Jason Kenney must think that Canadians are morons. The notion that Canada will be able to better ingrate immigrants into Canadian society by teaching them about the beaver and Vimy Ridge is ridiculous.
Integrating immigrants is really quite simple. If you bring in well educated immigrants that are fluent in English, they will integrate. It will not matter a lick what their background or skin colour is. On the other hand, if you bring in non English speaking uneducated immigrants to clean toilets and serve donuts at Tim Hortons, you have recipe for what happened in Europe, viz, poor race relations, xenophobia and illegal immigration. It is really that clear cut and Kenney should know this. Every expert on immigration does.
The thing is though the number of guest workers allowed in has exploded since the Conservatives came to power and whereas the typical guest worker was once an American transferred to a branch office in Canada, the fastest growing category of guest worker is now the unskilled type with poor language skills. The Conservatives have not done this directly. They have turned over a greater percentage of the immigration file to the provinces and Western provinces in particular have used the program to undercut labour. The Canadian tax payer has paid through the noise to have cheap labour sent in from other countries for the sole purpose of cutting wages of the Canadian tax payer. Forget Conservative talk about such provincial programs bringing in much needed skilled workers, this was the kind of positions Alberta was hoping to fill through its guest worker programs this summer: Front desk clerk, short order cook, baker, maid, assembly line worker, server, buser, bellhop, valet, and cafeteria worker, laundry attendant, pet groomer, general labourer, and hair dresser. All that is required of such would be immigrants is that they score 4 or 24 on the language assessment. In other words, they can still be functionally illiterate and still get it in.
It takes a great deal of chutzpah to Kenney to talk about wanting to avoid “the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries” and then go about encouraging the very thing that led to the creation of these communities in Europe, viz., importing gobs of unskilled guest labour.
Do not take my word for it. Take Sheila Fraser's word for it. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/auditor-general-sounds-alarm-on-immigration-policy/article1349837/
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7 comments:
What drew the riff raff we see in Europe today to those countries in the first place was lax immigration laws, & overly generous, easy to obtain gov't benefits. If Ruby Dhalla's bill was to pass, we would definately have the same problems here.
"Integrating immigrants is really quite simple. If you bring in well educated immigrants that are fluent in English, they will integrate. It will not matter a lick what their background or skin colour is. On the other hand, if you bring in non English speaking uneducated immigrants to clean toilets and serve donuts at Tim Hortons, you have recipe for what happened in Europe, viz, poor race relations, xenophobia and illegal immigration."
So this is your simplistic solution? Upper crust only or they are turned away? How very elitist of you.
If any one is a xenophobe, I would have to say it is you. So they have to speak English to be allowed into "your" Canada? What about French? Why can't they learn the language?
Don't the lower and middle classes from other countries deserve a chance at a better life?
Recognize this quote from The New Colossus?
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
A careful look at Harper/Kenney's Immigration policy shows a clear skewing to a "very specific" religious/social background. Even from "visible minority" nations, the Conservative policy has been lenient towards a "specific type". Their measure of "suitability" to Canada stems from THAT measure. Anyone - ANYONE - can be a "skilled laborer". They can get the certificates made quite easily in their home lands.
We need to have a broad-based immigration policy that attracts LOTS of people of ALL backgrounds, skilled, unskilled, young, old, but with an emphasis on the people who will lead the green and knowledge economies of the future. While - in Alberta's self-serving interests - the current "temps" will help slog oil, we need to look to Canada's future - which is not linked to Big Oil and oil labor...
Christ McGuire:
1) There were formal agreements to bring in gobs of unskilled workers. Huge number of Turks did not come to Germany, for example, because they wanted to take advantage of "Immigration laws and overly generous easy to obtain goverment benefits".
2) The Guest worker programs ended in 1973. Europe was a different place in 1960s. Furthermore, as GUEST workers they were not entitled to many of those government perks you so speak of. They and indeed their offspring, in the case of Germany, were not even citizens.
Oh go on bleed Jim. It is not responsiblity of the Canadian tax payer to give lower and middle classes from other countries the chance at a better life.
Canada needs skilled workers a lot more of them. Letting in anybody else is pure folly.
After all, it is only skilled principle applicants that earning anywhere close to what their Canadian peers are earning and skilled principle applicants are the only category of immigrants that are working in numbers that even approach the Canadian average.
"At 26 weeks after their arrival, 50% of all immigrants aged 25 to 44 were employed. This was 30 percentage points below the employment rate of about 80% among all individuals aged 25 to 44 in the Canadian population. ... At 52 weeks after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 58%. This narrowed the gap to 23 percentage points. At 104 weeks, or two years after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 63%, 18 percentage points below the national rate of 81%. ... Immigrants admitted as principal applicants in the skilled worker category had an even better record for employment. At 26 weeks after arrival, the gap in the employment rate between them and the Canadian population was 20 percentage points. By 52 weeks, this had narrowed to 12 points, and by two years, it was down to 8 points."
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051013/d051013b.htm
If you tease out the numbers, 55% of non principal skilled applicants in the 25 to 44 age group are working after 2 years!
Now do not even get me started about the wisdom of allowing someone to sponsor their parents or grandparents when the stated purpose of high levels of immigration is mediate against the effects of an aging population.
By the way, Quebec has the right to set its own immigration policy. That is Mulroney for you.
Bravo!
Actually, I believe very little of what I wrote...I was trying to elicit a response from you...and boy you didn't disappoint!
I am in pretty much 100% agreement with what you just posted.
Well done...but methinks you are not really a liberal.
And BTW, sorry for being deceptive, it wasn't really fair.
I could care less were people locate me on the political spectrum. If a policy is dim witted, whether its the brain child of the Liberals, Conservatives or NDP, I am going to call a spade a spade. That said, you should know I am a major backer of high levels of immigration. Forget 250,000 a year I would like to see 500,000. Only I would like all of them to be skilled workers and immediate family.
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