A simple alternative to bringing in poor quality immigrants

[Moonlight Graham]

Instead of letting poor quality immigrants into the country and spending money on processing them, paying for them to be on welfare etc., and giving them access to publicly funded systems like healthcare and heavily subsidized post-secondary education that many Canadians have been paying into for their whole lives (as have their parents and grandparents etc.), how about we instead take some of that money and pay couples who are already Canadian to have more children?

Oh and this money may also have the benefit of possibly giving couples more of an incentive to have one of the parents stay home and actually raise their damn kids instead of sending them off to strangers at day care...which will also likely be publicly funded someday soon.

[Bonam]

Not a bad idea. It's obviously been mentioned here before many times. The government does already provide some small financial benefits to parents.

Why it won't happen:

- any party that really tried to really reduce immigration would be labeled racist and would lose power in the next election

- relying on a policy that makes more children now only increases the work force some 18-20+ years down the road, but our politicians never think more than 4-5 years ahead

While boosting birth rates to a level that at least maintains the population (rather than the current death spiral) should definitely be a priority, I believe Canada can benefit from immigration. We need to be a lot more selective though. Make it so people need a permanent full time job offer from a Canadian employer before they can immigrate. Also, family reunification should be limited to spouse and children only.

[Saipan]

Why it won't happen:

- any party that really tried to really reduce immigration would be labeled racist and would lose power in the next election

Not at all. People vote the way they think, not the way they talk.

Also times have changed. More and more people see that it wasn't very bright liberal idea to bring more Jamaican dope dealers and gunrunners, for example, instead educated people from Europe and Asia.

And those who still try to be politically correct spending public money are in for surprise.

Edited November 7, 2010 by Saipan

[bjre]

CAS makes Canadian feels that kids are belong to state, not the parents. And the quality of the kids are not good as born in developing countries because teachers here are too lazy to ask each kid to learn. When kids don't learn, the teachers simply say, "it is your choice". When such kids with no responsibility grow up, they don't like kids that make trouble too because of laziness.

[Moonlight Graham]

Not a bad idea. It's obviously been mentioned here before many times. The government does already provide some small financial benefits to parents.

Hadn't seen the idea mentioned before on these forums, though i know mine isn't an original idea generally.

Why it won't happen:

- any party that really tried to really reduce immigration would be labeled racist and would lose power in the next election

- relying on a policy that makes more children now only increases the work force some 18-20+ years down the road, but our politicians never think more than 4-5 years ahead

Both are excellent points. It would be very risky politically for a party to propose such. There would certainly be vote losses in key places like the GTA. Parties now seem to do the opposite, by being quite supportive of immigration/multiculturalism etc. in order to appeal the ever-increasing immigrant/visible minority voters in Canada.

While boosting birth rates to a level that at least maintains the population (rather than the current death spiral) should definitely be a priority, I believe Canada can benefit from immigration. We need to be a lot more selective though. Make it so people need a permanent full time job offer from a Canadian employer before they can immigrate. Also, family reunification should be limited to spouse and children only.

I agree that immigration is beneficial, and that we should be more selective. It certainly isn't about racism, as i would be very much against it if say the U.K. offered to send us most of their Caucasians who are or had been in prison. It's about the quality of people we let it in.

Making it mandatory for immigrants to have a full-time job offer would make it too difficult i would think. And i agree that family reunification should be limited. ie: bringing in older family members does nothing but add to our population problem.

[Saipan]

It would be very risky politically for a party to propose such. There would certainly be vote losses in key places like the GTA.

"The Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned.

When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."

Mark Twain

[Argus]

Instead of letting poor quality immigrants into the country and spending money on processing them, paying for them to be on welfare etc., and giving them access to publicly funded systems like healthcare and heavily subsidized post-secondary education that many Canadians have been paying into for their whole lives (as have their parents and grandparents etc.), how about we instead take some of that money and pay couples who are already Canadian to have more children?

If only it were that easy. It's not. If you examine the system in France, parents there have an incredible sweetheart deal. Not only do they get extended time off but also free, guaranteed, high quality day care. And they're still not having children. In fact, their birth rate is considerably less than ours.

It's a cultural shift towards consumerism and self-indulgence which started with the boomer generation. The boomers didn't want to have a pile of kids, and wanted to have more fun, time to party and enjoy themselves, and more "stuff". Did you honestly think that attitude wouldn't be passed on to their children? Whereas boomers would generally have 3-4 kids their children dropped it to about 2, and now it's about 1 or 2 kids - if couples have kids at all.

Economics is a part of it, yes. Guaranteed, affordable daycare would have persuaded a number of women I know to have more kids. But on top of that is the desire from women to have careers and not be tied at home with kids and the numerous kid issues which will arise. And there's the fact they can't have as much "stuff" and can't party and go on vacation and just do whatever they want once they have kids. On top of THAT is the fact there usually isn't the stability in relationships there used to be, especially early in life. Without that stability, people don't want to have kids. Often couples don't settle down now and start seriously thinking about kids until their thirties. A friend of mine has two kids and frankly said the other day if she had met and married her husband earlier in life they'd have had more, but she was almost 40 by the time they had their second.

You need to address all these issues if you want to get the birth rate up significantly.

[bloodyminded]

Everyone should adopt the Bloodyminded method: 21 years old....ooops! A child. 22 years old....ooops! Twins.

Three is a respectable number, I should think. Adopting my numbnuts approach could save Canada's demographics.

[Argus]

Everyone should adopt the Bloodyminded method: 21 years old....ooops! A child. 22 years old....ooops! Twins.

Three is a respectable number, I should think. Adopting my numbnuts approach could save Canada's demographics.

Maybe we could employ members of JTF2 to raid the warehouses where prophylactics are stored and stick little pinholes in them.

[bloodyminded]

Maybe we could employ members of JTF2 to raid the warehouses where prophylactics are stored and stick little pinholes in them.

Guerrilla population growth.

[jbg]

Why it won't happen:

- any party that really tried to really reduce immigration would be labeled racist and would lose power in the next election

Some straightforward, politically incorrect truths need statement.

The fact is that both of our countries are welcoming people who don't want to be assimilated into our culture and can't be. We do so out of a spurious sense of "openness". Let's be clear about the proper kind of openness, and one that applies to all races and religions. There are people who want to rise to the level of their ability, regardless of gender, tribal affiliation or ancient superstition. There are people, including virtually all females, relegated to a subservient life under many foreign cultures. Free lands such as the U.S. and Canada offer such an opportunity. But not when they let immigrant enclaves apply their own backwards "law" to their people, keeping them in bondage in a free land.

We are under no moral or ethical duty to foster the creation of such enclaves. We do benefit, though, from welcoming motivated people who want a decent lives for themselves and their families denied to them in their country of origin. And those people generally want to make the U.S. and Canada a better place as well.

[bill_barilko]

The Quebec govt tried bribing women to have more kids but most were smarter than that.

[wyly]

The Quebec govt tried bribing women to have more kids but most were smarter than that.

yup...those ideas are silly...if canadians want people to have more kids be prepared to shell out major dollars people aren't going to live in poverty to raise more kids because other canadians have issues with immigrants...how nice of some to doom others to poverty because of the dislike for immigrants...dental bills, day care, clothing, food, transportation, education who's going to pay for all that?... to have 3-4 kids and one parent not work expect to pay 40-50K per family per year to make up for the lost income and added expenses...

[Shwa]

I have to agree that a self-oriented consumerist lifestyle is one of the main contributing factors of a low birthrate, along with the dominance of urbanism. So there has to be a social change and re-orientation towards different values conducive to larger families. Everyone loves social engineering right?

Perhaps one of the side effects of such a social value change could be the necessary awareness of some of the detractions of our present immigration system. One of the things I don't get is this fear that if someone - some party or minister - were to change the levels of immigration, there would be this whole racist outcry. I am sure there would be some cries of racism, and some of those cries might be warranted from time to time, but I don't think there would be anything near something to be too wary about.

[Michael Hardner]

The idea that reducing immigration is politically untenable has been floated before, and - like a conspiracy theory - it's hard to disprove. If that is the case, though, then it's a comment on our current government's unwillingness to make tough decisions isn't it ?

[Shwa]

Everyone should adopt the Bloodyminded method: 21 years old....ooops! A child. 22 years old....ooops! Twins.

Three is a respectable number, I should think. Adopting my numbnuts approach could save Canada's demographics.

Been there and done that, although no twins by the time I was 22, just three kiddies. 5 in total, so I have done my bit!

[bloodyminded]

Been there and done that, although no twins by the time I was 22, just three kiddies. 5 in total, so I have done my bit!

More than your share, Shwa. You are doing your part more than Mr. "we need more children!" Steyn...who, like myself, has three.

[Machjo]

Instead of letting poor quality immigrants into the country and spending money on processing them, paying for them to be on welfare etc., and giving them access to publicly funded systems like healthcare and heavily subsidized post-secondary education that many Canadians have been paying into for their whole lives (as have their parents and grandparents etc.), how about we instead take some of that money and pay couples who are already Canadian to have more children?

Oh and this money may also have the benefit of possibly giving couples more of an incentive to have one of the parents stay home and actually raise their damn kids instead of sending them off to strangers at day care...which will also likely be publicly funded someday soon.

Then people would complain that we're subsidizing other people's kids. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with the idea, but merely that it's way too simplistic.

Remember too that some won't get married or have kids BEFORE they are financially stable. So if you rase their taxes to subsidize those who do have kids, you risk discouraging more people from having kids.

Now the good news is that this discouragement would mean that not many would benefit from it, thus reducing the need to raise taxes. But if that's the case, then it just nullifies its effect and makes it a pointless law with no effect.

So instead, if the goal is to actually encourage peopel to marry and have kids, how about investing more in educaiton so as to raise people's opportunities, which in turn would make it more likely for them to become financially stable and so get married and have kids.

But again, some would complain about paying for other people's education. But hey, tht's a decision to be made.

Another issue has to do with immigration. If it's easy for peopel to come to Canada but difficult for them to gain citizenship once here, that encourages marriages of convenience, which in turn encourages later divorce and so psycholigical instability in the victims, thus increasing the population that fears remarrying and having kids. Looking at it that way, we need to make it more difficult for people to come to Canada but easier to get their citizenship once they set foot on Canadian soil. Thi would mean though that to just tansit through Canada a person would pretty well have to qualify to become a citizen, and that would hurt the tourism industry. I can imagine this energizing the tourism lobby like nothing else could.

It really isn't as simple as you portray it. Though I'd agree with providing more educaiton opportunities for the working poor and the unemployed. But again, I doubt very much that the government would go for that since it would mean higher taxes and that would be a vote killer come election time. So it really isn't that easy a solution.

Another possible help, especially in hard economic times, would be for Canada to establish labour-movement agreements with other countries. That way a Canadian whose skills are not in demand in Canada but are abroad can find work abroad, and vice versa for a foreign worker whose skills ae in demand in Canada. That would also help provide more financial stability and thus more marriages and thus children, and would benefit all countries involved. A kind of 'cratch each others' backs' kind of policy.

But simply paying families that have children won't work because they want to become financially stable BEFORE having children. So those who'd be getting paid would be those who'd have been planning on having children anyway regardless of this policy, thus really just making it an added bonus for them nad having little to no effec on those currently not interested in having children.

[Machjo]

Make it so people need a permanent full time job offer from a Canadian employer before they can immigrate.

Labour-movement agreements would likely help in this area too. For insance, if Canada's ministries of education collaboarated with their foreign counterparts to establish common standards for trades an professions, then foreigners could easily come to Canada to work first before applying for citizenship. Though again, they should meet certain minimum language standards before even being allowed to set foot on Canadian soil.

[Moonlight Graham]

It's a cultural shift towards consumerism and self-indulgence which started with the boomer generation. The boomers didn't want to have a pile of kids, and wanted to have more fun, time to party and enjoy themselves, and more "stuff". Did you honestly think that attitude wouldn't be passed on to their children? Whereas boomers would generally have 3-4 kids their children dropped it to about 2, and now it's about 1 or 2 kids - if couples have kids at all.

Yes i think consumerism is a key factor. However, other huge factors include the advent of the birth control pill for women in the 1960's. The baby boomer women now had control of their own bodies and didn't pump out babies when their husbands chose not to wear condoms.

The big women's movement that began in the 1960's also was huge. Women wanted to be more equal to males in many regards, and thought they should have the right to have full careers of their own outside the home and not stay at home and be Miss Homemaker with 5 kids. So now they have 1 or 2 kids and ship them to daycare and/or full-day kindergarten and go back to work.

There are certainly many contributing reasons for the low birthrate in Caucasian-dominated western countries. But if there's one thing that would certainly increase the birthrate, it would be to ban the birth control pill...but we know that will never happen.

[wyly]

Labour-movement agreements would likely help in this area too. For insance, if Canada's ministries of education collaboarated with their foreign counterparts to establish common standards for trades an professions,

that will never happen...

then foreigners could easily come to Canada to work first before applying for citizenship. Though again, they should meet certain minimum language standards before even being allowed to set foot on Canadian soil.

if that was the rule in the past Canada would still be a barren wasteland devoid of people...

[wyly]

none of the ideas expressed here have much if any merit...but they do demonstrate a real lack of practical financial and social reality...

[Machjo]

that will never happen...

Why not?

if that was the rule in the past Canada would still be a barren wasteland devoid of people...

Had that been the rule in the past, Canada would not exist today. Instead, we'd have various nations speaking various indigenous languages, with possibly schools around the world offering these languages as optional second-languages so as to promote trade with North America. It's too bad that never happened. But it's never too late to learn from our past mistakes.

[Machjo]

Make no mistake about it though. There were peopel in North America long before they'd dicovered the Europeans. Had we had such a language policy from the start, immigrants would have integrated to the local indigenous language communities rather than to European language communities.

[wyly]

Why not?

why should other countries care about meeting our standards? so they can lose their graduates to Canada, they have no interest in helping their people emmigrate to canada they want to keep them...are we as canadians pleased when our graduates go to the USA for bigger paychecks? that's a net loss to our economy...

Had that been the rule in the past, Canada would not exist today. Instead, we'd have various nations speaking various indigenous languages, with possibly schools around the world offering these languages as optional second-languages so as to promote trade with North America. It's too bad that never happened. But it's never too late to learn from our past mistakes.

few would bother to learn minor local/indigenous languages, the people of these N american countries would need to learn the language of international trade, english...