A top B.C. politician once quipped that the best place to have a heart attack in Vancouver is in a cab.

Chances are, he said, that the driver is a cardiologist from India.

Statistics Canada, our national yardstick which continuously gives us data to back up what we already know, recently came up with this “I told you so”– new immigrants are caught in a poverty trap three times higher than Canadians, despite their high education levels and skills.

Researchers tracked as many as 280,000 people over 15 years and found that despite the high education levels of new immigrants, they were doing poorly and that one in five immigrants who arrived between 1992 and 2000 were living in a state of chronic low income.

Low income was defined as $26,800 for a family of four.

In 2002, low-income rates among immigrants during their first full year in Canada were 3.5 times higher than those of Canadian-born people, the number crunchers said.

By 2004, those rates had dropped only slightly, to 3.2 times higher.

In Canada, everyone knows someone around their home or office who has come from overseas loaded with skills and degrees but unable to find the job they left.

Laments of Filipino nurses being housemaids, Indian doctors driving cabs, Chinese university graduates’ selling real estate and European engineers delivering pizza were being heard everywhere long before this Stats Can study came up.

It is today rare to find a new Canadian who has landed a job in his or her field of specialization.

There is a disconnect between the reality in Canada and the perception being sold at our embassies and by immigration consultants abroad.

The job prospects immigrants are told exist in Canada are just not there when the highly qualified newcomer begins his quest for integration.

This Statistics Canada study has shed light on a harsh reality and its time this nation and its politicians wake up to the truth that we have a valuable human resource that is going to waste.

Highly skilled new immigrants are constantly being thwarted by universities which say they don’t have enough spaces for them to polish their skills and by employers who shun them saying they don’t have Canadian experience.

One expert says Canada has to make it clear to prospective immigrants that their educational qualifications are “a ticket in the door and nothing else,”

Another says that this Stats Can study shows that we don’t need the services of many of the skilled people coming to Canada.

If that is the case why do we continue to steal the best and brightest from developing countries creating a brain drain in places which can actually benefit from the intellect and skills of our educated taxi force?

We keep wooing them with an inflated picture of Canada and then confine them to lives of low income destitution.

We violate the spirit of immigration and our values when we cannot provide new immigrants with secure employment, steady income and a stable quality of life

Granted that a doctor or an engineer does not get the maximum number of points for his skill set when applying to immigrate but that does not mean he or she cannot aspire to be one in his or her new home.

This indictment of Canada’s immigration policy requires immediate attention to ensure the predicted economic harvest to be reaped from newcomers does not turn into a tragic burden for Canada.

We are already seeing signs of that.

Another Statistics Canada study released last year found that one-third of male immigrants leave within 20 years of their arrival -- more than half within their first year of arrival.

The best way for our economy to grow is by making use of the nation’s labour force not by just having a large one.

The current system simply isn’t serving the interests of Canada or its new immigrants.

We need to act fast to stop the Canadian dream from turning into a Canadian nightmare, which according to Stats Can numbers is already happening too often.