And I reply.
I guess I should be upfront with my views on immigration which are, simply, let everyone in. Everyone. English, French, Sudanese, Arabic, you name it, bring 'em in. And when they are here, let 'em speak whatever language they want, worship how ever they desire, eat what they want, wear what they want.
Then, to the issue MP Olivia Chow spoke to, offer support to immigrants in terms of things like child care when offering language services.
Additionally, as born and bred Canuckistanian I would like it if the guv allowed us to be edumacted in the other language gratis but, frankly, that may be a bit of a pipe dream.
WFDS
"I guess I should be upfront with my views on immigration which are, simply, let everyone in. Everyone. English, French, Sudanese, Arabic, you name it, bring 'em in. And when they are here, let 'em speak whatever language they want, worship how ever they desire, eat what they want, wear what they want."
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point? Are we building a country or simply a market?
More like simple and not simply. I do not think you have given this issue any thought at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is too bad. For forget globing warming, an aging population is the biggest problem facing the country. Canada has to get younger. And the only possible way of doing this is increase immigration. We need more immigrants. Forget 250,000 we need 500,000. Only we cannot pick them in hap hazard fashion.
Letting Canadians sponsor their grandparents and parents for one is stupid. After all, the express purpose of the immigration system is mediate some of the stresses of greying population, particularly the on the health care system. Your average 70 to 74 year old cost the health care system double what your average 60-64 year old does. Your average 80-84 year old costs the health care system double what your average 70-74 year old does. And you guessed it. Your average 90-94 year old costs the health care system double what your average 80-84 costs.
Then there is also the issue of Canada encouraging a category of immigrant that will soon by taking advantage of pension system they did not pay into.
As for language skills, Kenney is right. "Someone who has been here for 15 years and can't speak English or French is basically locking themselves out of the vast majority of jobs and is isolating themselves socially, and that is a tragedy." Moreover, we can literally not afford to set people up for failure and that is exactly what we doing right now.
Currently less than one in 5 immigrants is a skilled principle applicant. This is a huge concern for a whole host of reasons not the least of which is that 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! Canada needs to do a better job of ensuring that immigrants are able to succeed and the natural to place to start is eliminate those categories of immigrants that are not likely to succeed economically. The earning power of immigrants is such now that the possibility of large urban immigrant underclass, a la Europe, exists. Canada needs to nip this situation in the bud. The low earning power of immigrants will eventually affect our ability to attract immigrants to Canada as well as the affect the general population’s willingness to accept them.