Isn't it time to slow down immigration?

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

Wishing to be ethnically diverse isn't treason. This view you have that all immigrants hate Canada and are detrimental....that view can't even be applied to a large minority. There is nothing wrong with ou ethnic diversity. White people aren't necessarily better.

No,. I don't think that they hate Canada, some most likely do, but many immigrants have allegiance to foreign lands in preference to Canada. Hard to make this country better when immigrants hearts are elsewhere and are just here to make money to send home. Raping our economy to prop up tyrants.

Smallc · October 27, 2008

No,. I don't think that they hate Canada, some most likely do, but many immigrants have allegiance to foreign lands in preference to Canada. Hard to make this country better when immigrants hearts are elsewhere and are just here to make money to send home. Raping our economy to prop up tyrants.

If you say so.

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

If you say so.

Again, you live in some tiny cowtown and don't have much exposure to immigrants so you really don't know whats going on. I shall enlighten you.

Every Saturday morning you can go to any Money Mart in any area with a high immigrant population. What you will see is a long line up of people sending loads of money out of Canada. That sounds to me like people who have their hearts elsewhere.

Smallc · October 27, 2008

Again, you live in some tiny cowtown and don't have much exposure to immigrants so you really don't know whats going on. I shall enlighten you.
Every Saturday morning you can go to any Money Mart in any area with a high immigrant population. What you will see is a long line up of people sending loads of money out of Canada. That sounds to me like people who have their hearts elsewhere.

And again, I will inform you, that I live in Winnipeg for most of the year. I'm going back there is about 15 days for the rest of the year and possibly life. I do know what I'm talking about and I know many very good and believe it or not patriotic immigrants.

craiger · October 27, 2008

Can you prove that with some links and numbers?

They or their families may be charged onerous fees back home, then told they have a debt to pay off here

By TAMARA CHERRY, SUN MEDIA

TORONTO -- The stereotype is a young woman forced to work in a brothel, strip club or massage parlour.

But reality cuts across all walks of life.

Nannies. Construction workers. Seasonal farmers.

"Nobody knows the language of human trafficking," says Sherilyn Trompetter, assistant executive director of Changing Together, an Edmonton-based non-governmental agency (NGO) that leads the Alberta Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

Many exploited foreign workers are treated simply as employees in poor working conditions, not as human trafficking victims, Trompetter says, pointing to the case of 30 Polish welders who arrived in Alberta in 2005 and 2006 under false pretenses and were paid less than half their expected wages.

"Human trafficking in general in Canada needs to be redefined and it needs to be stated that we've already seen these patterns; these patterns have always existed," she says. "We're just not calling it what it is."

In a four-part series running across the country this week, Sun Media looks at Canada's hidden trade in people; at the failure of this country to live up to its international obligations on human trafficking, to prosecute human traffickers and meaningfully help victims.

Human trafficking is defined under Canadian law as "the recruitment, transportation or harbouring of persons for the purpose of exploitation," the RCMP writes on its website.

Trafficking can be a family member offering up a child to work in Canada as a domestic servant.

It can be a live-in caregiver who is brought into the country and told she will be paid with a roof over her head, not understanding she is also entitled to a wage.

And sometimes the exploitation is based on false promises, unfulfilled visas and what seem to be a lack of options: A group of trades people who arrive in Canada only to be shuffled to another employer and paid a fraction of what was agreed upon.

"It's often degrees of exploitation," Canadian Council for Refugees executive director Janet Dench says in Montreal. "The more vulnerable people are, the more easy it is to exploit them."

The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) moved to address the living and working conditions of temporary foreign workers in 2006 when, for the first time ever, Alberta had more of these workers in the booming province than permanent immigrants.

At the time, there were nearly 22,400 temporary foreign workers in Alberta -- doubled from 2003 and tripled from 1997.

The following year, the AFL launched the Temporary Foreign Worker Advocate with Edmonton lawyer Yessy Byl at the helm.

By the time her six-month report came out, Byl had heard from more than 1,400 people and opened case files for 123 temporary foreign workers "in need of assistance."

"An analysis of the 123 files handled by the Advocate reveals a troubling picture of how Alberta is treating this group of workers," the report said. "Quite frankly, we are exploiting their vulnerability and taking advantage of their precarious position."

The problems can start in a victim's home country, where employment agencies have been known to charge anywhere from $1,000 to $15,000 to process Canadian job applications, says Anette Sikka, who spent several years trying to combat human trafficking in Kosovo before returning to Canada where she is researching human trafficking at the University of Ottawa.

In some cases, agencies are charging workers for skills and language training in their home country and then charging a "settlement" fee upon their arrival in Canada -- calling it such gets around rules that make it illegal to charge for finding employment.

Like many trafficking victims who are smuggled into this country, these victims are told they, too, have a debt to pay off. We found you a job, now you owe us some money.

And there is nobody telling them otherwise.

With no official agreement obligating the federal government to tell the provinces who, when and how many people are arriving as temporary foreign workers or live-in caregivers, employment standards branches across the country, no matter how good their intentions, don't have the necessary information to check up on workers, Sikka says.

"There's no mandatory orientation done," she says. "It's absolutely, 100-per-cent necessary. I think it's the primary thing we can do to stop the types of trafficking that are going on in Western Canada particularly."

Debt bondage aside, workers can fall into a "vicious cycle" of exploitation simply by not being informed of their rights upon arrival, Sikka says.

Something as simple as informing workers about the procedure of changing employers would be helpful for foreign workers who are granted visas to work at one place, but upon arrival, are shuffled to different employers.

By the time they figure out they are working illegally, experts say, these workers may be hesitant to speak out for fear of deportation.

"They can change employers if they want, but they're just not told," Sikka says. "Nobody informs them they have to go through that procedure."

"Families who are sending people over, they'll do just about anything: Mortgage homes, take out loans . . . So when the person gets here and if the job isn't what they had expected or they're not making the money they had expected or, in some cases, there's actually no job, they've been charged all this money and they end up working illegally," Sikka says. "And then they're stuck in this vicious cycle where they may not be working in accordance to their visa, but they're in such high debt bondage, there's just nothing they can do."

At the International Bureau for Children's Rights in Montreal, program manager Catherine Gauvreau recounts a story that began to unravel a few years ago about a trafficked teenaged girl.

Having been separated from her parents during a 1990s conflict in her home country and subsequently separated from her siblings, the girl arrived in Canada with a woman posing as her aunt.

"The child is obviously in a desperate situation in this case. She (the 'aunt') brings the child here, the child goes through the process, is accepted under false identity."

The victim ended up in a home where she "basically does domestic servitude, she takes care of the family, of the children," all the while under psychological control and physical abuse from the family, Gauvreau says.

"She goes into the school system. No one believes her because this is not something that supposedly happens in Canada."

That child, who is now an adult, became a successful refugee claimant after a friend's mother finally found credence in her allegations.

"It's important to recognize that some of the situations are domestic ones, where you have women and men, children even, who are kind of house servants and they're kept in the house and not able to get out," Dench says with this message for the government: "Try to make sure that people have as many opportunities as possible to assert their rights."

Loly Rico, co-director of the FCJ Refugee Centre in Toronto and president of Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, has seen cases of Canadians returning to their home countries to recruit people for work and bring them back to Canada. But instead of paying them money, they pay the workers with food and shelter. "But they don't let you go out."

Of the three trafficked women who have walked into Rico's office this year, two were forced into the sex trade; one was in forced domestic, abusive labour, she says.

"In most of the cases, they have been brought by relatives or friends," she says, adding most victims she has seen over the years come from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Sikka points out domestic and agricultural workers are often excluded from Employment Standards legislation.

"A lot of people want to be involved in trafficking. It's a big, sexy, glamorous, organized crime issue. Whether that's really the case is another story. And I don't think it is," Sikka says. "People don't always want to hear that. It's just not newsworthy, I guess. Because it's been happening for so long and people have ignored it for so long, now that we call it trafficking, they're still ignoring it."

"It just becomes everybody's responsibility to, in a sense, look out for your neighbour," says Robin Pike, executive director of the B.C. Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons. "If people are suspicious that the live-in caregiver next door has had her passport taken and has never been paid, it really is the eyes of the public."

"The one thing that I think that we should do faster than immediately is the education component," Manitoba MP Joy Smith says. "We should make sure that on airplanes people are warned about human trafficking. We should make sure that there's a 1-800 number if somebody's in trouble, with the resources behind it to make sure that person can be rescued."

"No one . . . wishes to be in bondage . . . to be confined. And there's no one that wishes to be used," she says, adding more resources need to be poured into educating police about identifying victims.

South of Ontario, where a state-wide task force funded by the U.S. government is set up to combat human trafficking, Amy Fleischauer says of the dozens of victims she has come across over the last year and a half, she can't paint just one picture of their situations.

There have been sex workers, restaurant workers, farm workers, domestic workers, says the trafficking victim services co-ordinator for the International Institute of Buffalo.

"They've been all ages. We've served some minors, but the large majority of our clients have been older, in their 30s and 40s," she says. "There really has been no trend or no one face of trafficking or one characteristic."

Most don't identify themselves as trafficking victims and are referred to Fleischauer by other organizations.

By the time they end up on her doorstep, they want to learn English, they want to know when they can work next, they want job skills.

"We try to meet those needs and establish some trust and explain their rights and even what their rights are in this country if they're undocumented," she says.

"Those have been some really tough conversations -- that even if you are not in this country legally, you can't be beaten."

scribblet · October 27, 2008

Australia is talking about slowing it down http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/migr....4955827271.html but I think it is highly unlikely that Canada or the U.S. would even contemplate it.

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

Australia is talking about slowing it down http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/migr....4955827271.html but I think it is highly unlikely that Canada or the U.S. would even contemplate it.

Wee need to slam the door shut for a while but we won't of course as we'll be labeled as racist. That's the buzzword of the day. We are the most tolerant society on the planet. We couldn't be more tolerant if we tried but it's never enough.

Argus · October 27, 2008

Wishing to be ethnically diverse isn't treason.

Agreed. It's just stupid.

Argus · October 27, 2008

Australia is talking about slowing it down http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/migr....4955827271.html but I think it is highly unlikely that Canada or the U.S. would even contemplate it.

The Liberals and NDP, in conjunction with the media, have created a sort of amorphous feeling among the population at large (i.e., the sheep) that immigration is necessary for economic and demographic reasons (declining birth rate), and that, as such, the only real opposition to it comes from xenophobic racists and bigots. The reality is that immigration doesn't benefit us economically, and immigration does very little to address a declining birth rate. But few people are going to actually look into their assumptions long enough to realize that. As for the Tories, they've been tarred with the "racist" brush ever since the days of the Reform party, and are so terrified of the accusation they're not about to even consider any major reduction in immigration.

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

The Liberals and NDP, in conjunction with the media, have created a sort of amorphous feeling among the population at large (i.e., the sheep) that immigration is necessary for economic and demographic reasons (declining birth rate), and that, as such, the only real opposition to it comes from xenophobic racists and bigots. The reality is that immigration doesn't benefit us economically, and immigration does very little to address a declining birth rate. But few people are going to actually look into their assumptions long enough to realize that. As for the Tories, they've been tarred with the "racist" brush ever since the days of the Reform party, and are so terrified of the accusation they're not about to even consider any major reduction in immigration.

I'll just keep up with the program of making them feel as uncomfortable as they're trying to make me feel. Once in a while some try to come to my neighborhood and they look at houses. I walk up to them and explain in no uncertain terms that this area is off limits. I tell them to go back to Brampton as you're not welcome here. You people aren't turning this area into a ghetto like you did Brampton. That's the key, keeping them under control so they don't turn our cities and towns into ghettos like Regent Park or Jane/Finch etc.

People need to have some form of civic responsibility and be proud of their towns and not be over run with criminals and other undesirables. If the government won't help us we need to help ourselves. To send the message that this area isn't going to be turned into a ghetto, we won't stand for it and we're here to stop you. Too many good people are too afraid but this initial fear is nothing compared to the fear that will be felt by the towns seniors, women and children as you sit idly by an do nothing as your town is over run by youths who want to cause trouble and play loud music harassing innocent passerby.

Until they graduate into robbery and start selling their drugs to your young people. Turning our children into addicts and in doing so turning them against you, the parents. From there it's just a big downward spiral.

All of that could have been avoided if only we had the courage to stand up for what is right and just. To stand up for our old, our young and our women.

EDIT - This is just an illustration of how I deal with this problem. IF the government won't limit them then I'll limit them from living around me. That's about all I can do under the current law. That an ensure that me and my neighbors are careful whom they sell to so that we can keep our street and families safe. Again, I'm just sharing my experience. It's probably not everyone's cup of tea and that's cool, just wanted to share what it is that we do out here.

Edited October 27, 2008 by Mr.Canada

guyser · October 27, 2008

Like it or not white people are constantly moving further away trying to get away from that. I'm not sure if people do it subconciously or not but that would be an interesting study.

Hmm....those condos springing up all over downtown Toronto are bought by "other than white" people?

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/a...s/Toronto-2.pdf

Nope.

How about the other big cities in Canada? Vancouver....growing, Calgary proper....growing.

guyser · October 27, 2008

Many people here won't sell to them so they'll have a hard time doing that.

Little known fact--- people sell because they got the asking price. They dont know who is on the other end for the most part.

Nice try.

Of course it's frowned upon but that's what people do. I'm not saying me but I know it does happen.

Yes you would. You cant hide that easily.

Why, I would bet you post something so mindnumbingly stupid that virtually proves you would.....oh look what follows

Lol, I have no problem with other races as long as they realize they are guests in my country and should fully assimilate into our society. I don't like it when they try to take over an area. That's when I and others like me leave and thus, the burbs get further away again. It's the way of things. The races constantly chasing each other.

It has to be the parenting because my wife is half black and her mother is black as is her sister and sisters kids and they were always respectful and well behaved, never dressed like thugs and are clean cut. They were raised reasonably so that seals it for me. The parenting of some of these kids is slack at best.

Bullshit.

Edited October 27, 2008 by guyser

guyser · October 27, 2008

That's why I live in a smaller community. More people think like me.

Your neighbours are all dumb asses? Is wulf a neighbour too?

M.Dancer · October 27, 2008

What matter's to me is that what I'm saying is true and cannot be proven wrong.

First, matter's is not possessive...I can prove that wrong.

Secondly, just about everything you have posted has been proven wrong. That matters lot for credibility.

M.Dancer · October 27, 2008

Once in a while some try to come to my neighborhood and they look at houses. I walk up to them and explain in no uncertain terms that this area is off limits. I tell them to go back to Brampton as you're not welcome here. You people aren't turning this area into a ghetto like you did Brampton.

I'm sure they say, "Darling this in no place to raise our children, there are too many mouth breathing morons here. That will negatively impact housing prices."

Argus · October 27, 2008

It has to be the parenting because my wife is half black and her mother is black as is her sister and sisters kids and they were always respectful and well behaved, never dressed like thugs and are clean cut. They were raised reasonably so that seals it for me. The parenting of some of these kids is slack at best.

Bullshit.

Didn't Denzel Washington once say that, looking at what "black culture" has wrought, with the bling, the gaudy clothes, the pants dragging around their asses, gangsta and ho attitude, and the strange belief that slurring your words and never using proper grammar makes you more hip, he sometimes felt ashamed of being Black?

M.Dancer · October 27, 2008

Bullshit.
Didn't Denzel Washington once say that, looking at what "black culture" has wrought, with the bling, the gaudy clothes, the pants dragging around their asses, gangsta and ho attitude, and the strange belief that slurring your words and never using proper grammar makes you more hip, he sometimes felt ashamed of being Black?

Maybe but I think it was Bill Cosby.

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

I can understand that you don't agree with me on my motivations for not living in a large urban area. However you cannot possibly dictate to me what goes on in Halton Hills and what does not as I live here and you do not. I have real estate here and I'm certain you do not so please don't try to spout nonsense guys, be fair.

My wife is half black. If you have the guts we can meet for lunch with your wife someplace and have a discussion. She doesn't see things as divided as I do and it angers her sometimes as she is of mixed race.

Why do have a problem with me wanting to raise my family in an area not rife with drugs and prostitution? I'm sorry but I don't want mine around that sort of alternative lifestyle. Perhaps you like living around those things and it works great for you but it's not for me.

Guyser, many people here sell privately. If you drive, you're welcome to drive around Halton Hills, if you can afford an auto and see for yourself. Not only that but the sellers are often home when their house is being shown. Additionally the seller is permitted to review the offers tendered. Have you never bought a house?

Additionally the suburbs are constantly getting bigger due to white flight and after a few years others follow and expansion begins again. This is how it is, I don't know why that's why I say it'd make for an interesting study.

Guyser, aren't you the one who lives near Huntsville? You're community is more homogeneous than mine is, so I don't understand how you're the authority on the subject to begin with. Whereas I have lived in many areas of Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and surrounding areas of each. I have real life experience.

Guyser, I never said all caucasian's were moving to the burbs I said a great many are and have been for decades. That is where the term "white flight" came from in the 50's and 60's.

The suburbs is where people go to live in peace. Bedroom communities as it were. This name was dubbed because people would commute to the city for work than commute back to sleep.

Edited October 27, 2008 by Mr.Canada

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

I am allowing myself to be sidetracked when I should stay on topic.

Immigration should be temporarily curtailed until Canada's economic outlook improves. We as a country can simply no longer afford to support the massive influx of immigrants all the time. Monthly housing, food, utilities and medical bills are putting a massive strain on our system as well as further tearing our social fabric.

During this rough economic time we need people who can support themselves and have their own money. Others need not apply until further notice unless the World Bank is going to give Canada funds to support the thousands of refugees we take in every year the store is closed. Every civilized country around the world is facing conomic crisis it simply doesn't make sense to keep funding this while it's Canadians who are in need.

We need to look after ourselves first for a change.

Edited October 27, 2008 by Mr.Canada

Smallc · October 27, 2008

I can understand that you don't agree with me on my motivations for not living in a large urban area. However you cannot possibly dictate to me what goes on in Halton Hills

And you can't dictate to anyone else either If an immigrant wants to move there, they will, and there's nothing you can do about it. Actually, I hope a few do move there.

Sir Bandelot · October 27, 2008

I can understand that you don't agree with me on my motivations for not living in a large urban area. However you cannot possibly dictate to me what goes on in Halton Hills and what does not as I live here and you do not. I have real estate here and I'm certain you do not so please don't try to spout nonsense guys, be fair.

Credibility = zero

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

And you can't dictate to anyone else either If an immigrant wants to move there, they will, and there's nothing you can do about it. Actually, I hope a few do move there.

We do have some here but they are family based and don't cause trouble. They see things as the rest of us do. The children are not running wild selling drugs in the street. They are under control and raise their children responsibly. It is not the case everywhere I assure you.

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

Credibility = zero

How so? I live here you do not. How are you more qualified than me to speak about the town I live in?

Also I noticed that you didn't quote the rest of my post because you know it's true.

I have lived in many areas of Toronto, Calgary and Montreal. Have you?

In TO I lived in Moss PArk, Reagent, Flemington PArk and Scarborough. I have seen the ghetto I know who lives there and what goes on.

Edited October 27, 2008 by Mr.Canada

Mr.Canada · October 27, 2008

I am allowing myself to be sidetracked when I should stay on topic.
Immigration should be temporarily curtailed until Canada's economic outlook improves. We as a country can simply no longer afford to support the massive influx of immigrants all the time. Monthly housing, food, utilities and medical bills are putting a massive strain on our system as well as further tearing our social fabric.

During this rough economic time we need people who can support themselves and have their own money. Others need not apply until further notice unless the World Bank is going to give Canada funds to support the thousands of refugees we take in every year the store is closed. Every civilized country around the world is facing conomic crisis it simply doesn't make sense to keep funding this while it's Canadians who are in need.

We need to look after ourselves first for a change.

Lets keep it on topic guys please.

guyser · October 27, 2008

I can understand that you don't agree with me on my motivations for not living in a large urban area. However you cannot possibly dictate to me what goes on in Halton Hills and what does not as I live here and you do not. I have real estate here and I'm certain you do not so please don't try to spout nonsense guys, be fair.

Great you live in Halton. Want a ribbon?

I know people who live there. Are they wrong when they tell me a different story? Nope!

My wife is half black. If you have the guts we can meet for lunch with your wife someplace and have a discussion. She doesn't see things as divided as I do and it angers her sometimes as she is of mixed race.

And this, Argus is why I called bullshit.

Does anyone really believe that this poster tells his half black wife that he wont allow her kind to live in the same neighbourhood as they do? That he openly advocates, by way of verbalizing to prospective homebuyers ,that they are unwanted as neighbours?

She sits there quietly while you stupidly denigrate her entire family and anyone elses who isnt white?

Yea...right. Once more for posterity ...Bullshit.

And, if for some chance she does? Well, you certainly married to your level. The less said about that the better.

Oh, and by the way , with your "kindness to strangers", and your obvious open mindedness about immigrants, it is no wonder you have had numerous guns pointed at you. But frankly, I will just add this....Bullshit.

Whoever it was is right. Zero credibility.

Why do have a problem with me wanting to raise my family in an area not rife with drugs and prostitution? I'm sorry but I don't want mine around that sort of alternative lifestyle. Perhaps you like living around those things and it works great for you but it's not for me.

Yes yes, we all love hookers and blow on our doorstep.

Get a grip. No one has advocated for that. The funny thing is, drugs are as prevelant in your neighbourhood as they are in mine. Funny thing that huh?

Guyser, many people here sell privately. If you drive, you're welcome to drive around Halton Hills, if you can afford an auto and see for yourself. Not only that but the sellers are often home when their house is being shown. Additionally the seller is permitted to review the offers tendered. Have you never bought a house?

Riiiiight. Your neighbours, who have had no offers in 6 months will turn down an offer that meets their target because the last name is Singh , or Lu....sure they will.

Great, review the offer. That offer could be in the name of Johnson. Oh my god, what happens if they are black? Or changed the name when they moved here....of course they could be no good for nothin' whitey Johnsons too. Put some wrecks in the front yard, a nice trailer out back, that sort of thing.

Guyser, aren't you the one who lives near Huntsville? You're community is more homogeneous than mine is, so I don't understand how you're the authority on the subject to begin with. Whereas I have lived in many areas of Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and surrounding areas of each. I have real life experience.

I was born and raised in Toronto. Even bought a house here.

Huntsville? Only on weekends. Yes, in Muskoka. And some of the poeple who live in backwater Muskoka I would trade for an immigrant family in a heartbeat. Plenty of dumb ignorant lazy white people.Some probably moved from Halton Hills.

Gosh, to think whitey is suspect too..who da thunk it?

The suburbs is where people go to live in peace. Bedroom communities as it were. This name was dubbed because people would commute to the city for work than commute back to sleep.

And with the price of gas, plus the superior benefits for culture, many are living and moving into the city.