin Americans, such as the current case of Rio Grande do Sul (Moura & Uebel, 2016). In addition, there has been the systematic implementation and renewal of such policies since the year 1870, as Green & Green (1996) point out in their study, imbuing there the adoption of new approaches from the Management. A comparative study of the action of the two States1 on the issue of immigration is justified by a number of reasons, namely: a) The lack of analysis on the state's participation on migration issues in present days. b) Canada has a government structure specifically designed for immigrants who include regulations and public bodies that have been structured and adapted since the 1960s, which can be considered as consolidated from a State recognition of the need for immigration in the country as an important player in the Canadian development. 1 In this research, it is understood the State as national state, a sovereign country, like Brazil and Canada. c) The tendency presented by Brazil at the reception of economic immigrants due to a group of factors, among them the economic development of the last years and the recognition of the country as a regional power and, finally, the limits of the models of reception to immigrants used by governments worldwide. The Brazilian social scientist, Aline Maria Thomé Arruda, complements the justification of this study by inferring that: The choice of countries to be compared is justified by reasons different from the empirical and academic point of view. Canada has, as seen earlier in this paper, a tradition in the adoption of multicultural policies since its establishment as a nation-state. These cover the ethnic diversity recognized as the origin of the Canadian nation, with an Anglophone, Francophone and “native” presence. In the last forty years, however, there is also the inclusion in this multicultural perspective of the recognition of the rights and specificities of other “minorities”, such as religious groups, genders and immigrants. These measures and state actions, therefore, have been elaborated and improved for some time. So, it is understood that there is an expertise of this State in dealing with the diversity present in its territory. (Arruda, 2015, p. 19, our translation from Portuguese). Despite some differences in immigration management between Quebec, the French-speaking province, and the English-speaking provinces, especially Ontario and British Columbia, Canada is now recognized for following a multiculturalist approach to dealing with its immigrants. Just as Brazil begins to tread this way. Thus, it means that there is a priority in the recognition of the diversity of the multiple immigration groups giving them the right to express these cultural specificities, having recognized them as part of a multicultural welcoming society. Another relevant aspect is the complexity of combined actions and measures that aim not only to recognize the demand of foreign labour force in the country, but also to add other needs of
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