Immigration

[Canuckistani]

I'm sure this forum has had this discussion, but I didn't get to be a part of it, so I would like to open this topic again.

I wonder if it's possible for people that are interested in this topic to have the discussion without the race card being thrown? Of course that would also require any actual racist comments to be held in abeyance. But just being against our current immigration system doesn't make anybody a racist.

1. Demographics - to reverse the aging trend in Canada, we would have to quadruple immigration to 1 million a year. And only young people would be allowed, no grandma or grandpa. Is that what we want? And when that massive group of people gets old, do we increase immigration even more to keep our population young? Where will all these immigrants come from - thankfully the world population increase is slowing down.

2. Jobs - does it make sense to import so many people while our economy is struggling and we have high unemployment? Shouldn't the available jobs go to Canadians first.

3. Wages - do we really want people coming here and driving down wages because they're more desperate and willing to take anything? If employers claim they can't find Canadians to do a job at a given wage, do we really want to bring in people to work at those low wages? It's just a race to the bottom.

4. Skills - doesn't it make sense to train Canadians for the skills we need, rather than bringing people in and consigning many native born Canadians to underemployment? Is it fair to practice neo-colonialism where we let a third world country train their best people and then we scoop them up? And, how does it make sense to bring in doctors who are then not recognized by the medical association of their province and wind up driving cab?

5. Infrastructure - Most immigrants go to Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. Those cites are bursting at the seams. In Vancouver we have very high housing prices with a below average median wage. How does that help the people already here, or the people coming here? It would be different if immigrants were settling our empty spaces, but what would they do there to support themselves. It's not like the original settlers that were farmers and would support themselves off the land.

6. Underperformance of recent immigrants. Recent immigrants don't do as well economically as immigrants in previous times. Seems to me our immigration system is not selecting the right people to come here who can do well. This may be because of language barriers or because their training isn't recognized or even because of racism on the part of employers. Whatever, it's not working. At least the government has taken some steps to correct this, by expanding the pre-selected category, but they're tiny steps. I think we need some bold moves here.

Some of our industries need skilled people and they need them now. I can see bringing in people who have a specific job waiting for them in Canada on a temporary permit, and if that works out putting them on a fast track to immigration. But why is Canada always doing this? It's like we haven't grown up and don't trust ourselves to train our own people. Compare our technical training to Germany's say (supposedly the best in the world). What's stopping up from doing it more like them?

Again, I would very much appreciate this if people can keep the race card out of any discussion around this.

[Guest Peeves]

RACE CARD Fort Erie.

http://www1.skysports.com/racing/racecards/fort-erie/22-05-2012/499844/claiming

[Signals.Cpl]

I'm sure this forum has had this discussion, but I didn't get to be a part of it, so I would like to open this topic again.

I wonder if it's possible for people that are interested in this topic to have the discussion without the race card being thrown? Of course that would also require any actual racist comments to be held in abeyance. But just being against our current immigration system doesn't make anybody a racist.

1. Demographics - to reverse the aging trend in Canada, we would have to quadruple immigration to 1 million a year. And only young people would be allowed, no grandma or grandpa. Is that what we want? And when that massive group of people gets old, do we increase immigration even more to keep our population young? Where will all these immigrants come from - thankfully the world population increase is slowing down.

We need to look at how that will impact Canada as a whole, adding millions of people in their 20's would just leave the exact same problem 40 years down the line.

2. Jobs - does it make sense to import so many people while our economy is struggling and we have high unemployment? Shouldn't the available jobs go to Canadians first.

The assumption is that once the baby boomers start retiring there would be a shortage of workers, maybe if we were to increase immigration we should make retirement more accessible.

3. Wages - do we really want people coming here and driving down wages because they're more desperate and willing to take anything? If employers claim they can't find Canadians to do a job at a given wage, do we really want to bring in people to work at those low wages? It's just a race to the bottom.

Thats why we need a centralized strategy where we bring on only enough people who can be productive without increasing our unemployment rate or lowering the standard of living for Canadians through lower wages.

4. Skills - doesn't it make sense to train Canadians for the skills we need, rather than bringing people in and consigning many native born Canadians to underemployment? Is it fair to practice neo-colonialism where we let a third world country train their best people and then we scoop them up? And, how does it make sense to bring in doctors who are then not recognized by the medical association of their province and wind up driving cab?

If you can get Canadians to change careers then breast but if there isa significant shortage then that might make immigrant more attractive.

As for Doctors driving cabs, I would say be fair and honest with them, present people who are highly educated with a way to get qualified in Canada to do their Job. Honestly, give people moving to Canada an assessment of what would take them to be certified to practice their career in Canada and then take only those willing to work in the field in need. No need to take a Doctor from india so he can drive a cab in Toronto thus depriving India of a Doctor and Canada of a Doctor while letting that person skills go to waste.

5. Infrastructure - Most immigrants go to Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. Those cites are bursting at the seams. In Vancouver we have very high housing prices with a below average median wage. How does that help the people already here, or the people coming here? It would be different if immigrants were settling our empty spaces, but what would they do there to support themselves. It's not like the original settlers that were farmers and would support themselves off the land.

Immigrants go where the jobs are, solution would be more construction. If the demand for housing increases then the supply of housing should increase accordingly.

6. Underperformance of recent immigrants. Recent immigrants don't do as well economically as immigrants in previous times. Seems to me our immigration system is not selecting the right people to come here who can do well. This may be because of language barriers or because their training isn't recognized or even because of racism on the part of employers. Whatever, it's not working. At least the government has taken some steps to correct this, by expanding the pre-selected category, but they're tiny steps. I think we need some bold moves here.

Such as?

Some of our industries need skilled people and they need them now. I can see bringing in people who have a specific job waiting for them in Canada on a temporary permit, and if that works out putting them on a fast track to immigration. But why is Canada always doing this? It's like we haven't grown up and don't trust ourselves to train our own people. Compare our technical training to Germany's say (supposedly the best in the world). What's stopping up from doing it more like them?

How would you suggest we do that though? Setting quotas on the more popular but less employable programs in College and University in favour of programs that offer more career options post graduation?

[Guest Peeves]

I'm sure this forum has had this discussion, but I didn't get to be a part of it, so I would like to open this topic again.

I wonder if it's possible for people that are interested in this topic to have the discussion without the race card being thrown? Of course that would also require any actual racist comments to be held in abeyance. But just being against our current immigration system doesn't make anybody a racist.

1. Demographics - to reverse the aging trend in Canada, we would have to quadruple immigration to 1 million a year. And only young people would be allowed, no grandma or grandpa. Is that what we want? And when that massive group of people gets old, do we increase immigration even more to keep our population young? Where will all these immigrants come from - thankfully the world population increase is slowing down.

Since there's a negative cost, we need to limit numbers to what we can afford, approx. 250,000 seems appro. at the present time.

2. Jobs - does it make sense to import so many people while our economy is struggling and we have high unemployment? Shouldn't the available jobs go to Canadians first.

They do if they'll take them.

3. Wages - do we really want people coming here and driving down wages because they're more desperate and willing to take anything? If employers claim they can't find Canadians to do a job at a given wage, do we really want to bring in people to work at those low wages? It's just a race to the bottom.

If there's no one willing to do the job (farm labor) what's the alternative? Junk the crop? Close the farm?

4. Skills - doesn't it make sense to train Canadians for the skills we need, rather than bringing people in and consigning many native born Canadians to underemployment? Is it fair to practice neo-colonialism where we let a third world country train their best people and then we scoop them up? And, how does it make sense to bring in doctors who are then not recognized by the medical association of their province and wind up driving cab?

What makes sense is often torpedoed by the opposition parties.

5. Infrastructure - Most immigrants go to Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. Those cites are bursting at the seams. In Vancouver we have very high housing prices with a below average median wage. How does that help the people already here, or the people coming here? It would be different if immigrants were settling our empty spaces, but what would they do there to support themselves. It's not like the original settlers that were farmers and would support themselves off the land.

So? Make an alternative suggestion.

6. Underperformance of recent immigrants. Recent immigrants don't do as well economically as immigrants in previous times. Seems to me our immigration system is not selecting the right people to come here who can do well. This may be because of language barriers or because their training isn't recognized or even because of racism on the part of employers. Whatever, it's not working. At least the government has taken some steps to correct this, by expanding the pre-selected category, but they're tiny steps. I think we need some bold moves here.

Our former Liberal governments had an immigrant agenda. Our current government has been making positives strides in dealing with refugees and immigration.

Some of our industries need skilled people and they need them now. I can see bringing in people who have a specific job waiting for them in Canada on a temporary permit, and if that works out putting them on a fast track to immigration. But why is Canada always doing this? It's like we haven't grown up and don't trust ourselves to train our own people. Compare our technical training to Germany's say (supposedly the best in the world). What's stopping up from doing it more like them?

I dispute the lack of skilled workers in industry. Some specific trades may be short, but there are training programs if any want them.

Again, I would very much appreciate this if people can keep the race card out of any discussion around this.

[Canuckistani]

Infrastructure. We have all the construction we can manage. We're importing people to do that construction. In Vancouver the issue is land for housing, the high cost of housing that forces people to live far away from their work, and the transportation infrastructure to allow them to do that. That latter costs a fortune and nobody wants to pay.

Retirement. Does it make sense to have people drawing government benefits in retirement, not paying taxes, just so we can bring in more immigrants to do the jobs they were doing? I've been hearing about the worker shortage since the 1980's - hasn't happened yet. When that really comes, we could open up our immigration system then. We used to do that, open and close immigration according to need. Mulroney is the one who set a high immigration level and kept it there, as has every govt after him.

Training. It's not all about university, many skills we need are more technical training. But whatever, what we need is to open more spaces for the skills we need - Canadians will naturally fill them. And more supports for retraining, so that older workers can get the skills that really are in demand.

Strategy. One is what I said above - focus on training Canadians for the jobs we need, instead of importing people. Then take the changes introduced by the govt and take them much further, where immigrants are matched with a specific job before they ever come here. It would benefit both the immigrant and Canada. We could have a system where the prospective immigrant comes here on a temporary permit for a specific job. If things work out, after say 4 years he would automatically become eligible for permanent resident status.

As for immigrants taking jobs Canadians don't want - Canadians don't want the job because it doesn't pay enough. Raise the pay and Canadians will take the job - that's how it's supposed to work, a shortage of labor causes wages to go up.

Farm labor and other seasonal jobs is the one area I can see bringing in temp workers, since we can't just keep a ready pool of people who only want to work seasonally. But make sure those temp workers are paid and treated fairly, not like semi slaves. It treating them well makes the project uneconomic, then so be it.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Canuckistani

[Signals.Cpl]

Infrastructure. We have all the construction we can manage. We're importing people to do that construction. In Vancouver the issue is land for housing, the high cost of housing that forces people to live far away from their work, and the transportation infrastructure to allow them to do that. That latter costs a fortune and nobody wants to pay.

Thats why we have the government, in order to foresee those issues and make changes as needed.

Retirement. Does it make sense to have people drawing government benefits in retirement, not paying taxes, just so we can bring in more immigrants to do the jobs they were doing? I've been hearing about the worker shortage since the 1980's - hasn't happened yet. When that really comes, we could open up our immigration system then. We used to do that, open and close immigration according to need. Mulroney is the one who set a high immigration level and kept it there, as has every govt after him.

It makes sense, retiring at 65 and letting a 23 year old take your job means that person's income can grow over the next 40 years. Working past 65 means that the college/university grad has no job for the 5 or 6 years that you work past retirement age.

Training. It's not all about university, many skills we need are more technical training. But whatever, what we need is to open more spaces for the skills we need - Canadians will naturally fill them. And more supports for retraining, so that older workers can get the skills that really are in demand.

Look at the Canadian population, over the next 15 years a full third of our population will be at or past retirement age, without immigration we can expect to see our population to start shrinking. We need to increase the birthrate or immigration, or a combination of the two if we want to be competitive.

Strategy. One is what I said above - focus on training Canadians for the jobs we need, instead of importing people. Then take the changes introduced by the govt and take them much further, where immigrants are matched with a specific job before they ever come here. It would benefit both the immigrant and Canada. We could have a system where the prospective immigrant comes here on a temporary permit for a specific job. If things work out, after say 4 years he would automatically become eligible for permanent resident status.

Yeah, and then we can pay them at a lower rate and just like being on probation for a prescribed period of time the employer can let them go before they have any obligation to them. Keep Canada as a land of opportunity or face the consequences. In this case the consequences would be receiving the lower echelons of the available immigrant population. We can get the best, or we can get the rest, our policy will decide for us. As much as immigrant compete for entry in to the country, the immigrant dependant nations have to compete for the best immigrants as well.

As for immigrants taking jobs Canadians don't want - Canadians don't want the job because it doesn't pay enough. Raise the pay and Canadians will take the job - that's how it's supposed to work, a shortage of labor causes wages to go up.

If you work in Timmies, 10 bucks an hour is good, 15 if you are up there as a manger or something,but we cannot expect to tell Timmies to start paying their workers 15 or 20 dollars an hour since that will destroy their competitive edge. Saying raise the wage is not a realistic option for some jobs.

[Canuckistani]

Thats why we have the government, in order to foresee those issues and make changes as needed.

Except they're not doing so. They can't create land, so housing prices will remain high with the influx of people we get, while wages remain low. Nnobody wants to pay the taxes required to build the transportation infrastructure - govt's can't agree on where the money should come from.

It makes sense, retiring at 65 and letting a 23 year old take your job means that person's income can grow over the next 40 years. Working past 65 means that the college/university grad has no job for the 5 or 6 years that you work past retirement age.

It doesn't make sense to put people out to pasture who still want to work, and who will just cost the govt money, while we import people to fill those jobs. If we had lower immigration, then your 23 yr old native born Canadians would have lots of jobs for them without having to kick out the oldsters. Also look at how the govt is raising the age when you can receive OAS - they're putting in disincentives to retirement.

Look at the Canadian population, over the next 15 years a full third of our population will be at or past retirement age, without immigration we can expect to see our population to start shrinking. We need to increase the birthrate or immigration, or a combination of the two if we want to be competitive.

Our immigration system allows in many old folks. To truly reverse the demographic tren, we would need to let in 1 million people a year, all of them young people. And, as you yourself said, that would just kick the problem down the road for a generation. How long can we continue to have economies based on an ever increasing population - at which point is the planet full?

If you work in Timmies, 10 bucks an hour is good, 15 if you are up there as a manger or something,but we cannot expect to tell Timmies to start paying their workers 15 or 20 dollars an hour since that will destroy their competitive edge. Saying raise the wage is not a realistic option for some jobs.

Timmies competitive edge against who? McD's? If we have a smaller labor pool and low wage jobs have to raise their wages to attract workers, then everybody in that business is in the same boat. Yes, your double double will cost you 10 cents more, but that seems worth it to me. The worker gets a decent income and pays taxes on that to the govt. It's a win win for everybody. Instead we import masses of people, create a large class of working poor that pay little in taxes and draw a lot in govt supports. That's a mugs game.

[PIK]

What we need is a country where people can afford to have larger families. We won't have to worry about bringing in more people.

Edited June 2, 2012 by PIK

[Canuckistani]

What we need is a country where people can afford to have larger families. We won't have to worry about bringing in more people.

Quebec has seen a big uptick in their birthrate, they used to have the lowest. This is attributed to universal, affordable, daycare and other government programs. Universal daycare is the best thing we could do to make it easier for women to have children. Since we've decided to educate them, same as men, rather than barefoot and tied to the stove, they're going to want to actually use that education. Also, if you're really serious about it, you'd have to somehow give women preference so that their careers don't stall when they have kids. But no matter what, once we decided to educate women and give them financial freedom from men, we're never going to have the same birthrate as we used to. Contraception has a role to play here too.

But, the planet has plenty of people on it. We can't keep expecting more and more people to pull our economic engine. We also have a limit to resources. We need to build sustainable economies that don't rely on every greater numbers of consumers, and ever greater exploitation of resources.

[PIK]

Quebec has seen a big uptick in their birthrate, they used to have the lowest. This is attributed to universal, affordable, daycare and other government programs. Universal daycare is the best thing we could do to make it easier for women to have children. Since we've decided to educate them, same as men, rather than barefoot and tied to the stove, they're going to want to actually use that education. Also, if you're really serious about it, you'd have to somehow give women preference so that their careers don't stall when they have kids. But no matter what, once we decided to educate women and give them financial freedom from men, we're never going to have the same birthrate as we used to. Contraception has a role to play here too.

But, the planet has plenty of people on it. We can't keep expecting more and more people to pull our economic engine. We also have a limit to resources. We need to build sustainable economies that don't rely on every greater numbers of consumers, and ever greater exploitation of resources.

To have bigger families then the ladies will have to stay at home to raise the family, that is what women do ,is have kids, if men could ,then we could stay at home. If the women quit having kids ,that is the end of it.I think the women is the ones being selfish. Edited June 2, 2012 by PIK

[Signals.Cpl]

Except they're not doing so. They can't create land, so housing prices will remain high with the influx of people we get, while wages remain low. Nnobody wants to pay the taxes required to build the transportation infrastructure - govt's can't agree on where the money should come from.

Then that is a problem with government not immigration. We should look at government to solve the problem rather then make excuses for them.

It doesn't make sense to put people out to pasture who still want to work, and who will just cost the govt money, while we import people to fill those jobs. If we had lower immigration, then your 23 yr old native born Canadians would have lots of jobs for them without having to kick out the oldsters. Also look at how the govt is raising the age when you can receive OAS - they're putting in disincentives to retirement.

ITs quite simple, the younger generation wants the same life as the older generation has, so keeping people over the age of 65 employed means we are tying down the jobs and preventing younger people from starting their lives. If I don't have a decent job because someone over the age of 65 is refusing to let the younger generation from moving up in the world, it means I will not have children until much later in life when I have the opportunity, which leads to much reduced natural population growth.

Our immigration system allows in many old folks. To truly reverse the demographic tren, we would need to let in 1 million people a year, all of them young people. And, as you yourself said, that would just kick the problem down the road for a generation. How long can we continue to have economies based on an ever increasing population - at which point is the planet full?

Who do you consider old folks? And who cares? If we don't compete with other nations we fall behind, our standard of living drops, thats why we need the best immigrants not just the youngest.

Timmies competitive edge against who? McD's? If we have a smaller labor pool and low wage jobs have to raise their wages to attract workers, then everybody in that business is in the same boat. Yes, your double double will cost you 10 cents more, but that seems worth it to me. The worker gets a decent income and pays taxes on that to the govt. It's a win win for everybody. Instead we import masses of people, create a large class of working poor that pay little in taxes and draw a lot in govt supports. That's a mugs game.

So you think that if we increased the wages of the people in Timmies by 50% we can give them a good living and still make it affordable? Suddenly my morning coffee will come from a thermos from home because I won't pay 3 or 4 dollars for a cup of coffee, with reduced source of income they let people go. Its easy to say we need to increase the salary of everyone, but in Timmies the job requirements are very broad and nearly everyone could meet those requirements to work there.

[Canuckistani]

To have bigger families then the ladies will have to stay at home to raise the family, that is what women do ,is have kids, if men could ,then we could stay at home. If the women quit having kids ,that is the end of it.I think the women is the ones being selfish.

Women want to be more than breeding machines. I'm glad because it also makes them more interesting to be around. The planet doesn't need more breeding machines, it needs way less. We have to find a way to make our economies run without relying on ever greater numbers or consumers, or we're all screwed. Might as well start now, instead of always looking to the past to solve our problems.

[PIK]

Women want to be more than breeding machines. I'm glad because it also makes them more interesting to be around. The planet doesn't need more breeding machines, it needs way less. We have to find a way to make our economies run without relying on ever greater numbers or consumers, or we're all screwed. Might as well start now, instead of always looking to the past to solve our problems.

I agree that we need to slow things down, but if the other side of the planet keeps producing 6-8 kids and we keep bringing them in, then evetually we will lose what we have built over the last 200 years and become a global country with everybodies hatreds and baggage. So if we were to decide to slow down the birth rate then we need to cut waaay back on immigration. That reminds me of a news story a while back ,interviewing this palastine guy, about 400 lbs,with 5 chins and so fat you could barely see his eyes and he was talking about how because of isreal he can't work to feed his 8 kids. I pity that mans poor wife.

[Canuckistani]

I agree that we need to slow things down, but if the other side of the planet keeps producing 6-8 kids and we keep bringing them in, then evetually we will lose what we have built over the last 200 years and become a global country with everybodies hatreds and baggage. So if we were to decide to slow down the birth rate then we need to cut waaay back on immigration. That reminds me of a news story a while back ,interviewing this palastine guy, about 400 lbs,with 5 chins and so fat you could barely see his eyes and he was talking about how because of isreal he can't work to feed his 8 kids. I pity that mans poor wife.

The other side of the planet is slowing down because more women are getting educated and working. But we're still going to max out at at least 9 billion, which I think is way over the limit of what the planet can support. Especially as they all want the same piggy lifestyle we have.

We should cut way back on immigration. It should be a policy that is based on what's best for the Canadians already here. If we need some people, really need them and can't meet those needs with Canadians, then fine, bring them in. If somebody can figure out how to settle the north with immigrants and make it a paying proposition, I have no problem with that. But to just keep stuffing them into the same 3 urban centers just makes no sense at all.

As for immigration being a form of aid to the 3 world, how does that work? We take their best and brightest, the ones they paid to educate, leave them the rest. And compared to the number of people in the third world, our immigration, which is huge per capita for us, is a tiny drop in the bucket. There are way better ways to help the 3rd world if that is what we're really interested in.