Liberals to dramatically increase immigration

[Argus]

The Liberals, in the person of Paul Martin, who probably rarely sees a non-white face, have announced a plan to greatly increase immigration.

Ottawa Throws Open Doors

Interestingly, our new GG designate was quoted in a speech last year as bemoaning how Canada is becoming a nation of seperate ethnic communities with little contact with each other, denouncing the government for paying immigrants to stay foreigners.

Now we're to bring in even more. Our largest city is already more than 50% foreigners, and more are approaching that rate. But the Liberals have decided we need even more immigrants? Why?

"Canada needs more immigrants, plain and simple, and we need them to succeed," Martin told civil servants. Immigration will be key to countering a low birth rate, an aging population and a growing shortage of skilled workers, he said.

Canada does NOT need more immigrants. Statisticians have already established that the number we are now taking in is more than twice what is needed to offset our low birth rate. What PM probably means is "The Liberal Party needs more immigrants" so they can continue to ghetoize them, and pay them to remain within their ghetoes, and to vote Liberal. The Liberals' minority status has scared them, and they think the way to go is bring in even more immigrants - who will presumably be grateful enough to vote Liberal.

Better matching the skills of immigrants with jobs. "We have a whole inventory of jobs that go unfilled," Volpe said. Sources say this has been an area where the department has traditionally fallen down.

Gee, and all we have is a million or so unemployed sitting around on their butts collecting welfare or pogey. I guess it's just me - but wouldn't it be a better idea to try and increase our skills training?! Is that too complex for a Liberal to grasp?

He said he heard a universal message during his travels.

"Everywhere around the country, I think there's one four-letter (word) and it's `more.' Everybody wants more immigration," Volpe said in an interview.

I'm sure Volpe put a lot of time in at the local minimum wage data entry plant, spent oodles of time in our burgeoning ethnic slums, and spent lots of time chatting with all the university grads working at fast food outlets and bars. Eveywhere he went, eh? Would that be five star restaraunts where he and his backroom Liberal buddies plotted how to increase the number of Liberal voters? It sure wasn't out into the street to talk to Canadians. Maybe he talked to his waiters. Do you think we should have more immigrants, Armando? Oui, Monsieur Minister. Whatever you say.

He said smaller communities in particular are crying out for immigrants to help fill critical labour shortages.

Oh sure. All those newfies sitting around drinking booze talking about the glories of the old days before the fish processing plant closed really want more immigrants. All those little towns that dot rural Ontario and Mannitoba are eager to bring in thousands of more immigrants for the jobs they don't have.

And how will bring in 350k immigrants per year change Canada over the course of decades? Who cares if it means more Liberal voters, right!? It doesn't sound terrible if you think 1%. but 1% per year means 20% over twenty years, not counting kids. So with this increase, Canada, which already has the largest percentage of foreign born people of any western country, will find what's left of its home grown culture drowned by even more foreigners.

Because the Liberal party thinks that will lead to more votes for them.

[Canuck E Stan]

Immigrants are a great idea,but the problems that the Feds haven't addressed from past immigrants coming to Canada should to be corrected first.Problems such as:

-Culture shock

-Skilled people being brought here not getting employment because of language issues

-Employment available for most being in the minimum wage area,

-Affordable housing for new immigrants

-Verification and acceptance of their credentials

-Immigrants moving to large centers where they feel more comfortable

-Schools in large centers being burdened with ESL

-Extremely high drop out rate for high school aged immigrants

The government will only compound these problem by over extending the number of immigrants into Canada.

[Bakunin]

We do need more immigrants ! But thats not enough, i think we should push harder to make adoption alot easyer and cheaper too.

And when your talking about a culture shock, well for sample there are alot of immigrants that don't even know that canada is billingual... They don't even know that there is a french region in canada and once they come here, they don't want to integrate our community. Its the federal responsibility to promote french immigration too... Somehow quebeckers only get 35 000 immigrants when its population growth is one of the lowest at 0,6% while ontario gets around 120 000-150 000.

[Riverwind]

Its the federal responsibility to promote french immigration too... Somehow quebeckers only get 35 000 immigrants when its population growth is one of the lowest at 0,6% while ontario gets around 120 000-150 000.

English is the second language for most people in the world. If immigrants have to learn a second language they believe that English will provide them and their children more opportunities than French. No amount of a cajoling or regulation by the federal gov't will change this attitude. This means that the only way to get immigrants that will use french is to choose immigrants that already speak french. Unfortunately, this would mean increasing immigration from a few impoverished African and Caribbean countries which don't typically provide the skilled immigrants that this country needs.

I understand why Quebequers would like to see more immigrants learning French, however, they must be realistic. I believe that even if Quebec was a separate country and it could basically trap immigrants in Quebec because of border controls it would still find that a lot of immigrants would use Quebec as gateway into North America and the ones with the skills would quickly move to Canada and the US instead of learning a language when they believe to be of limited use.

[Cartman]

I am with Argus on this one even though it is an unpopular position. I believe that part of the reason why immigration is so popular with the Liberals is that it is a vital area of political support for them. Are there any politicians left who are not falling all over themselves to demand more immigration, 'cuz it seems every party is in favour of current immigration levels?

What is China going to do when they must deal with lop-sided demographics (i.e. too few young and too many elderly)? This is a sincere question.

[Guest eureka]

French immigration is already encouraged more than from any other source and Quebec has been given the tools to increase it to the limits of possibility.

Where would more come from? Not from France which is not a country that has any sympathy for the Frenchness of Quebec. Not from the small number of French speaking socieites outside of France. Sparhawk has it right in pointing to the few possible sources.

I would be in favour of increased immigration for economic reasons since immigration creates more jobs and opportunity. I am with Argus, though, in bemoaning the change, not for the better, in my opinion, in the culture of Canada that the high levels has brought.

[Minimus Maximus]

Have to agree with Argus on this. The feds should be honest with prospective immigrants and tell them up front that what they really want is increased membership for the liberal party and cheap labor for industry.

[Argus]

We do need more immigrants !

Why?

Its the federal responsibility to promote french immigration too... Somehow quebeckers only get 35 000 immigrants when its population growth is one of the lowest at 0,6% while ontario gets around 120 000-150 000.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's because Quebec runs its own immigration, and restricts it to French speakers. the federal government also actively recruits French speakers - for destinations outside Quebec, trying to grow tiny French enclaves into larger communities so they can justiify full bilingual services.

If they deliberately recruited English speakers to increase the size of English communities in Quebec there'd be riots and blood in the streets.

[Toro]

Of course Paul Martin wants more immigrants! He needs more Liberal voters because there aren't enough in the country to give him a majority government!

[Yaro]

Actually it really doesn't have anything to do with politics, its all about economics. We aren't training enough skilled workers here so we need to import them because our education system is dying. When the number of skilled workers goes up the value of skilled workers goes down, its why organizations like the CMA do there best to limit the number of doctors being trained in the specialties (like optometry) so that they can continue to demand the worlds highest salaries.

[Toro]

Yaro

I have friends who emmigrated from Serbia. Both are brilliant engineers. One never found work in Canada as an engineer and the other worked well below her capabilities and no longer works in the field.

You are right. Its a dirty secret that many professional groups have standards which, though designed to signify a level of professionalism, in fact discourage competition and work as a closed shop. They told me that their academic training was more rigorous in Belgrade than it is in Canada.

A similar thing happened to someone I knew who went through dentistry school in Canada, moved to England, then had to do it all over again because they wouldn't accept her Canadian education.

So, though I believe there is merit to the skills issue, its also a bit of a red herring. Its definitely true in the oil patch. Venezuelans fired from PDVSA are moving to Alberta. It could also be true in geological engineering as well. I don't know what the figures in Canada are, but the total number of engineers who graduated with mining related degrees last year in the United States totalled 534.

[Yaro]

Yup, I import highly skilled engineers from India and Russia on a regular basis (reletively) and its insane the kind of trails these brilliant engineers have to go through to get certification. I have to have them partnered with people far below them in ability to ruberstamp everything they do for years.

I have a good friend that is a doctor from Hungry, he attended one of the worlds finest medical schools and it will take him 10 years to get certified here so he just became a nurse. Its a very sad thing to see.

[catch-as-catch-can]

I have a good friend that is a doctor from Hungry, he attended one of the worlds finest medical schools and it will take him 10 years to get certified here so he just became a nurse. Its a very sad thing to see.

LOL

At least he won't to go hungary.

[Bakunin]

Its the federal responsibility to promote french immigration too... Somehow quebeckers only get 35 000 immigrants when its population growth is one of the lowest at 0,6% while ontario gets around 120 000-150 000.

English is the second language for most people in the world. If immigrants have to learn a second language they believe that English will provide them and their children more opportunities than French. No amount of a cajoling or regulation by the federal gov't will change this attitude. This means that the only way to get immigrants that will use french is to choose immigrants that already speak french. Unfortunately, this would mean increasing immigration from a few impoverished African and Caribbean countries which don't typically provide the skilled immigrants that this country needs.

I understand why Quebequers would like to see more immigrants learning French, however, they must be realistic. I believe that even if Quebec was a separate country and it could basically trap immigrants in Quebec because of border controls it would still find that a lot of immigrants would use Quebec as gateway into North America and the ones with the skills would quickly move to Canada and the US instead of learning a language when they believe to be of limited use.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, English his alot more attractive but the problem is that its too hard to integrate them. And anyway, we can't really compete with toronto and new york when it come to an anglophone or someone that wish to speak english.

This is prolly why i think international adoption can be a partial solution. At least it fix the language barrier problem. Like you say, one of the bad thing is that we can't get skilled immigrants from haïti, rwanda, congo and etc.. Maybe we should concentrate more on scandinavian and russian immigrants but we clearly need the federal to help us out a way or another because our population is in stagnation since the 60's...

[geoffrey]

Immigration is most definately a double-edged sword, and its hard to know exactly where to draw the line on this issue.

In our country, where our birth rate is too low to sustain our population, it is required to keep us from just disappearing. However, opening the flood gates to more street racers and gang members is the wrong way to approach the issue. In my city, Calgary, we have seen a dramatic increase in murders as gang violence escalates. And not to sound like I'm racially attacking a certain group, because the Asian community in Calgary contributes greatly to our city, but it 90% of the time associated with Asian immigrants.

Everyday we hear stories of skilled people, or those with large amount of money (potential economic spending in Canada) being turned away or delayed in the immigration process. At the same time, we hear of criminals fleeing justice (or as they claim 'injustice') of their own countries being given an express ticket to continue their exploits within our borders.

Serious review on immigration must happen, but increasing it broadly will only hurt our society.

[Argus]

Actually it really doesn't have anything to do with politics, its all about economics. We aren't training enough skilled workers here so we need to import them because our education system is dying. When the number of skilled workers goes up the value of skilled workers goes down, its why organizations like the CMA do there best to limit the number of doctors being trained in the specialties (like optometry) so that they can continue to demand the worlds highest salaries.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why is there a shortage of doctors and nurses? Because various governments limited the number of places available in university for medical training - for both doctors and nurses.

Don't blame the various professional agencies. They are doing what is best for their members. That is what they are SUPPOSED to do.

Blame corruption in our federal (mostly) and provincial governments, for also doing what is best for those groups instead of what is best for their citizens.

Hey, my last taxi driver was a "photonic engineer" whatever that was, from India. Do we need more engineers to drive taxis?

We do not need a vast increase in immigration. We need better skills and educational training for unemployed and underemployed workers here. And we need professional requirements adjusted to the needs of Canada not that of the membership.

Where I work we often hire recent university grads - as clerks. And believe you me they're damned delighted to get hired, even as temps, after months of unemployment.

If industry lacks skilled workers it's up to industry to impliment training and apprenticeship programs, not go fishing in someone else's pond. I have no sympathy for industries snivelling about the lack of skilled workers. Train them!

[catch-as-catch-can]

Everyday we hear stories of skilled people being turned away ...

Serious review on immigration must happen ...

I agree with you Geoffrey.

It ticks ME off, for instance, when I see immigrants who are confident enough in their skills to give the U.S. the first kick at the can, are then being frowned upon by Canada if & when they, for WHATEVER reason, don't succeed down there.

Yet Canadians who actually ARE given the opportunity to prove themselves by being given temporary Green Cards, but flunk out, are then always welcomed back home to a big fanfair ... with cushy jobs in their field of expertise waiting for them in many cases.

Canada must realize that confidence counts, and that those immigrants who were confident enough to try out in the U.S. first, but did not succeed, are most likely still only second best to those who did. Thus they should be given a crack at temporary Canadian landed immigrant status instead of letting in those whose confidence is lacking.

[catch-as-catch-can]

Do we need more engineers to drive taxis?

It doesn't matter. Engineers, taxi drvers ... we need them all.

I heard Joe Volpe appealing to truck drivers just the other day, complaining that, and I quote:

"About 6,000 long-haul trucks are sitting empty in New Brunwick because there aren't enough truckers."

If he's putting truck drivers into a "skilled worker" category then surely, taxi drivers cannot be far behind.

[Argus]

Everyday we hear stories of skilled people being turned away ...

Serious review on immigration must happen ...

I agree with you Geoffrey.

It ticks ME off, for instance, when I see immigrants who are confident enough in their skills to give the U.S. the first kick at the can, are then being frowned upon by Canada if & when they, for WHATEVER reason, don't succeed down there.

Yet Canadians who actually ARE given the opportunity to prove themselves by being given temporary Green Cards, but flunk out, are then always welcomed back home to a big fanfair ... with cushy jobs in their field of expertise waiting for them in many cases.

Canada must realize that confidence counts, and that those immigrants who were confident enough to try out in the U.S. first, but did not succeed, are most likely still only second best to those who did. Thus they should be given a crack at temporary Canadian landed immigrant status instead of letting in those whose confidence is lacking.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure I know what you're saying here. Do you? If so, would you care to rephrase it?

[Argus]

Do we need more engineers to drive taxis?

It doesn't matter. Engineers, taxi drvers ... we need them all.

Why? For what?

I heard Joe Volpe appealing to truck drivers just the other day, complaining that, and I quote:

"About 6,000 long-haul trucks are sitting empty in New Brunwick because there aren't enough truckers."

Atlantic Canada has chronically high unemployment. The unemployment rate in PEI is 11%, in NF it's 14%, in New Brunswick it's about 10%. Do you actually believe that there are 6000 trucking positions available that are going unclaimed? I don't believe there are 6,000 long-haul trucking positions going vacant in all of Canada, much less New Brunswick.

[catch-as-catch-can]

[i'm not sure I know what you're saying here. Do you?

Yeah, it was little muddled, I was just trying to fit in.

Still, I'm surprised that you, of all people, didn't get the point.

Isn't it true that if one chooses to ply their trade in America first they're not as welcome to try it here as if they started here in the first place?

[catch-as-catch-can]

Do you actually believe that there are 6000 trucking positions available that are going unclaimed? I don't believe there are 6,000 long-haul trucking positions going vacant in all of Canada, much less New Brunswick.

I was merely quoting what Joe Volpe said, Argus.

[Argus]

[i'm not sure I know what you're saying here. Do you?

Yeah, it was little muddled, I was just trying to fit in.

Still, I'm surprised that you, of all people, didn't get the point.

Isn't it true that if one chooses to ply their trade in America first they're not as welcome to try it here as if they started here in the first place?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not so far as I know.

[tml12]

The Liberals plan to dramatically increase immigration is a political strategy and an election ploy to cement their support in the GTA and other Liberal-friendly immigrant areas.

For years the Liberals promised to allow foreign students attending Canadian universities to work off-campus (as the U.S. does) but, even after Volpe made the announcement official in May) things are still being "worked out."

I don't truly stand behind one party, but when the Conservatives say "what's new?" on immigration issues, they're right.