4 ms·

Why? If you only want so many people to be able to come, why not make the qualification process more stringent, as opposed to assigning seats via lottery?

• tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  It would give you the illusion of meritocracy but the reality is it would be almost impossible to administer effectively. You just need to look at the problems businesses have interviewing candidates to see how difficult assessing candidates is.
  • umanwizard 7y ago
    Somehow most other countries manage without a lottery-based immigration system.
    • freeone3000 7y ago
      Ontario uses a sliding-point system. You're given points for things like language skills, having a job offer, having previously lived in Canada, your educational degree (once verified), being healthy, and sometimes, just random points based on when you applied if they want more immigrants at the time. Then, you're on hold until your points pass the threshold - which adjusts based on how many people they want in. It's not really any less arbitrary, and doesn't reflect the real needs of the labor market: obviously a PhD earns more points than a bachelor's degree, but you need significantly fewer, which is the opposite of what happens under a sliding point system. And notably, while a job offer gets you points, it's not a guaranteed entry, so businesses can't actually reliably sponsor anyone. Other systems have their cons too, and a lottery is really quite reasonable.