Helping the least among us has always been a value that Canadians cherished. We built homes we could afford, not necessarily homes we aspired to. We were modest but generous. When the Clark government proposed a public and private sector approach to sponsoring refugees Canadians rose to the occasion.
Canadians are getting older. Almost 15% are over 65 and that group will only increase rapidly as the baby boomers hit retirement. We need immigration to keep our economy growing. Without them, we won’t have a retirement fund to complain about.
We need our social benefits to be sustainable, and we need hard working individuals to pay into our social benefit plans. Former Canadian governments Conservative and Liberal saw the benefit of bringing in well screened refugees in addition to traditional immigrants not only for economic benefit but because they were the most vulnerable of society and we can’t look at that little boy and all the other little boys and girls and treat them as a stat. I’ve donated to the UNCHR and I’m thinking about sponsoring a family. I’m not a rich person, but this planet is family. I am a 7th generation Canadian from the UK, my doctor is a Muslim, she is a refugee wears a hajib and finished her education at Western. I am thankful for her and what she and her family does for me and our economy.
I basically agree, and the fact that immigration is a net benefit that supports economic growth is an incontrovertible truth. It’s also true that many people opposed to immigration are opposed for the wrong reasons, often the result of ugly bigotry and xenophobia. That’s doubly unfortunate because it makes it hard to criticize immigration policy when it genuinely needs to be criticized without seeming to be one of those people.
My major point here is that it’s neither xenophobic nor bigoted to recommend prudent immigration policies and to recognize the importance of effective screening. While we do have a responsibility to take in refugees proportionate to our financial, social, and infrastructure resources and capacities, we also have a responsibility to ensure that the majority of immigrants are well-screened, well qualified economic migrants – because only then will the objectives you advocate be achieved.
We also need to prudently manage the numbers. We tend to think of Canada as a big country with lots of space, for instance. Yes, but most immigrants settle in big cities. Toronto and Vancouver have now both hit the point where if you want a house in a good neighborhood, $1 million won’t even buy you a knock-down shack. Such has been the growth and congestion that the 401 over the top of Toronto is now the busiest highway in all of North America despite being some 12 or 14 lanes wide. We have real infrastructure capacity problems.
And we haven’t always received net economic benefits. It’s true that immigrants as a group are actually less likely to rely on social assistance than the general population because of the dominance of educated economic migrants, but family class immigrants and refugees have at times substantially exceeded the average reliance on social assistance.
And while we value cultural diversity – and we should – there are places where the opposite is happening due to a kind of upscale ethnic ghettofication. There was a story a few years ago about a family house-shopping in Markham, where there is a heavy concentration of Asians. In the sales office of a new development, this (non-Asian) couple got direct hints that they should shop elsewhere because “they wouldn’t feel welcome here”. And indeed they might not. There are public shopping places in Markham where there is not an English sign to be found anywhere. In real and practical terms whole communities are out of bounds for non-Asians, for living, working, or shopping. This would never be tolerated if it was directed at an ethnic minority. Nothing like this should ever happen in Canada, and it speaks to the simple problem of numbers beyond our ability to assimilate, simply another facet that we don’t appear to be managing well.
And then there are other aspects even more difficult and sensitive to talk about. Like this backgrounder about the families of the Toronto 18 terrorists – and please note that the cite here is the Globe and Mail, arguably Canada’s leading national newspaper:
Wives of four of the central figures arrested last month were among the most active on the website, sharing, among other things, their passion for holy war, disgust at virtually every aspect of non-Muslim society and a hatred of Canada …
… The tightly knit group of women who chatted with each other includes Mariya (the wife of alleged leader Fahim Ahmad), Nada (the wife of Mr. Amara, the alleged right-hand man) Nada’s sister Rana (wife of suspect Ahmad Ghany), as well as Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal (the Muslim convert from Cape Breton, N.S. who married the oldest suspect, 43-year-old Qayyum Abdul Jamal). The women’s husbands are part of a core group of seven charged with the most severe crimes – plotting to detonate truck bombs against the Toronto Stock Exchange, a Canadian Forces target, and the Toronto offices of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
… In a thread started by Mr. Fahim’s wife, Mariya, marking the death of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi after an Israeli missile strike, Ms. Farooq unleashes her fury: “May Allah crush these jews, bring them down to their kneees, humuliate them. Ya Allah make their women widows and their children orphans.” The statement is so jarring that another poster complains it’s not right for Muslims to wish such things on other people. Ms. Farooq’s sister Rana is also in favour of violent resistance, posting often graphic photos of female militants and suicide bombers.
But while her heart may be in the battlefields and holy cities, Nada Farooq finds herself physically in Canada, a country the Karachi-born teen moved to after spending her childhood in Saudi Arabia … The Farooqs, a Pakistani family, came to Canada in 1997 because they didn’t like the idea of raising their children in the conservative society of Saudi Arabia, where foreign-born children don’t have access to the same education as nationals, said Nada’s father, Mohammad Umer Farooq.
… Ms. Farooq’s hatred for the country is palpable. She hardly ever calls Canada by its name, rather repeatedly referring to it as “this filthy country.” It’s a sentiment shared by many of her friends, one of whom states that the laws of the country are irrelevant because they are not the laws of God.
In late April of 2004, a poster asks the forum members to share their impressions of what makes Canada unique. Nada’s answer is straightforward.
“Who cares? We hate Canada.”
I’m not arguing that this is typical or commonplace. I’m arguing that it exists, and the question is, why are these people here? Why did we admit them?
Or how about this CBC story (written by noted CBC News reporter Terry Milewski) marking the 30th anniversary of the Air India bombing, and it speaks to the risks of importing internecine conflicts from troubled regions:
Do people realize even now, she wonders, that the 329 victims were mostly Canadian citizens? And yet, Rana writes, there are people in Canada who still openly revere the men who placed the bomb.
… Here’s part of what she’s talking about: the large poster placed outside a temple in Surrey, B.C., in honour of — yes, in honour of — Talwinder Singh Parmar. The poster is a permanent fixture on the exterior of the Dasmesh Darbar Temple. The photograph of it was taken last Friday, June 19. To passers-by, it’s just another portrait of some saintly stalwart of the Sikh religion.
Actually, about the only thing the defence, the prosecution and the judge all agreed on at the Air India trial in Vancouver was that Parmar was the mastermind of the Air India bombing.
That makes him the worst mass murderer in Canadian history, by far. And he is publicly celebrated to this day as a shaheed — a martyr — by his devotees.
Leaffan, I’m going to give you a note here instead of a warning - though it could easily be such. Do not tell other posters what they may or may not post. If you think something is clearly out of line please use the report button instead of taking it upon yourself.
To add some levity click here to watchScarborough-Rouge Park Conservative candidate Jerry Bance secretly piss into a stranger’s mug, toss the piss in the sink, rinse it, and place the mug back.
This is a new riding but the apportioned results from the last election make it a tight three-way race with a slim margin for the Liberals. Assuming the other two major-party candidates don’t piss in their customers’ coffee cups, he’ll probably regret it even more deeply when he loses the election.
Not sure that this is a glowing endorsement for his appliance repair business, either. I wouldn’t want this pissing wonder in my kitchen. At least not until he’s fully housebroken. If my dog can learn, I’m sure one of Harper’s Conservatives can, too.
Alright Tommy, I know you aint clever enough for that to be ‘off the cuff;’ Good god, whoever-the-hell wrote that line needs to be in showbiz. I choked on my coffee.
No sooner has Harper tossed the coffee mug pisser out of the race than another one bites the dust for YouTube antics like making fun of the disabled. Stay classy, Harper backbenchers, stay classy. Maybe just stick to evolution denial and ridiculing climate science.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you pretty much tossed “incontrovertible truth” out the window.
So, this group, led by a woman who came with her less-devout parents and then became radicalized (if you read the story, probably turning against the West because teenagers are mean), and a piece-of-work convert born in this country–this is your argument for screening immigrants? What screening would have caught them?
No, it’s fair to say that the right kind of employable, educated economic migrants are a net benefit to the economy and to the country. Perhaps I wasn’t clear.
I know lots of teenagers, and some of them are mean, and some of them are rebellious. None of them refuse to call Canada by name and refer to it only as “this filthy country”. None of them advocate violent jihad. And no, she wasn’t born here, look back at your own quote: “Canada, a country the Karachi-born teen moved to after spending her childhood in Saudi Arabia …”
The intelligent kind that takes all factors into account.
A child of Pakistani immigrant parents, who grew to hate Canada when kids at school made fun of her name, and romanticized the pervasive religion of her childhood in Saudi Arabia.
A convert who wasn’t even an immigrant, but came from Nova Scotia.
