Canada’s Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) was established in 1967 to respond to historic racism and nationality bias in Canada’s immigration system. Granting points for age, education, official language skills, Canadian work experience and family ties, the CRS ranks applicants for permanent residency.
The federal government recently proposed changes to CRS points, including the elimination of some point categories. While family-related points are proposed for removal, age-based criteria are not.
My research delves into the legal, ethical and policy reasons why Canada should ditch age-based immigration points.
Age-based points are Charter violations
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly prohibits age discrimination in the equality clause of Section 15(1). According to the Supreme Court’s Singh v. Minister of Employment and Immigration decision, the Charter applies to anyone who is physically present in Canada, including non-citizens.
Many people who apply for permanent residence do so from within Canada. In fact, the federal government has introduced a two-year initiative — in 2026 and 2027 — to fast-track permanent residence for skilled workers who are already in Canada in specific high-demand sectors.
According to the lawyers I interviewed for my book, Age and Immigration Policy in Canada, such individuals would have solid legal grounds to launch a Charter challenge. They could claim that the points system constitutes age discrimination in violation of Canadian law.
Ageist immigration policies
Age discrimination embedded in the points system also contradicts Canadian values. Currently, a person gets zero points for age if they are under 18 or over 45.
Imagine the public outcry if a person received zero points for being a woman? Or for being a racialized person? Many Canadians would rightly call out such overtly sexist and racist policies.
Similarly, points for age undermine the merit-based foundations of the CRS. They contradict rights-based hiring practices that prohibit asking candidates their age and stereotyping older workers.
My archival research suggests the architect of the CRS, then-Deputy Immigration Minister Tom Kent, did not have a clear policy rationale for the initial age-based points. One historian has argued: “The points system, as it was originally conceived, has as much to do with politics as with labour markets.”
There is also some internal contradiction within the points system between the decreasing points for age and the increasing points for education and work experience. The latter rely on the passage of chronological time, while the former subtracts points for it.
Age-based points are bad policy
Policymakers and public commentators sometimes justify age discrimination in the points system by claiming that older immigrants are likely to take more from Canada than they are to give. But research shows that this is empirically incorrect.
First, Canadian and Québec pension plans are contributory — benefits are calculated by lifetime earnings in Canada. For Old Age Security, people must be residents of Canada for at least 10 years to qualify, and they must have resided here for at least 40 years to receive the maximum benefit.
As a result, immigrants to Canada receive fewer contributions and are more likely to be poor than any other group of Canadians when they retire.
Second, while some may assume older immigrants will be a burden on the health-care system, the “healthy immigrant effect” is well-documented.
Newcomers also tend to under-use health services. What’s more, there’s a waiting period for universal health coverage. Some immigrants actually return to their home countries to access time-sensitive or culturally appropriate care.
Read more: Why is Canada snubbing internationally trained doctors during a health-care crisis?
Third, people over the age of 45 contribute indirectly to the Canadian economy in ways that are not captured in formal economic data. For example, they undertake unpaid work in family businesses or provide free child care to enable their adult children to work outside the home.
Given these legal, ethical and empirical concerns about age-based points, the time has come to eliminate them altogether. Ongoing public consultations on the CRS are a historic opportunity for Canadians to oppose the age discrimination that has been normalized in our immigration system for too long.
Christina Clark-Kazak receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
