A simple alternative to bringing in poor quality immigrants

[Machjo]

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...

If Canada should have too many qualified in field X in which the US is suffering a shortage, and the US has too many qualified in field Y in which Canada has a shortage, woudl it not be preferable that these people cross the border to find work rather than be forced into unemployment? Again, which is more likely to want kids between the unemployed and the employed?

It's not just a one-way street. It does go both ways. Sure we might lose qualified workers to other countries but woudl gain some too, according to market demand. There is no point supporting a qualified person on welfare because there are no jobs for him in Canada if his skills are in fact needed in another country. And of course we can reciprocate to help their unemployed too. What's wrong with countries working together to solve unemployment rather than always trying to stab each other in the bac, mutually of course, resulgin in increased unemployment in all countries involved?

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...

You seem to be forgetting something here. In that imaginary world, English would not be the primary language anywhere in North America. That alone takes a very big chunk out of international English.

Add to that North America's vast resources. Don't you think some indigenous peoples would have learnt other languages to frequent foreign universities so as to bring that knowledge back to North America to establish universities in their own countries? They would essentially have become modern nations just like Europe today.

If you want to immigrate to Germany today, knowing Englih won't hep your case. They would obviously want you to know German. Why would this be any different.

Consider the vast resources these countries would control in North America. I'm sure there would have been much tourism and immigration, except that it would have been towars their languages. Remove North America from the map and Enlgish would be an island language in the UK and Australia and New Zealand. One reason many in China and Jpan learn English is because it's the primary language in North America.

[Machjo]

I've also lived abroad myself by the way, and I can tell you that except in the more higly educated circles or among Englih majors, English is really not that prevalent. Had it been, I would not have learnt the local language so easily.

[Machjo]

Sorry, I forgot. You only need to go as far as central Quebec to find entire cities that cannot speak English. Of course in Asia it's even more remote. Unless you stick among international businessmen or tourism agents or university campuses, forget it. And even then I'd come across cases where we couldn't communicate in English. I'll give two examples when I had travelled to China only a few years ago:

1. I was speaking with a Korean lady in Chinese during break at a meeting, and the others at the meeting thought it strange that we should speak Chinese. She'd explained that though she'd learnt English in school, like most Koreans she'd not learnt it well. But because she worked in China, it was natural that she'd learnt Chinese since most Chinese couldn't speak Enlgish well either. Add to that that most foreigners in China learnt Chinese too, so it was more likely to meet a foreigner who knew Chinese better than English since like Koreans and Chinese, most foreigners don't learn English well either but in China are exposed to Chinese.

2. In another meeting, all communication had broken down because the Chinese English interpreter was taught American and British English exclusively. As a result, it had taken her a few minutes to adjust ot Australian English. It had taken her about half an hour to adjust to Cameroonian English (and even then she had difficulty), and she'd not been able to understand Pakistani English throughout the whole session. Needless to say, some had a good giggle over me repeating everything (no, I wasn't interpreting but literally repeating verbatim what the others were saying) into a more standard North American pronunciation so that she could understand me. And she had a masters' degree in interpretation!

Just work abroad for awhile dealing with people from around the world of all walks of life, and you'll find that English is not nearly as international as one would think outside of elite circles.

[Oliver]

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.

I don't believe Canada lets "poor Quality" immigrants entering the Country, unless they claim Refugee status. With a refugee claim, under the charter of rights, Canada is liable to conduct an investigation regarding the claim and if the claim is found to be valid, Canada is responsible for accepting the individual/family as refugee. Apart from the refugee situation, Canada doesn't allow "Poor Quality" immigrants entering the country. As an immigrant myself, my process was unbelievably complicated and at the end of the day, the reason I was accepted is because of my education level and my skills and expertise. Although I do believe that an immigration reform is in order, to attract immigrants who are willing to integrate to the society.

Cheers,

S

[Wild Bill]

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.

Moonlight, I don't know where you live but here in Ontario I lived through the times when Dad was the only one working to when two income families became the norm. I don't ever recall the trend happening just to have greedy luxuries and yearly vacations in St. Lucia.

Things just kept getting more and more expensive! Not the toys, of course. Colour tvs and such electronics kept getting cheaper and cheaper. It was the big ticket items, like a house or a car.

And taxes! Every time you turned around in the 70's and 80's it seemed there was a new tax, a higher tax, or some kind of user fee for a government necessary service that formerly was cheap or even free!

Did you know that StatsCan calculates inflation by use of an imaginary 'basket' of household costs, like food, clothing and most usual expenses. One item specifically EXCLUDED from the list is taxes! Theoretically, taxes could go up a thousand fold and the inflation rate would never show it! Of course, the bigger the tax bite the lower the disposable income.

At the beginning of the 70's high school grads would routinely get jobs at the steel mills. Stelco had a payroll of about 10,000 workers at the time. These were well paying jobs, spending money in the community to support other workers. By the time the 80's came along it was the time of hiring freezes and downsizing. Jobs for students were gone forever. Today, Stelco (now US Steel) is at this moment locking out its workers over a contract dispute.

There are less than 1000 of them, total! We still see kids in McMaster jackets. They're behind the counter at Wendy's!

i can't speak for other parts of Canada. Maybe things were different in Calgary. All I know is that my Mom went out to work because she HAD to! The family needed the money to hold on to a modest house, a new second hand car every 4-5 years and a grocery list that had meat on it a few times a week! We were not unique either. Most everyone I knew who's Mom entered the workforce were in a similar situation.

Before you could ever go back to those days of larger families you would first have to achieve major improvements in our cost of living. I wouldn't be surprised if people were richer, both in disposable income and in free time, the number of children in the average family would increase all on its own!

[dre]

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.

The problem with this is the assumption that the reason Canadian families dont have more children is because there isnt enough financial incentive provided by the government. But birthrates are down in virtually the entire western world.

Instead you should look at the reasons why the birth rate has declined. Heres a couple of possible reasons off the top of my head.

1. It takes two working parents to support a household now. A few decades ago this was not the case... there was usually a stay at home parent.

2. The modern woman is interested in a lot of other things besides staying at home and making babies. She wants to have a career and as is mentioned in #1 she often NEEDS to. Women are more career minded, and some modern women actually thumb their noses at the traditional concept of the "mom".

3. The all out pursuit of non-durable consumer goods has overtaken raising children in terms of what many people consider a worthy endeavor.

4. For the last few decades even though Canadian workers have become increasingly more productive that productivity has not resulted in much of an increase in inflation adjusted wages. This contributes to 1, 2 and 3.

5. Birth control has drastically reduced the number of unplanned pregnancies.

With all these factors going on, Im not so sure that a family that isnt having a child now is gonna say "Did you see that sweet new child tax credit!!! Lets have a big family!!!".

Our society for whatever reason does not honor large families. It honors families with large TV sets, fancy homes, and 3 automobiles. I dont even know where you would begin reducing this trend, or if its even possible.

[wyly]

The problem with this is the assumption that the reason Canadian families dont have more children is because there isnt enough financial incentive provided by the government. But birthrates are down in virtually the entire western world.

Instead you should look at the reasons why the birth rate has declined. Heres a couple of possible reasons off the top of my head.

1. It takes two working parents to support a household now. A few decades ago this was not the case... there was usually a stay at home parent.

2. The modern woman is interested in a lot of other things besides staying at home and making babies. She wants to have a career and as is mentioned in #1 she often NEEDS to. Women are more career minded, and some modern women actually thumb their noses at the traditional concept of the "mom".

3. The all out pursuit of non-durable consumer goods has overtaken raising children in terms of what many people consider a worthy endeavor.

4. For the last few decades even though Canadian workers have become increasingly more productive that productivity has not resulted in much of an increase in inflation adjusted wages. This contributes to 1, 2 and 3.

5. Birth control has drastically reduced the number of unplanned pregnancies.

With all these factors going on, Im not so sure that a family that isnt having a child now is gonna say "Did you see that sweet new child tax credit!!! Lets have a big family!!!".

Our society for whatever reason does not honor large families. It honors families with large TV sets, fancy homes, and 3 automobiles. I dont even know where you would begin reducing this trend, or if its even possible.

there is no amount of tax credits that will encourage people to have more kids when it takes two working parents to support a home and one or two kids....some people are out of touch with financial reality of raising kids today...my dental bill for 4 kids over the last 5 years, 40K(a conservative estimate)! would the immigrant haters have been willing to cover the cost of my kids dental bills? post graduate studies? not bloody likely, the best anyone comes up with is subsidized day care or tax credits, get real some people on this forum are living in a dream world...

I've no doubt some of these same immigrant haters are same people who complain about single mom's on welfare with 3-4 or more kids...

Edited November 8, 2010 by wyly

[Machjo]

The question is though, with all the advancements in science and technology, how is it that we now need two people working rather than one? Life should be easier today we would think, or has materialism forced us to work harder to accumulate more goods, to keep up with the Joneses, to avoid ridicule y ensuring we have a big house and a nice car. The couple living in a condo and cycling to work is likely to be ridiculed even if it is a debt-free and happy working couple.

[Michael Hardner]

The question is though, with all the advancements in science and technology, how is it that we now need two people working rather than one? Life should be easier today we would think, or has materialism forced us to work harder to accumulate more goods, to keep up with the Joneses, to avoid ridicule y ensuring we have a big house and a nice car. The couple living in a condo and cycling to work is likely to be ridiculed even if it is a debt-free and happy working couple.

Life is easier than it was. If you lived as folks in the 1950s did, you could live better than they did, I am convinced.

So, no $300 per month for your phone-cable-internet. Get a basic land line, and don`t use long distance. No vacations. No meals out. No big electronic purchases, or exorbitant vehicle purchases. Clothing is basic. Do as much as you can yourself. Find a bank that will pay you interest instead of charging you for keeping your money there.

The tough part will be finding a secure job that pays a good wage - but a double income will take care of that, if you allow your wife to work.

EDIT TO ADD: And never ever use credit.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Michael Hardner

[Saipan]

Apart from the refugee situation, Canada doesn't allow "Poor Quality" immigrants entering the country.

You should watch the news sometimes. What someone from Caribbean base their refugee status claim on? Specifically (as example) mother of four who never worked a single day. Whole family on welfare. And didn't even know where two of her sons are most of the time.

[dre]

The question is though, with all the advancements in science and technology, how is it that we now need two people working rather than one? Life should be easier today we would think, or has materialism forced us to work harder to accumulate more goods, to keep up with the Joneses, to avoid ridicule y ensuring we have a big house and a nice car. The couple living in a condo and cycling to work is likely to be ridiculed even if it is a debt-free and happy working couple.

The question is though, with all the advancements in science and technology, how is it that we now need two people working rather than one?

Those advancements in science and technology greatly increased our productivity but for whatever reason not our inflation adjusted wages (much). And they resulted in thousands of new "must have" products, that we have come to consider pre-requisites for a "comfortable life".

This is probably only part of it though.

As far as I know (dont take my word for this) the correlation between birthrates and a countries development level is almost universal. That seems to be the key factor. So if you look at the difference between developed and less developed nations you should be able to figure out.

Heres the first few differences off the top of my head...

1. Affluence.

2. Access to technology.

3. Access to abortion and birth control.

4. Access to education.

5. Womens rights.

6. Religiosity.

Im sure theres lots more, and that the answer is in there somewhere.

I propose we abolish birth control, criminalize abortion, reduce our standard of life, close down our schools, give the church powers as a civil authority, and treat women like crap!

Oh wait! Isnt that the Republican platform? Kidding.

Heres the top few just for interest...

1 Democratic Republic of the Congo 49.6

2 Guinea-Bissau 49.6

3 Liberia 49.6

4 Niger 49.0

5 Afghanistan 48.2

6 Mali 48.1

7 Angola 47.3

8 Burundi 47.1

9 Uganda 46.6

10 Sierra Leone 46.2

11 Chad 45.5

12 Rwanda 44.5

13 Burkina Faso 44.0

14 Somalia 42.9

15 Timor-Leste 42.1

16 Malawi 40.7

17 Benin 40.2

18 Nigeria 39.9

19 Guinea 39.8

20 Mozambique 39.5

21 Eritrea 39.3

22 Zambia 39.3

23 Kenya 39.2

24 Tanzania 39.0

And the bottom...

167 Canada 10.28

168 Belgium 10.15

169 Poland 10.04

170 Latvia 9.78

171 Liechtenstein 9.75

172 Spain 9.72

173 Belarus 9.71

174 Croatia 9.64

175 San Marino 9.63

176 Ukraine 9.60

177 Switzerland 9.59

178 Bulgaria 9.51

179 Hungary 9.51

180 Greece 9.45

181 Serbia 9.19

182 Lithuania 9.11

183 Monaco 9.10

184 Slovenia 8.97

185 South Korea 8.93

186 Bosnia and Herzegovina 8.85

187 Czech Republic 8.83

188 Singapore 8.82

189 Austria 8.65

190 Germany 8.18

191 Italy 8.18

192 Japan 7.64

[Saipan]

What exactly are those numbers?

[dre]

What exactly are those numbers?

First Column: Rank

Second Column: Country

Third Column: Births per 100 people.

I scraped them off of here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate

[Saipan]

First Column: Rank

Second Column: Country

Third Column: Births per 100 people.

I scraped them off of here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate

Thanks for the link dre.

I see "Eastern" Europe has even lower birth rate than Canada and we complain about low birth rate.

[dre]

Thanks for the link dre.

I see "Eastern" Europe has even lower birth rate than Canada and we complain about low birth rate.

I made a mistake I just noticed. Its births per 1000, not 100.

[wyly]

You should watch the news sometimes. What someone from Caribbean base their refugee status claim on? Specifically (as example) mother of four who never worked a single day. Whole family on welfare. And didn't even know where two of her sons are most of the time.

so here is the family with the four kids many on this thread say Canada needs and here's you bitching about it because they're on welfare...thanks for proving my point...

[dre]

there is no amount of tax credits that will encourage people to have more kids when it takes two working parents to support a home and one or two kids....some people are out of touch with financial reality of raising kids today...my dental bill for 4 kids over the last 5 years, 40K(a conservative estimate)! would the immigrant haters have been willing to cover the cost of my kids dental bills? post graduate studies? not bloody likely, the best anyone comes up with is subsidized day care or tax credits, get real some people on this forum are living in a dream world...

I've no doubt some of these same immigrant haters are same people who complain about single mom's on welfare with 3-4 or more kids...

Sorry, I missed this before.

there is no amount of tax credits that will encourage people to have more kids when it takes two working parents to support a home and one or two kids....some people are out of touch with financial reality of raising kids today...my dental bill for 4 kids over the last 5 years, 40K(a conservative estimate)!

Thats basically what I suspect. A child costs a parent hundreds of thousands of dollars in DIRECT monetary costs, and thats if you dont count the time you devote to it. Im the father of 8 year old twins - family of four - and Its a challenge to keep up even though my income is definately above the national average.

Heres the thing... Im going to go out on a limb here and take a WILD GUESS that the same people complaining about us having to take in immigrants are the FIRST ones to oppose national daycare programs, and would also be the first ones to oppose subsidized maternity leave, and the first ones to oppose subsidized post-secondary education, and so on. All programs that would reduce the burden on parents.

Then suddenly theyre all like: Lets use tax dollars to pay people to have kids!!!

[Saipan]

so here is the family with the four kids many on this thread say Canada needs and here's you bitching about it because they're on welfare...thanks for proving my point...

Your point is that we need more welfare recipients and Jamican dope dealers?

Why?