turningrite

Well, if your real concern is the environment then you too should be an opponent of Canada's high immigration levels. The well-known environmentalist David Suzuki has noted that "Canada is full" and argued on environmental grounds that we shouldn't pursue an increased population for the sake of so doing. And he's also criticized the argument that our future economic growth is tied to immigration. He's noted too the negative impacts of emigration for the countries from which Canada now receives most of its immigrants, whereby Canada (as are some other Western countries) is stripping these societies of the professional and leadership classes they require to assure their current and future well-being. So, there are strong and completely rational arguments to be made against high immigration levels, grounded in economics, the environment and humanitarian considerations.

If you don't understand economics or the legitimate economic critique(s) regarding our immigration program - and, yes, they are rational - perhaps you shouldn't comment on this topic. I suspect, however, that you're not at all interested in rational debate. Thanks anyway for so exquisitely illustrating the validity of my post.

I misread your question as I assumed you were challenging the validity of my economic critique of immigration policy. I suppose it was a reflexive response on my part because those who challenge the logic and/or wisdom of Canada's immigration and refugee policies are often presumptively pilloried for their presumed motives while those who promote and/or laud those same policies seldom seem to provide concrete arguments or evidence in support of their positions, preferring instead to uncritically regurgitate the propaganda spewed by politicians, big business, the immigration industry and, often, the corporate-controlled MSM. My hope going into next year's federal election is that Maxime Bernier's party will gain sufficient traction to force the traditional mainline parties to respond to and debate immigration issues. Scheer's CPC appears to be at least somewhat serous about reforming the refugee system but to date hasn't as far as I'm aware said much about regular immigration levels or issues arising from the flow of sponsored relatives. Scheer has said that if elected a CPC government would end birth tourism, which is a positive sign. It's bizarre that when half of Canadians indicate a belief that immigration levels are too high Trudeau's party has just announced its intention to significantly increase these levels and the other mainline parties largely appear to be silent on the issue. I believe the tri-party mainline cartel in Ottawa is doing a disservice to Canadians by ignoring broad public concern on this matter and the situation is only likely to improve if Bernier is able to change things.

I'm not sure there's space here to list and elaborate on all the relevant issues, however, below I've listed five, for starters. 1.) Ongoing wage suppression: Despite claims of labour shortages and resulting calls for higher immigration levels, wages in Canada for the most part remain stubbornly stagnant. Application of neoclassical economic theory, therefore, leads to the conclusion that there are no broad labour shortages and objective analyses substantiate this. 2.) Housing affordability crisis: Housing costs, particularly in principal immigration destinations like the Toronto and Vancouver regions, are out of control and have rendered living costs for ordinary people unaffordable. Home ownership and rental costs in these locations have for long periods of time risen at rates far above the inflation rate. 3.) An overwhelmed health care system: Again this problem is most acutely illustrated in places like Toronto where waves of immigrants are taxing an infrastructure that simply hasn't responded. Instead of resolving some of Canada's ageing challenges, immigration appears to be exacerbating them. The reality of "hallway medicine" has now become sadly too commonplace in our hospitals. 4.) Significant reliance on public support: There's an over-reliance among many newcomers on government support. The net social program costs (benefits paid to less taxes paid by immigrants) funded by taxpayers to support immigrants is estimated to amount to tens of billions of dollars a year. 5.) Increasing segregation and ghettoization: Reportedly, a fairly recent federal government study concluded that too many immigrants simply aren't integrating into Canadian society. The long term consequences of this cannot be assumed to be positive. And in contrast to previous generations of immigrants, who often temporarily settled in diaspora-focused inner city receiving neighbourhoods, the new segregated neighbourhoods (or "ethnoburbs" as they're sometimes called), which are mainly located in the suburbs of some of our major cities, are purpose-built and more-or-less intended to be permanent.

Trump's camp says the 14th Amendment is more nuanced than generally presented and that there's an escape hatch of sorts. Who knows? Constitutional law is generally quite arcane and certainly beyond my expertise. I have read quite a few pieces on this topic over the past few days, including the views expressed by some lawyers who albeit expressing a minority opinion believe the 14th Amendment citizenship provision may in fact be open to interpretation. With a right-wing SCOTUS majority in place, perhaps Trump will get some traction on this although it's not clear the issue has arisen at this point for any reason other than to inspire his base prior to next week's midterm elections. But this is not the first time he's raised his concerns on the matter, having addressed these while seeking the GOP nomination and the presidency.

Ah, but you apparently fail to understand the "progressive" catch-all mentality that castigates as racist and bigoted any/all criticism of our open-ended immigration and refugee policies. Rational economically-justified criticism isn't permitted. The progressive assumption reverts to the notion that the motivation of the critics is always grounded in horrible, awful and deplorable intent. You can't argue with these self-styled progressives as their arguments and positions are grounded in emotion rather than logic.

It looks like nobody was paying much attention until the issue was raised in Parliament a few days ago. The notion that the Trudeau government would usher in an era of transparency and respect for Canadian citizens is obviously laughable.

I suspect the real issue in the U.S. relates to children born to undocumented migrants who are in many/most cases technically living in the U.S. illegally (or 'irregularly', as many in this country would insist). Many/most of these women cannot be stopped at the border because they're already residing in the country when they get pregnant. The situation in Canada, where reportedly many such children are born to women who travel here for the specific purpose of obtaining birthright Canadian citizenship for their newborn children, is different. Fortunately, we're not restricted by any law similar to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and could end the practice quite easily. Ironically, the U.S. law emerged from what was at the time a long-standing principle in British common law but Britain itself no longer follows this principle in relation to birthright citizenship. The goal shouldn't be to stop pregnant women at the border but should instead be to clarify the circumstances under which citizenship is granted where children are born in a country to a parent or parents who lack status in that country. Only a relatively small number of countries grant birthright citizenship to children of a parent or parents who lack status and in fact very few if any Western countries other than the U.S. and Canada do.

Propaganda about alleged labour shortages and supposedly problematic demographic change (which is being experienced in many countries - most of which aren't pursuing mass immigration as a 'solution") are the two biggest fables underlying immigration policy in this country. The business and immigration lobbies are the main proponents of these arguments and feckless and self-serving politicians merely fall in line. Let's hope Trudeau isn't PM after next year's election and that Canadians vote for parties that are willing to rein in the immigration nonsense that's hurting so many Canadians.

According to a news report earlier today, the information requested (demanded?) of Canadian financial institutions includes personal identifying information and most problematically S.I.N.s. To me, this is worrying. I accurately declare my income to the CRA each year and have no fear of my financial records getting into its hands but I have real concerns about why Stats Can would need or might otherwise use my confidential personal information. An item I watched on today's evening news indicated that among other objectives Stats Can could use the information to analyze consumer spending/purchasing patterns as this information could be valuable to businesses. So, is this some kind of revenue generation mechanism whereby Stats Can does market research based on information collected by government agencies (for other, legitimate, purposes) that it can then sell to private firms? If this is the government's intent, we should seriously ponder its implications. I believe the federal government owes it to Canadians to be much more transparent about this enterprise than has been the case to date.

You may be correct, and if so this is scary. The federal Libs love nothing more than social engineering and income redistribution schemes but money to cover these things is becoming more difficult to obtain. The attempt to raise taxes on high income earners hasn't yielded the revenue increases the government anticipated and Trump's tax reforms severely crimp the government's ability to further tax Canadian corporations. So, taxing and skimming from the taxpaying working and middle classes, about which the Libs barely consider if one is being honest about the situation, is their only option. If this is the purpose of the Lib's metadata efforts, they should be ashamed and the rest of us should be wary. The Libs latest trick is to create euphemistically named new taxes and justify them in moralistic terms. No "progressive" tax can be a bad thing, apparently. Presumably, they're figuring out how this smoke and mirrors tax strategy can be expanded. Ordinary Canadian taxpayers are just sitting ducks.

But is there an actual role out there for the NDP when the Libs have moved so far to the left on social policy, particularly where pet Lib social engineering and income redistribution schemes are concerned? Rational class-based economic and social analysis has been displaced in academia by the promotion of victim-based identity causes. Marxism has been replaced by neo-Marxism and in the process intellectual objectivity has been jettisoned. In the current environment of "progressive" anti-intellectualism, I can't see any room on the ideological spectrum for the NDP other than as a kind of pale 'us too' version of the Liberal Party. The modern NDP doesn't appear to be able or willing to challenge the elitist globalist perspective and seems disconnected from the actual concerns of ordinary Canadians. Has its time simply come and gone?

Reports indicate that the federal government has permitted the financial and banking information of 500K Canadians to be secretively collected by Stats Canada. The Conservatives have challenged this practice in the House of Commons, however Trudeau's party apparently won't back down. I suspect that few question Stats Canada's motives but the issue of the security of such information might be a real concern. Given the revelation earlier this year that Stats Canada's security procedures may not be air-tight (see link, below), and given the growing sophistication of hackers and the government's general lack of transparency it's not unreasonable to assume that many Canadians might be uncomfortable about having their financial records collected by a government agency without their knowledge and consent. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/statistics-canada-census-lost-forms-1.4566263

It's hard to know at this point what the real impacts of a suddenly and significantly increased minimum wage are or might be. Labour markets, particularly at the lower end of the income scale, can be very fluid. I believe the experience in Seattle, where a $15/hr minimum wage policy was adopted, have been mixed. (See link, below.) Picking winners and losers has not been a easy task. In particular, one of the early findings is that employers can end up favouring employees with better skills and qualifications while more marginal workers can be negatively impacted. It's not difficult to figure out why employers might believe they should be able to hire better (i.e. more educated, literate, experienced) workers if they have to pay higher wages, right? Part of the problem here in Ontario is that a $15/hr minimum wage has different impacts in Toronto than it does in small towns where living costs are lower and labour pools are smaller. While a $15/hr minimum wage might be eminently justifiable in high-cost Toronto, it might not be elsewhere in the province. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ce311ee9b0f0

I think your criticism of free speech is far too broad to be reasonable. Antisemitism and racism existed long before the modern era of mass communications. They are manifestations of often deeply ingrained cultural prejudices rather than amounting to legal, political or technological inventions. There's a valid argument to be made that mass communications have undermined rather than exacerbated these cultural prejudices. Indeed, in those societies where free speech is heavily restricted prejudicial attitudes and values are likely far more prevalent. Free speech is too fundamentally necessary to the survival of democracy to be broadly blamed for society's problems. Personally, I'd rather have the real bigots out in the open so we can know and understand what they're saying than force them to operate in secret as much of their belief structure is grounded in victim identity and ideology. If they're suppressed, won't it just validate and exacerbate their sense of victimization?

How, then, could they get into Canada? In general, it's not easy to get here other than on a visa and I suspect that very few visas to enter the U.S. or Canada are granted to stateless individuals. Most among the recent surge of refugee claimants entering Canada from the U.S. legally entered and/or were permitted to reside in the U.S. prior to coming here. I believe that most of the children born in Canada to those without Canadian permanent residency or citizenship are born to those who legitimately hold citizenship somewhere else. I think the biggest single problem that might emerge would be where children are born to a parent or parents who are failed refugee claimants who haven't been removed from Canada. In the U.S., the biggest problem will likely emerge among those who are born to a parent or parents who are residing there illegally. Any applicable law restricting birth tourism, whether here or in the U.S., could fairly easily address the issue of whether a child born to a parent without adequate status has a reasonable claim to citizenship somewhere else.

I don't believe that you've explained how any of your links specifically pertain to the situation in Canada. Racialist activists in Canada often point to circumstances in the U.S., in particular, but also elsewhere, to substantiate their ideological claims, a strategy that's largely devoid of relevance. While most Canadians and Americans share a common language, the social and political histories of the two countries vary significantly. So, rather than simply wallpapering this string with links, please explain their significance to the debate in this country in relation to the topic, which is our federal government's reportedly secret consultations on racism.

I think you're taking this a bit far where the issue of birth tourism is concerned. The issue here is whether people, whatever their origin(s), should have a right to citizenship for their children without any significant attachment to a country. In Canada, none of the groups you mention is likely to be heavily impacted by restrictions on birth tourism and in the U.S. perhaps only Mexicans might be significantly affected. In order to remain legitimate, access to citizenship should be subjected to realistically strict parameters. The one area where restricting birthright citizenship might pose a problem is where children are born to a parent or parents who are refugee claimants. However, I'm sure this issue can be adequately addressed by lawmakers in order to avoid the prospect of creating "stateless" children.

Trump and many U.S. conservatives have long opposed broad birthright citizenship entitlement. According to a report today (see below), Trump now plans to issue an executive order to end the practice of conferring citizenship on babies born to parents in the U.S. where neither parent has official legal status in that country. While this may well be controversial, I suspect it's also prudent. Perhaps, if Trump is able to achieve this, we'll have to revisit our citizenship rules relating to such births as well as there will likely be a spillover effect of encouraging more birth tourism to Canada if the U.S. ends the practice. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-trump-says-he-wants-to-end-birthright-citizenship-for-some-us-born/

Whoa there! Before you get carried away with yourself, let me point out that I raised access to guns as a counterpoint to the bizarre notion that free speech is at the root of atrocities like the Pittsburgh shooting. Free speech, like democracy, is a double-edged sword. Free speech in fact is the oxygen that sustains democracy. Adherents on both extremes of the ideological spectrum equally dislike the actual notion of free speech and would if their side obtained power seek to suppress it. To blame free speech for the Pittsburgh shooting is akin to blaming democracy for the acts of demagogues who are elected to power - and there have been many legitimately elected demagogues in modern history. You shouldn't throw the baby out with the proverbial bathwater.

Thanks for the links you provide on this topic. Why Canadians have been so complacent in the face of the propaganda spewed by both corporate Canada and the immigration industry remains a mystery to me. Not only are a lot of people simply unaware that the labour shortages argument is propaganda, but most uncritically accept the deeply flawed "demographic" argument that immigration is required due to Canada's low fertility rate. Increasingly, evidence suggests the demographic case for high immigration levels simply doesn't exist. Australia's Productivity Commission, which fairly recently conducted an extensive study of that country's large-scale immigration program, reached this conclusion, noting I believe that immigration intake would have to be maintained at enormous and unsustainably high levels in order to have any real beneficial impact on an ageing population and workforce.

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Because of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, most forms of free speech are accorded greater protection in the U.S. than is the case in Canada, where the delineation of acceptable speech is much more circumscribed. The Charter doesn't rescue us from this deficiency. As for hate crime laws, it's my understanding that these are more generally applicable and easily triggered in Canada than in the U.S., where in most cases an actual violent crime committed with hateful intent must apply in order to trigger a hate crime prosecution. I believe the bar for triggering hate crime charges, particularly in relation to what is perceived as hate speech, is lower in Canada. Personally, I don't believe the attack in Pittsburgh had/has anything to do with free speech. Easy access to guns, especially in the U.S., as well the hyper-sensitized and identity-focused social tribalism that increasingly characterizes Western societies appear to play bigger roles in such incidents.

I think you've been heavily influenced by corporate propaganda on this issue. There are many indicators that Canada's labour markets are exhibiting considerable slack, including the following: 1) Income growth remains anemic, suggesting that increased labour availability is suppressing wages; 2) The labour market participation rate (i.e. the percentage of working age individuals who are engaged in the workforce) remains below 2008 (i.e. pre-recession) levels; 3) Thousands of new labour market entrants, including recent post-secondary graduates and new immigrants, remain unemployed or underemployed for significant periods of time; 4) Thousands of post-secondary graduates, particularly in STEM fields, continue to leave the country each year for opportunities abroad; 5) Despite ageing and increased longevity, the retirement age is dropping, suggesting that in many cases discouraged older workers are simply leaving the workforce; 6) Our productivity performance remains anemic in comparison to other Western countries. There are of course real looming skilled trades shortages, which in the past were met primarily with immigration from Europe, however it's not clear that our programs are calibrated to address this particular issue at all. The real "shortage" faced by Canada's corporate sector is access to skilled cheap labour. Were the immigrant and temp foreign worker taps to be slowed, real wages, innovation and productivity would likely increase, a strategy that is not favoured by this country's corporate elites.

Your mind seems closed to facts and logic where this issue is concerned. The dreamy "progressive" mindset, apparently. Keep on sleeping.

Maybe some kind of protest? Who knows, but when I go to Yonge and Dundas in Toronto (which I seldom do anymore) it's often difficult to get through the hordes of protestors representing various causes as well as the omnipresent religious proselytizers. Such activities appear to be a staple of urban life in large North American cities. If you want to avoid them, I guess it's best to stick to suburban malls.