Canada shouldn’t mistake immigrant entrepreneurship for inclusion |
Canada selects skilled immigrants for their education, experience and economic potential. Yet, once they arrive, those same qualifications often carry far less value in the labour market.
Degrees are discounted. Foreign experience is undervalued. Access to regulated professions is slow and uneven. Employers often insist on Canadian experience – even long after newcomers have demonstrated they can do the job.
That contradiction helps explain why some immigrant entrepreneurship is driven not only by ambition, but also by blocked access to stable professional employment.
Canada’s policy goal should not be to produce more immigrant entrepreneurs for its own sake. It should be to ensure that immigrants can choose between starting a business and finding paid work that matches their skills.
That means recognizing foreign credentials in ways that lead to real jobs, offering stronger local training and language support, and connecting employment services with business support instead of treating them separately.
Immigrant-owned businesses contribute enormously to Canada’s economy.
Immigrants represented 23 per cent of Canada’s population in the 2021 census – the highest share since Confederation. More recent business ownership analysis also shows how visible immigrants have become in Canadian entrepreneurship and business ownership. They are central to Canada’s economic future.
But contribution is not the same as inclusion.
We are praising the wrong signal
A recent Statistics Canada analysis, released in April 2026 and based on........