Immigration Watch Canada

Although First Nations are still dealing with the adverse effects of Colonization and Residential Schools, a new threat looms on the horizon. As Statistics Canada figures imply, immigration could likely be the next great obstacle that Canada's First People have to overcome in the fight to improve their lives.

By Curtis Dekoning
(Edited by Christy Anderson, MA student, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg)

I am an Aboriginal.

Here in Canada, Aboriginal People are given only nominal historical and cultural recognition. Canada has dedicated February as Black History Month and May as Asian Heritage Month, but all that Aboriginals get is one day, June 21. Yet we are North America's first people.

The Jews have drawn the entire world's attention to their Holocaust, but it is nothing compared to the North American holocaust created by European colonizers : 120 million Native North American Men, Woman and Children massacred in the name of progress. Yet we have no memorials.

The great irony is that a New Holocaust has begun. Giving much more recognition to Aboriginal history and all the dark events in it could help to extinguish the New Holocaust. But if that and other measures, including a very important cut to immigration, are not taken now, this New Holocaust will include both Aboriginals and the descendants of the European people who colonized Canada.

There is little doubt that the New Holocaust is being caused by Canada's mass immigration policy which can best be described as the re-colonization of Canada.

Many changes impacting on Canadian Aboriginals

As a long term resident of the inner-city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, I have seen many changes over the last 25 years that have negatively impacted the lives of Aboriginal Peoples.

Here's an example of the negative impact : As many probably know, Manitoba has the highest Aboriginal population, per capita, in all of North America. According to the 2006 Statistics Canada census, the employment rate among immigrants is a country-leading 73.1 per cent and their unemployment rate is only 6.8 per cent, the second lowest in Canada.

In contrast, statistics from the same 2006 census show that Canada's First People have much lower employment rates and much higher unemployment rates. The 2006 data shows that the employment rate for First Nations people aged 25 to 54 living in Winnipeg was only 57.8%.

Although First Nations are still dealing with the adverse effects of Colonization and Residential Schools, a new threat looms on the horizon. As Statistics Canada figures imply, immigration could likely be the next great obstacle that Canada's First People have to overcome in the fight to improve their lives. Canada is a "multi-ethnic" society and people come from all over the world looking for greater opportunities, and hoping to improve their quality of life. This is one thing that makes Canada such a great country.

Yet our nation's First People are lagging behind our immigrant new-comer population in many ways which are vital to accessing a good quality of life. Because Aboriginal unemployment on Reserves is often 10 times higher than that in Canada's general population, and unemployment off Reserves is also very high, Aboriginals have to be included in decisions on how many immigrants Canada takes each year. I understand that Canada needs some Immigration but Canada should first concentrate on getting Aboriginals and its own unemployed into Canada's work-force.

Home ownership higher among immigrants than among aboriginals

A City of Winnipeg administrative review in January 30, 2012 said Winnipeg's population is expected to grow by 174,000 people over the next 20 years. Provincial population growth is primarily due to new immigrants under the Provincial Nominee Program. Consider last year : Manitoba admitted about 12,000 provincial nominees, while Ontario, a much larger province, had only about 1,000. Of the past nominees from the program, 76 percent become homeowners after three to five years.

Compare this to Aboriginal Peoples living off reserve in the city of Winnipeg, and you'll find that only 42.7 percent own homes. The crucial thing to note is that Aboriginals should have a much higher ownership rate because they have been here all their lives, not three to five years. Additionally, 85 percent of new immigrants residing in Manitoba are active in the labour market within three months.

Positive job discrimination for immigrants disadvantages Canadian born and Aboriginal

These most recent statistics indicate that positions in the work force are being taken by the new immigrants, while Aboriginal Peoples continue to suffer from high rates of unemployment. New Canadians will subsequently invest in businesses and franchises, they will buy real estate and homes, etc. In general, they will participate in the Canadian economy. I see nothing wrong with this, given that we operate in a capitalist society. However, the stigma and prejudiced attitudes towards Aboriginal Peoples that are prevalent in Canadian society, are also present in many newcomers. Many immigrants treat Aboriginals like second-class citizens. And I have experienced that myself !!

Furthermore, the newcomer immigrant population is beginning to monopolize the labour market. Canada should not be about monopolization. It is supposed to be a great land of opportunity and equality. But, when you consider franchises, for example, like KFC, Tim Horton's and The Real Canadian Superstore, and observe the high employment of visible minorities/immigrants, and the lack of representation by Aboriginal Peoples, the monopolization of the limited job market becomes apparent.

Not only are immigrant persons employed in entry level positions at many businesses, they occupy the higher and better paid positions as well. With the flooding of the labour market by the growing influx of immigrant workers, there are fewer jobs available for our country's First Peoples. For example, the difference in the unemployment rate between Aboriginal and immigrant youth aged 15-24 residing in Winnipeg, is staggering : 31.7% of First Nations youth are unemployed vs. 9.8% of their non-aboriginal counterparts.

Crime rate and desperation

With limited opportunities to earn an income, many desperate and hopeless Aboriginal youth turn to gangs and selling drugs as a means to earn a living. Winnipeg's notoriously high crime rate is a partial indicator of the severity of our gang issues. While the Federal government provides money for many programs for Aboriginal Peoples, it is lacking in addressing other social issues like the racist and discriminatory attitudes of Canadian business owners and corporations, who are responsible for hiring people in an equitable and fair manner. If this climate of injustice continues in the labour market, I am fearful that our situation will worsen, and Aboriginal Peoples will be forced to continue to live in Third World conditions.

Need protection from employment monopolization

My proposal, which I call the White Buffalo Act, is intended to alert the federal government to this issue, and to appeal to our Parliament to create an employment bill to protect Aboriginal People and our future generations from employment "monopolization'. This bill would include dramatically reducing Canada's immigration and Temporary Foreign Worker intake until Aboriginal and other Canadian employment dramatically increases. In the case of the very limited number of immigrants who would be allowed in, our government should ensure that these immigrants become aware of the history and culture of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. One of the things our government can do is have Aboriginal People develop an Aboriginal History curriculum for all of Canada. A section of this should become part of the mandatory test new immigrants take for Canadian Citizenship and would hopefully create cultural sensitivity in the new immigrant population.

The White Buffalo Act would effectively produce a harmonization between cultures that could potentially help lead Aboriginal People out of desperate circumstances related to prejudice and negative attitudes from new Canadians. If this Act is passed, it would be a collective and collaborative effort by our government, businesses and educational institutions throughout Canada. At this time, Ottawa is making the requirements for admission into the country more stringent. In particular, the Federal Government wants to see more emphasis on English or French language proficiency.

While the government is in the process of changing the requirements for new immigrant entry, perhaps this would be the ideal time to begin advocating for the creation of a program that would educate new immigrants in Aboriginal history as well. This educational pursuit would help new Canadians to better understand the struggles of First People and would increase the likelihood that the prejudicial and negative attitudes that currently prevail amongst this demographic, would change toward Aboriginal People.

In order to change the blatant discriminatory hiring practices already present within the Canadian work-force, I would further recommend aggressive media campaigns to draw attention to the lack of Aboriginal representation in the labour market. The Canadian government is responsible for ensuring that all citizens in this country are given fair representation in the work-force and equal opportunity to participate in it. When it comes to immigration policies, many politicians are hesitant to address the myriad of issues that surround this controversy. It is my sincere hope that the issues discussed above will not be dismissed or taken lightly. This is a serious issue that we cannot ignore.

Source: Immigration Watch Canada

In Canada, as well as in Australia, the Government has kept open the immigration floodgate in the midst of the recession. One supposed justification is that this is all necessary so that their economy can be ready to take off when the recession ends. In reality, this is a self-serving lie to allow the profits that the Canadian growth lobby gains at the expense of their fellow Canadians, the environment, and the Third World, to continue.

Original article by Dan Murray published on Immigration Watch Canada on 11 Apr 09.

As hundreds of thousands of Canadians lose their jobs, immigration advocates have desperately grasped to find new arguments to make for maintaining high immigration. The latest is that Canada should continue its high levels so that our economy can be ready to take off when the recession ends. Of all the absurd immigration statements that have ever been made, this one has to take top prize.

To explain why, let's ask one basic question: If we continue to allow around 250,000 immigrants to enter Canada every year, what are these 250,000 new arrivals going to do when they get here?

Since October, 2008, around 400,000 Canadians have lost their jobs. Canada now has around 1.5 million unemployed. The outlook is not good for many others.

If, as most would expect, the new immigrants try to find jobs, but the number of jobs continues to decrease, it is inevitable that these new people are going to compete with our own unemployed for the few jobs that exist. And, incredible as it may sound, some employers will be required by federal Employment Equity law to hire them, particularly if they are visible minorities. That means that Canadian-born will not even be considered for many jobs.

But what about the new arrivals who can't find any employment? Well, the obvious answer is that these people will have to be supported by social assistance. What sense does this make? Is this the Brave New World (otherwise known in the Metro Toronto area as "DIVERCITY") that many Metro Toronto politicians think of as an achievement?

What happens if the recession goes on for a few years? Does that mean Canadian-born face even greater competition for employment? How long will it take to pay off the bills accumulated by subsidizing people Canada never needed in the first place? Furthermore, instead of making Canada prepared for the recovery, won't the bills really slow down the arrival of any recovery? And what will happen to our unemployed when the recovery comes? Will they be further ignored so that attention can be paid to satisfying the needs and recognizing the credentials of a new immigration tsunami?

It seems that Canada has come to a crossroads. It is time to start a series of cross-country town hall meetings. Let's arrange to have all the politicians and immigration advocates, who want to maintain high immigration, meet our unemployed in those halls. Let's close the doors. The immigration advocates, who have insulated themselves from the unemployed, can have a brief time to tell the unemployed why high immigration must continue.

Then, the unemployed can tell them what they think. Most Canadians would say that the result won't be pretty for the high immigration advocates. But most would say that this kind of a result is long overdue.

Original article by Dan Murray published on Immigration Watch Canada on 11 Apr 09.

A report by Engineers Canada (Ingeniéurs Canada) found that in 2006, well before the current economic crisis, Canada's seemingly thoughtless policy of acquiring practically unlimited numbers of engineers from all over the world had caused a massive glut of engineeers in Canada. As a consequence, "Two thirds of persons with a Canadian university degree in engineering were employed outside engineering occupations." Yet, in spite of this and in spite of the global financial meltdown, Canada, like Australia, continues with its high immigration program.

The following article was originally published as "New jobless figures should drive the last nail into high immigration's coffin" on 6 Feb 09 on www.immigrationwatchcanada.org.

New jobless figures should drive the last nail into high immigration's coffin

On Friday, February 6, Statistics Canada reported that Canada had lost 129,000 jobs in January. The big question all Canadians should be asking is this: What sense does it make for Canada to continue to bring in 250,000 regular immigrants each year and to allow an additional 200,000 temporary foreign workers to work here when unemployment in our own population continues to rise? As some Canadians know, Canada has the highest net per capita immigration intake of any country in the world. If Ottawa applies the most elementary logic, the Stats Can news should be all the evidence that MP's of all stripes need to drive the last nail into high immigration's coffin.

Undoubtedly, Canada's immigration industry will find excuses to maintain Canada's high immigration levels. But even the most gullible Canadians should now be demanding a dramatic cut to immigration. If politicians at all levels do nothing to fulfill their moral responsibility to this country's unemployed, then those politicians are abdicating their primary responsibility and deserve immediate censure from Canada's unemployed and the rest of the population.

Engineers Canada, the national organization of provincial and territorial associations of engineers, has recently completed one phase of a labour market study which adds further evidence to the argument that Canada can satisfy most of its labour needs within the country. Engineers Canada partnered with the Canadian Council of Technicians and Technologists to do this study.

Here is a summary of findings of recent labour market research entitled "Engineering And Technology Labour Market Study" . The research was done by Engineers Canada. We have provided "Editor's Notes". Paul Martin, a professional engineer and a former board member of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, an engineering advocacy group, has contributed substantially to these notes.

The following three points are findings which Engineers Canada has extracted from Canada's 2006 Census.

(1) "Two thirds of persons with a Canadian university degree in engineering were employed outside engineering occupations. For those who obtained their degree outside of Canada, the proportion was over 80%."

Editor's note : These startling figures indicate a serious over-supply problem. As of 2008, Canada had more than 160,000 licensed professional engineers, and a great many more engineers without licenses. Here is an example of how over-supply occurred:

The Engineers Canada study cites Statistics Canada figures which show that in 2001, 15,863 immigrant engineers entered Canada. In the same year, Canadian universities graduated 8733 engineers.

This total of 24,596 engineers could not be absorbed by the labour market. The Engineers Canada study comments: "It is not surprising that in these circumstances both recent immigrants and many recent graduates in Ontario experienced considerable difficulty in finding employment commensurate with their training." Furthermore, 2006 Census data indicate that there was already a surplus of Canadian-educated engineers relative to the needs of the labour market! This surplus, not "credential recognition", is the issue that the federal and provincial governments should be dealing with. Canada's primary responsibility is to the engineers it has educated, yet Ottawa and the provinces act as if their duty is to supply employment for engineers and other skilled workers from everywhere.

(2) "Individuals who obtained their engineering degrees outside Canada accounted for approximately 20% of all employment in engineering occupations. For technicians and technologists, the proportion was 6%, although this excludes persons in technology occupations who have non-Canadian educational qualifications in a field other than engineering or technology (e.g. general science)."

Editor's note : This quotation may shock many. They will be further shocked to read another part of the report which says that around 45% of all of the engineers in Canada are immigrant engineers. The Engineers Canada report further states that "The (2006) Census data also strongly suggest that a significant number of persons with a university degree in engineering were working in occupations for which they were over-qualified."

Again, the point to be made is that federal immigration policy has created a situation where Canada has imported a large number of engineers (and other skilled workers) that it does not need. This has occurred because MP's and others have assumed that Canada should collect all the engineers it can find and that it can find employment for them. The point is that there are limits to the ability of Canada's economy to absorb engineers or any other skilled group. In the desperate search for immigrant votes and in the face of threats from Canada's immigration industry to maintain high immigration, MP's have blamed this surplus problem on provincial certification agencies. The truth is that MP's are the ones who created this problem and it is high time that they take responsibility for their actions.

(3) "Approximately 30% of persons classified by the Census as working in engineering occupations were not university engineering graduates. The proportion is high and warrants consideration by regulatory bodies."

Editor's note : This should be even more shocking. Ottawa and the provinces should take careful note of this point. Employers are working under exemptions to the licensure rules and are hiring non-engineers because they are cheaper. For far too long, both Ottawa and the provinces have acted as if their duty is to pressure regulatory bodies to approve the credentials of immigrant engineers as quickly as possible and as if Ottawa and others are acquiring superior moral status by doing this. The point is that neither Ottawa nor the provinces give adequate consideration to whether immigrants who claim to be qualified are truly qualified.

The following are projections made by Engineers Canada :

"Short term outlook for 2008-2010" :

(1) "DEMAND : Overall employment demand for engineers, technologists and technicians was expected to increase by 3.6% per year between now and 2010. The down-turn in the U.S. and its spill-over effects in Ontario and Quebec will bring this projection down. Survey data suggest that hiring will be weighted to technologists/technicians."

Editor's note: When the down-turn prediction was made, the extent of the down-turn had not been anticipated. The additional large question that has to be asked is this: With the loss of additional engineering jobs, can the supply of Canadian graduates satisfy most future demand for engineers?

(2) "Supply" :

(a) "Graduates--Since 2002, new enrolments in engineering and technology have declined. "

Editor's note : It is no co-incidence that the huge inflow of immigrant engineers in 2001 had a significant effect on engineer enrolments after 2001. As other countries such as Australia have noted, unnecessary high immigration of skilled workers often brings dim employment prospects to young people and discourages them from entering professions they have dreamed of entering. Once again, it should not have to be said that Canada's primary responsibility is to its own people and its immigration policies should state that responsibility.

(b) "Immigration : Immigration of engineers peaked in 2001. In 2001 and 2002, more than two thirds of increases to supply in Ontario were derived from immigration and less than one-third from new graduates. Since 2001, owing to crowding in the Ontario labour market, there has been a decline of almost 70% in immigration of qualified engineers."

(3) "Outlook" : Western Canada: significant excess demand ; Ontario: excess supply ; Quebec : better than Ontario, but will drift into excess supply ; Atlantic : Excess demand conditions will abate by 2010.

Editor's note : Recent developments in the entire labour market have probably significantly diminished demand all across Canada.

(4) "Skill Requirements And The Nature Of Shortages" : "A serious skills shortage can, and often does, co-exist with serious unemployment."

Editor's note : This statement may not seem to make sense. However, employers regard skill shortages and labour shortages as 2 different things. To employers, the word "skills" means both technical university training and non-technical qualities such as business/communication attributes. Therefore, the phrase "skills shortages" means the absence of people with these qualities.

"Labour shortages" mean an actual insufficiency of potential skilled workers. Employers may declare that skill shortages exist, but there may be no real shortage of job applicants with the formal educational qualifications needed. Rather, employers mean that they are unable to recruit employees with the requisite non-technical qualities. Often, this means that employers are addicted to not having to train, develop and mentor their employees to the extent that they once did. It also means that employers hope the public will pick up the costs of educating Canadian engineers and also of permitting the immigration of vastly more engineers than the economy could possibly use!

Paul Martin's final Comment on the engineering labour issue will provide even more shock:

"While sitting on the steering committee for Engineers Canada's "From Consideration to Integration" project, I was appalled to repeatedly hear engineering referred to as "the new liberal arts education" by senior members of the engineering regulatory and university educational community. It would appear that these people no longer see engineering education as training for a profession, and hence feel no responsibility to ensure that we educate numbers of engineers even approximately matched to our labour market needs. While it is true that some people go into engineering in university with no intention of ever pursuing engineering as a career, I'm sure that a great many would turn tail and run to other programs if their dean came out with such a statement to them in their first year! The fact that less than 30% of Canadian graduates currently bother to go on to professional licensure, and that Ontario has for many years granted more licenses to foreign-trained engineers than to engineers who gained their education in Canada, should give any prospective student of engineering serious reason to reconsider their choice of the educational program they have enrolled in."

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The Engineers Canada report is entitled : Engineering and Technology Labour Market Study--The Results So Far : An Interim Report, November 2008

The report was funded by Human Resources and Development Canada (HRDC) as a part of phase III of Engineers Canada's "From Consideration to Integration" (FC2I) project.

It is downloadable as a PDF file (746K) from www.engineerscanada.ca.

Paul Martin has extensively researched the labour market for engineers. His work provides many valuable insights and is available at: www.geocities.com/martinsmoltenmetal

In Australia both major political parties support record high immigration. This ensures that it is rarely questioned in Parliament or in the news. In Canada, the situation is even worse₁. Dan Murray reports that Canadians face a 'choice' at the Federal elections scheduled for 31 October of four out of five major parties which see nothing wrong with Canada's record high and growing immigration rate and none which are campaigning to reduce it.

At the end of week #1 of the election, some immigration-related questions for all parties

Four out of five major political parties in Canada seem to think there is nothing wrong with Canada's current high immigration levels.

Here are some details on what Canadians have heard on the immigration issue during Week #1 of the election. Questions for each party follow:

(1) The Conservatives : Prime Minister Harper has indicated that immigrants are an issue, but mostly as a source of potential votes. In the first week, he spent about a third of his time talking to ethnic groups. Significantly, his first photo-op of the entire campaign was in Richmond, B.C. where he appeared with a Chinese family. Although he said the Chinese family was a typical Canadian family, and that he was trying to protect the middle class, he will probably admit that his principal reason for visiting the Chinese family was because high immigration levels have resulted in the Chinese now being over half of the population there. Since 1990, the Chinese have become a large percentage of the populations of many other areas in Metro Vancouver and of areas in Greater Toronto. In another example later in the week, Mr. Harper repeated the tactic of appealing to ethnic groups by speaking to a group of East Indian (Sikh) business people in Mississauga to get their support.

Here are some questions politicians might want to ask themselves :

A. When a political leader makes a point of starting his election campaign with members of an ethnic group and then spends a large amount of time addressing other ethnic groups, particularly those who have recently-arrived in large numbers, what message does he send to other groups, particularly long-term Canadians? Is he saying that he will give priority to the interests of new groups at the expense of those of long-term Canadians?

B. Ridings such as Richmond and others have witnessed extremely high immigrant inflows for no obvious good reason. Is he saying that it does not matter that a surge in the newcomers has created a situation in which new immigrants now outnumber the long-term Canadians in those ridings?

C. Let's be frank with people of all political stripes. The approach of most political parties towards recent immigrants is a mixture of sycophancy and platitudes such as "creating diversity". The attitude that political parties convey is that anyone from anywhere has a right to come to Canada. And Canada's political parties will perform all the obsequiousness that is necessary to satisfy the demands of immigrants, particularly their demands to re-create their countries in Canada. Instead of this approach, why are Canada's politicians not asking these people two questions: If cultural, economic and environmental conditions were so wonderful where you came from (particularly in China and India), why are you here? Is there a good chance that your demands will re-create the same dysfunctionality in Canada that existed in your home countries?

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(2) The Liberals : Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has indicated that he too thinks immigrants are an issue, but again mostly because of their votes. He also went to Richmond where he tried to outbid Mr. Harper by promising that his party would spend about $800 million to overhaul the current immigration system in the following ways : increase the number of immigrants; repeal the powers recently given to the Immigration Minister so that immigrants have "due process" ; spend $400 million to modernize information-gathering and otherwise streamline procedures for immigrant and refugee applicants; spend about $200 million over four years on improved language training for newcomers, and another $200 million over four years for internships, mentorship and work-placement opportunities.

Here are some questions:

A. Mr. Dion is saying that he will increase high immigration inflows and make more funding available for immigrant settlement. Is he also saying that in these uncertain economic times, he too thinks that immigrants and their interests (particularly their desire to increase the size of their ethnic groups) should take precedence over the interests of long-term Canadians?

B. By saying that he will repeal powers given to the Immigration Minister, is he saying that he will return Canada's immigration system to the days when the associated Canadian immigration industry sabotaged all efforts to control immigration?

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(3) The New Democratic Party : Jack Layton has said that he will try to protect Canadian workers from losing their jobs to other countries by stopping tax cuts to Canadian companies that close Canadian factories and then outsource jobs to cheap-labour countries. He will target investments instead to stimulate innovation ; invest in low-emission vehicle production ; train new and displaced workers through a Green Collar Jobs Fund ; create a Jobs Commissioner to investigate shutdowns ; and develop sector-based industrial strategies. According to an NDP policy statement, New Democrats will commit an average of $2 billion a year to this program, aiming to directly create 40,000 new manufacturing jobs and thousands of spin-off jobs while protecting many more.

Here are a few questions for the NDP and Mr. Layton :

A. From the 1920's to 1990, when Canadians were losing jobs because factories were closing, it was standard federal government practice to reduce immigration levels so that unemployed Canadians would not have to compete with foreign workers. Why is Mr. Layton not recommending that Canada re-institute this strategy now?

B. At the same time as Mr. Layton is courageously recommending that the federal government protect Canadian workers, why is Olivia Chow, the NDP's immigration critic, saying that Canada needs more workers? Why is she saying that Canada's high immigration intake should continue? It is estimated that Ontario and Quebec have recently lost several hundred thousand jobs. How is bringing in 250,000+ immigrants every year supposed to help unemployed Canadian workers?

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(4) The Greens : Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, has downplayed the environmental impact of immigration on Canada and said that the Alberta Tar Sands is a much more serious environmental issue. Since high immigration levels began in 1990, Canada has taken over 4 million immigrants and its population has increased by around 6 million. In a CBC radio programme on Sunday, September 15, Ms. May stated that immigration of the kind Canada has had since 1990 has produced economic benefits and created diversity.

Here are some questions for Ms. May :

A. Ms. May says that the problem of environmental degradation in Canada's major immigrant-receiving areas (especially Southern Ontario and Metro Vancouver) can be solved by sending those immigrants to rural Canada. The big problem with this approach is that it is naive. Many people have left rural Canada because there are no economic opportunities there. So why send immigrants there if they too will soon have to leave? In fact, why bring most of them to Canada in the first place?

B. Does Ms. May know that the Economic Council of Canada and individuals/research groups in other countries have concluded that immigration produces almost no significant economic benefits to host countries? In fact, is she aware that the Economic Council of Canada stated that if a country were looking for an economic stimulus, it should not look to immigration? Why is she saying immigration produces economic benefits?

C. Since Ms. May knows that several hundred thousand workers in Ontario and Quebec have lost their jobs, why is she not standing up for those workers by advocating a traditional significant cut in Canadian immigration levels? Is she saying that the creation of diversity takes precedence over the protection of Canadian workers?

D. At this time, all environmental organizations are advocating measures to minimize human impact in order to offset climate change. Why then is she, the leader of an environmental party, not advocating a population stabilization/immigration reduction policy for Canada? Wouldn't this kind of "Think Globally. Act Locally or Nationally." help Canada to minimize its environmental impact? Or are the environmental effects of 4 to 5 million recent immigrants a trivial matter? How about another 4 to 5 million? Is she saying there is no limit?

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(5) The Bloc Quebecois: The BQ is the only federal political party to express concern about immigration and its effects. Last May, the BQ asked in the House of Commons that Canada's multiculturalism policy not be applied to Quebec. The BQ has also made clear in its brief to Quebec's Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation that multiculturalism is a negative for Quebec. (In fact , about 83% of all presenters (the BQ included) to the B-T commission said they disapproved of religious accommodation.) The BQ sees that federal high immigration levels , multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights have been responsible for religious accommodation demands in Quebec. Since March 2007, many polls have said that roughly 80% of all Quebec residents said that they did not want to make religious accommodations.

Here are 2 questions for the Bloc Quebecois :

(A) When during the current election campaign will the Bloc Quebecois raise the immigration and multiculturalism issue?

See also: "Truth and immigration" by James Bissett former Head of Canadian immigration Service in the Ottowa Citizen of 18 Sep 08.

Footnotes

1. ↑ The first two sentences of the introductory paragraph above were originally as follows:

Australian public intellectual Phillip Adams has said, on his ABC program, Late night live, that he considers the bi-partisan support for high immigration, which ensures that it is rarely questioned in Parliament or in the news, a 'strength' of Australian democracy. As it happens, Canadian democracy shares this 'strength'.

What I wrote was in accord to my own recollection of what I heard on Late Night Live earlier in the year and also with other things I have heard or read from Phillip Adams on matters directly or indirectly related to population and immigration. However, Phillip Adams e-mailed me today to say:

I've never said that! I have said that a long history of bi-partisan support on immigration issues has sometimes been good....and sometimes very bad - as with White Australia and the refugee scandal.....BUT I'm no supporter of increasing the Oz population by either immigration or an increased birth-rate...for the obvious environmental reasons....

So, if I formed the wrong impression, then I apologise to Philip Admas, but however I may have formed the impression that led me to write what I wrote in the introductory paragraph, this is very welcome news. I look forward to Phillip Adams joining with the likes of Greens Senator Bob Brown in order to challenge the official ideology in support of population growth which is threatening to destroy this country's future.

The Green contradiction

For years Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been telling us that there are no ecological consequences from mass immigration. Canada should persist with its "great multicultural project" and aim for an immigration intake equivalent to 1% of its population level, a target that would surpass our current quota by some 70,000 migrants even though this country is already the fastest growing country in the G8 group. That we could suffer this growth without losses to biodiversity, farmland, and air quality is both counter-intuitive and empirically refutable.

May's great escape hatch, of course, is "land use planning", the same nostrum parroted by the Growth Management Industry, the NDP, the environmental NGOs, the "progressive" developers---everyone in denial who would have us believe that we can have our cake and eat it too. We can leave the tap of population growth turned on full blast while deflecting the flood away from sensitive areas.

The accent then, is not on "whether" we grow---because, after all, growth is "inevitable", especially if you keep holding the immigration floodgates open. No, the accent is on "how" we grow. And we should grow "inwards", by packing people like sheep behind tightly defined urban boundaries. Tall rabbit warrens (highrises). Infils. No more sprawl. Never mind that people who live in high density zones have high or even higher footprints too, or eventually burst the seams and colonize outlying greenbelts (hello Portland, Oregon). Or that impregnable nature reserves buckle under the population and economic pressure. And isn't it curious that the pricey urban planners, politicians and yuppie environmentalists who prescribe compact living for the working poor and middle class in Canadian cities, seem to have expensive lakeside or waterfront retreats to draw their mental sustenance from? Do as I say and not as I do?

Elizabeth May re-affirmed her commitment to "smart growth" in a CBC interview on September 14, 2008 when she stated that immigration was a problem only if land use planning was not employed, that is, by implication, if Canadians are concentrated and not dispersed, environmental damaged is minimized. An illusion of the highest magnitude.

Suddenly though, May made a startling logical about face. In responding to a caller's question she remarked that the volume of immigration is not an issue, immigrants simply need to be spread out more. She pointed out that rural areas are losing people and could benefit from immigration. "Just as there areas receiving an influx strains the fabric of an urban area, there are areas of Canada experiencing serious problems of depopulation where it would be fabulous to have the programs that ensured that more immigrants moved into places like rural Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia." But she didn't say what she would do with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which allows immigrants to settle anywhere they want in Canada, nor did she explain why immigrants would rather freeze in rural Saskatchewan than have a more comfortable life in the Fraser Valley or once induced to live in rural or northern Canada, would not eventually move south to the over-stressed cities. Dan Murray of Immigration Watch Canada commented,

"Ms. May says that the problem of environmental degradation in Canada's major immigrant-receiving areas (especially Southern Ontario and Metro Vancouver) can be solved by sending those immigrants to rural Canada. The big problem with this approach is that it is naive. Many people have left rural Canada because there are no economic opportunities there. So why send immigrants there if they too will soon have to leave? In fact, why bring most of them to Canada in the first place?"

So there you are. A Green Party leader who doesn't have her story straight. She wants both higher density and greater dispersal. She wants people packed closely together out of harm's way, away from our natural bounty, but she wants to relieve the pressure from our bulging urban centres choking from the growth forced on them by 18 years of runaway mass immigration. Smart growth and dumb growth at once. That's the Green Party of Canada. Under the thin green paint, it's a muddled mixture of trendy slogans that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC
September 16, 2008

“It seems to me we gotta solve it individually…” from the 1968 hit song by the Young Rascals

Somebody hand me a barf bag. Quick. I was in the supermarket yesterday and came upon one of those innumerable escapist books on how we can ignore the big picture and the root cause of the coming apocalypse by retreating into private solutions. It was a book by cheery CBC talk show personality Gill Deacon called “Green for Life”, a compendium of some 200 “eco-ideas” (ego-ideas?) on how to pack school lunches, plan picnics, birthday parties and weddings, decorate and do what Sir Richard Branson called, in his endorsement, “the simple things in your everyday lives that will positively impact our future.” It is Deacon’s hope that just living sustainably in this fashion will become normal. Branson’s “normal” of course is burning up the stratosphere with jet trails all over the globe and investing in biofuels that entail the destruction of rainforests in Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. But those are just one or two simple things.

Deacon established her credentials for lecturing me about sustainable living by giving birth to three sons, who collectively will emit 69 metric tonnes of GHG this year. She must be a bona fide environmentalist, however, because she was a director of the World Wildlife Fund of Canada in 2002 and demonstrates her love of wildlife by living in Toronto. You are familiar with the WWF. They suction money from dupes who think you can defend wildlife from population and economic growth by creating sanctuaries for it, while refusing to take positions on population growth and immigration in whatever country they operate. In their defence though, they at least divert donor money away from Nature Conservancy, who make similar fraudulent claims.

The WWF deserves notoriety for providing ammunition to pro-immigrationists by producing eco-footprinting data that purports to show Canada as capable of accommodating more people than it should. The 2000 Living Planet Report, for example, identified Canada as having a carrying capacity of 38 million, an estimate that Optimum Population Trust UK declared took no account of the unsustainability of Canadian agriculture due to serious soil erosion.

It is rather telling that Deacon would devote a section of her “Eco-ideas” to selecting the environmentally correct kind of lubricant to, as she puts it, “grease the wheels of your lovemaking machine.” Yet it is apparently acceptable to conceive three sons in Toronto, or six for that matter, so long as you don’t fuck up the planet with petroleum jelly. I suppose inflicting a large brood on the world is a matter of “personal choice” but tossing a plastic container in the landfill is not.

One Green eco-idea Gill left out, I notice, was for consumers to send a letter to Ottawa or launch a petition against an immigration policy that makes all of her 200 “little things” a joke. Deacon might also send an eco-idea to her employer, the CBC, to drop their euphoric coverage of Canadian foreign aid missions, like Harper’s trip to Haiti, so that Canadians busy with their “Green” lifestyle might learn that their tax money is encouraging people in Haiti, Afghanistan and Africa to have four and five children each and ravage local environments for survival.

But one must not be too harsh with Gill Deacon of course. Cutting down her hypocrisy is like cutting off the head of a many headed hydra. There is a plague of these Green lifestyle books on the market. There is Adria Vasil’s “Ecoholic:Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products and Services in Canada.”. Kim McKay’s “True Green: 100 Everyday Ways You Can Contribute to a Healthier Planet”. Greg Horn’s “Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability.” Elizabeth Rogers’ “The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Step at a Time”. And Ellen Sandbeck’s “Organic Housekeeping”, to name but a few.

The impetus for this myopic preoccupation with our personal lives can be traced to the famous entreaty by Al Gore in his documentary “The Inconvenient Truth”. There he states, absurdly, that “each of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, with the electricity we use, the cars we drive. We can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands. We just have to have the determination to make them happen.” Gore does not appreciate that green consumers can never reduce their consumption to zero, and that an increase in the number of even green consumers is going to increase total consumption. The solution does not lie in the hands of individual consumers, but in the collective hands of citizens to effect political change.

The limits of green lifestyle habits can be illustrated clearly by a study conducted by Optimum Population Trust UK that found that one new citizen either born or admitted as an immigrant to Britain, wiped out 80 lifetimes of responsible recycling. Put differently, a lifetime of responsible recycling would only make up for one and one-quarter per cent of the damage done by a new citizen. Even if all of domestic waste was recycled, only 10% of the waste contributed by an additional citizen would be counter-acted.

It must be remembered that it is consumption that generates waste. While reducing our profligate per capita consumption is laudable and necessary, one must be aware that it is the number of “per capitas” which is relevant. Thus reducing our per capita C02 emissions from 23 metric tonnes to something reasonably obtainable will prove to have little effect if population growth is permitted to continue at 1.08% per annum.

Similarly our lifetime per capita consumption of 3.7 million pounds of minerals, metals and fuels, if reduced, will still be problematic if more people consume them even at a lesser rate. And turning off the lights for one hour, as we recently did in solidarity with other conservers globally, is a futile gesture if we allow population and economic growth to continue. Case in point. British Columbia Hydro encouraged customers with the thought that if they did that every night it would save enough energy to power an additional four thousand homes for an entire year. But as analyst Rick Shea of Salmon Arm, BC observed, “ British Columbians would apparently have to turn off their lights for about 6 hours each day in order to accommodate the provincial population growth in just one year. After four years of this, we will apparently have to leave our lights off permanently, 24 hours a day, to accommodate that growth.”

In summary then, the movement toward “sustainable living”, as represented by books like Gill Deacon’s “Green for Life”, is largely an exercise in ineffectual do-goodism and feel-goodism. If “every little bit counts”, it counts for little. If “it all adds up”, it doesn’t add up to much buried in a demographic avalanche. The call to “reduce, re-cycle and conserve” in the face of runaway population growth can only be likened to a cheerful cleaning lady tidying up a cabin in the Titanic as the ship is listing, making sure everything in the room is bio-degradable. She could never be relied upon to tell you the truth about the ship’s prospects, or yours, but she was hired by Captain CBC for her pleasant disposition and you will find her trivial advice entertaining.

Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
April 4/08

The Shunning of Immigration Critics by the BBC, ABC and CBC. See also CBC Townhall meeting to be stacked with immigration advocates The Shunning of Immigration Critics by the BBC, ABC and CBC By Tim Murray, director of Immigration Watch Canada Thursday, 28 February 2008 Originally published by Canada Free Press (canadafreepress.com) Is there something endemic in state broadcasting in the Anglophone world which makes the population question taboo and the pro-immigration stance the default position? Is there an intrinsic bias, and if so, where is it coming from? The journalists, the presenters, the researchers, the producers or the higher-ups? Is state media more captive of political correctness than the private media? In attempting to answer some of these questions it is thought useful to first review two fascinating accounts, one about the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC), another about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) and finally a short summary of the disgraceful record of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In "The Treason of the BBC" the late Jack Parsons argued that "The BBC has been systematically excluding virtually all material on the question of basic population policy." This while "our present government has adopted a policy (without discussion or mandate) of deliberately increasing our numbers by about one million every five years," making Britain the fastest growing country in Europe with a population density almost twice that of China. Yet the BBC allowed Beverly Hughes, Minister of Immigration, to "blandly repeat, unchallenged, the government's mindless policy of continued mass immigration to meet the alleged needs of the economy." Much in the same way that Home Secretary Charles Clark was granted a free pass to say that there were 'no obvious limits' to net migration and rapid growth. Parsons asks, "How can BBC claims about the carrying capacity of the prison system and its "overpopulation" be made so openly, so effortlessly, so devoid of fear and moral opprobrium, while not the slightest hint can ever be allowed to slip out vis a vis the vastly more important case of the carrying capacity and numbers of the nation as a whole?" He is not accusing those who run the BBC of criminal activity but "colluding in a very Great Betrayal, fostering the myth that human numbers have so little consequence that there is no need to take them seriously." "The charge I am leveling at all executive levels of the BBC as a corporate body concerns what I am convinced is coercive, institutionalized bias which for years has prevented virtually all BBC news of, and discussion about, a literally vital object, the long-term balance between human numbers, resources and the quality of life.this was not always so, but has been the case for at least 15 years. The signs of population myopia were apparent to Parsons in 1967 when he asked the BBC why it was so concerned about the Tory Canyon oil-tanker spill disaster but so unconcerned about the doubling of the world's population in 30 years. Since the early seventies "a steady and insidious process among governing circles, opinion-formers, the greater bulk of the media, including the BBC, has built a powerful and near universal censorship, by consent that the absolutely fundamental ecology question, the need for a sustainable balance between numbers and resources---is almost totally ignored. The sad corollary of this is that mass migration---since it has a major and obvious impact on the overall population situation---cannot be rationally discussed either." Parsons, in a letter to a BBC Complaints Unit, asks, "Dare one hope that, one of these days, someone in the higher echelons of the BBC will screw his/her courage to the sticking point and actually issue and follow through on a set of instructions that free the BBC---and hence the nation-from this appalling and near-totally disabling taboo." He is given to wonder "Why does this large, wealthy, powerful, highly prestigious institution cringe so abjectly at the very idea of free speech in the realm of discourse?" And why the taboo? "Has there been an explicit but secret directive to all producers to steer clear of the subject? Has this policy been built up by means of nods, winks and frowns on high; or does it stem from tacit acceptance by all concerned at the prevailing orthodoxy in the wider society?" Four things are needed to reform the BBC according to Parsons' prescription. Firstly, there needs to be major change in 'media Zeitgeist' that will permit a Population Glasnost. Secondly, the BBC needs to "stop cowering beneath its cloak of political correctness" and by honest analysis foster the emergence of a mature, ecologically informed electorate. Thirdly, the BBC needs to hire population experts. "Some BBC presenters who have an overweening confidence in their qualifications start laying down the law on those population topics which are allowed a mention, and in the process frequently display their ignorance. They pick up and mindlessly repeat half-baked notions about alleged labour shortages and pension problems, and swallow hook, line and sinker any free-floating opinions about how much better things will continue to become as numbers inexorably swell." Fourthly, it would be nice if the BBC followed its own Producer Guidelines. "Due impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC. All BBC programmes and services should be open-minded, fair and show a respect for truth. No significant strand of thought should go unreflected or unrepresented at the BBC." Until then, however, its Motto will remain that of the Three allegedly Wise Monkeys: See no population problem! Hear no population problem! Speak no population problem! Mark O'Connor, poet and one-time National Vice President of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population (AESP, renamed Sustainable Population Australia - SPA), has made a similar assessment of the ABC. In his upcoming book, "Overloading Australia", O'Connor concedes that the ABC is critical to Australian democracy and is able to speak to the people---"and often does". "But the ABC has in some parts of its news and current affairs sections failed to provide objectivity or fairness to portray debates or news coverage relating to population, immigration or economics." It is living the Comfortable Lie-that growth is good and sustainable, and the mass immigration that fuels it must continue. "The fact must be faced. There is something deeply wrong in some parts of it." O'Connor asserts that "issues and news items that require at least occasional coverage have been ignored. These issues certainly have reached the initial attention of those researchers who filter stories up the chain. Thus we are forced to speak of a given ABC program 'suppressing' stories even if many or most of those in a given unit were unaware this was going on. But there certainly is bias." Even if outside observers will never be able to locate its precise source. He offers some examples of this bias. The ABC collaborated with the bipartisan support of high immigration by suppressing most of the debate and repeatedly gave airtime to propagandists who claimed that our 'shamefully low immigration quotas' were 'proof of racism'. The inconvenient fact that Australia had the highest per capita intake of immigrants in the world when these brazen assertions were made was never raised by the corporation to challenge them. And "among its many acts of censorship, ABC TV News suppressed the fact that the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Democrats had long been calling for zero net migration. Yet as soon as the One Nation party announce a zero net migration policy, the ABC cited it as "racism". O'Connor speculates as to why the ABC behaves in this manner. "The ABC's failure through nearly three decades to deal with population issues-the most important matter facing Australia today--- may have less to do with individuals than with a pervasive institutional culture." Nevertheless, "if there are such persons blocking the debate, then it is assuredly time they were persuaded to move on to other areas where their biases will do less harm." He concludes, "The ABC has a problem with its news service and current affairs programs. It may not be able to rectify past unfairness, but it needs urgently to offer guarantees that the censorship will cease, and that at least in future those who disagree with high immigration or with 'birth-bribes' will receive equal time on its programs." New 'balance and accountability' guidelines announced by management in October of 2006 "will not address ABC News' pro-growth, pro-natalist, pro-conventional economic views." Can what has so far been said of the BBC and the ABC be said of the CBC as well? In one word, yes, and more. While some regional centres have attempted to bring more balance to immigration issues, CBC Radio, the National centre in Toronto and the Vancouver centre have emphatically not. The corporation has refused to engage the public on the two questions that they keep asking: Why is the government importing more people per capita than any other country than the world and what effect is this infux, which gives us the highest growth rate of any G8 nation, having on our economic, cultural and environmental health? Timidity and cowardice are not the exclusive province of CBC journalists, but only private media outlets have on occasion exposed abuses of the immigration system and questioned the country's high immigration intake. The CBC, on the other hand, has done what it can to promote mass immigration on the basis of its misinterpretation of its 1991 legislated mandate to promote "multiculturalism". Somehow there is an equation in corporate logic of the stated "CBC Vision" to reflect "the cultural diversity of our people" with support for mass immigration. But apparently the promotion of a diversity of cultures is quite different than the promotion of a diversity of opinions. Those very many Canadians who voice negative concerns about immigration are simply denied airtime by the people they subsidize. It is indeed an impertinent supplicant who holds out one hand to ask for public funding while clenching the other in a fist to drive into the mouth of the taxpayer who dares to challenge the corporate line on immigration. And yet, the CBC allows generous airtime and interviews with pro-immigration groups, so that they may in turn, as a quid pro quo, advertise for the non-commercial CBC. So to partiality and deceit one can therefore add corruption to the list of CBC immigration vices. So what then is the remedy? Suffice it to say that the CBC's commitment to mass immigration and multiculturalism comes at the cost of balanced, honest journalism. Immigration Watch Canada demands that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage should order the CBC executive to answer for this conflict of interest and to terminate the corporation's corrupt arrangements with the immigration industry, its blatant pro-immigration advocacy and the employment of people who engage in it. Such measures would seek not to curb journalistic freedom, but journalistic abuse. And return public broadcasting to the public. Then once again, the National Broadcaster would offer a forum where indeed "no significant strand of thought should go unreflected or unrepresented" and the exclusion of topics or the shunning of voices would be thought foreign to its corporate culture and democratic mission. It's time to end the conspiracy of silence against critiques of immigration and population growth.

People with dark skin or from Asia are not the only people who suffer racial vilification these days. In arguing for more immigration a Maltese immigrant complained on the "Sounds Like Canada" program of Friday, January 25/08 that one or two maritime provinces were mostly white and that others were "even worse". Typically, multicultural enthusiast and host Sheila Rogers did not challenge him for this outrageous racist statement.

One wonders how a CBC interviewer might react if a guest said that the downtown core of Regina was mostly aboriginal but other communities were "even worse". Or that many districts in Greater Vancouver are predominantly Chinese but others, like Richmond, are "even worse". When comments like these go by the board on the national broadcasting network, it is little wonder that so many politically correct bigots feel able to complain openly that their particular town is too "whitebread".

I am a native-born Canadian of European ancestry and I am sick and tired of being made to feel that I am some kind of disease who should be made to feel perpetually guilty for my white skin and for the multitude of sins allegedly committed generations ago, a disease that needs to be cured by a massive foreign influx.

Insults directed at the national whipping boy, Canadians of white pigmentation, are not the way to build the harmony you claim to seek.

Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
Canada V0P 1N0
January 28/08

To read the Royal Bank's website, one might confuse this commercial goliath with the Sierra Club or Friends of the Earth. A bank that in 2006 had a net income of $4,6 billion presents itself as the Jolly Green Giant of corporate Canada. Its "Environmental Blueprint" is 12 pages in length and talks of RBC's commitment to climate change, biodiversity, forests, indigenous peoples and our water supply." And it boasts that it has been named one of the world's top 100 sustainable companies, the first Canadian bank listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and is Canada's most respected corporation for the fourth year in a row. President and CEO Gordon M. Nixon stated that RBC's corporate responsibility can be seen in, among other things (how we) "support environmental sustainability". One problem. Mr. Nixon is the same man who spoke in favour of an RBC report in October of 2005 to raise immigration levels from 260 to 400,000 immigrants annually. The environmental cost of our current level of a quarter million immigrants a year, not to mention the levels Mr. Nixon advocates, is manifest. Urban growth has devoured up to one fifth of the country's Class 1 farmland, threatened perhaps more than two thirds of its endangered species and paved over wetlands. What propels this urban growth was suggested by a $3 million federally commissioned report submitted in 1997 by UBC's Dr. Michael Healey entitled "Prospects for Sustainability". It called for an immigration moratorium and Population Plan to rescue the ecosystems of the Fraser Valley and similar regions across Canada from immigrant-driven growth. He pointed out the federal Department of Immigration and federal Department of the Environment were working at cross purposes. Today it is guesstimated that perhaps 70% of all housing units built in the sprawling extensions of Canada's major cities are occupied by immigrants, but in Greater Vancouver that figure is more like 85%. Inter-provincial migration cannot be the convenient scapegoat for sprawl that immigrationists contend it is if the facts are faced. 1.08% annual population growth, the highest of all G8 countries, clearly has Canada's biodiversity up against the ropes, while Kyoto targets simply cannot be met. Population growth and rising GHG emissions go hand in hand. The absurd hypocrisy of RBC's stated "environmental objective" can be found in the proclamation that it is "committed to continuing to reduce our environmental footprint," while lobbying to have the government import 400,000 additional "footprints" each year through Pearson and Vancouver International airports. In its "Environmental Blueprint" it states that it will "not engage in new financing activities with corporations operating unsustainably in tropical rainforests or High Conservation Forests (etc.)", and speaks of comprehensive environmental risk management policies. However, it doesn't say anything of deforestation in London, Ontario or any other of Canada's growing centres to build the new housing developments the bank finances. Apparently clearcuts are fair ball in Canada because they are not a cause celebre or in the media spotlight, but whether it is in the jungles of Borneo or a forest grove in the GTA carbon sequestration is equally important to the planet.. Nor does RBC invoke their vaunted "environmental due diligence" in stopping the sprawling subdivisions they underwrite from covering farmland. They talk only of their determination to "direct a significant portion of our philanthropic efforts to environmental causes." The Nature Conservancy of Canada is a perfect example of the Royal Bank's "philanthropy". By steering money to Nature Conservancy (NC) for each client who switches to electronic bank statements, NC provides RBC with ecological dispensation, the PR brownie points---or greenie points--- it needs to mask its raison d'etre. That is, of course, providing loans to developers and home buyers so that they can keep on building the sprawling subdivisions that are exterminating the wildlife that Nature Conservancy supposedly cares about. It is a symbiotic relationship. Nature Conservancy gets a big-time corporate bag man to collect donations and RBC buys credibility as an institution that cares about the environment. The Royal Bank would like to be seen as it sees itself, as the Dr. Jeckyll of corporate environmental responsibility, but its position statements are so much green window dressing, an archive of deception, for at night this "green" corporate citizen becomes a Mr. Hyde who wreaks havoc on biodiversity and the atmosphere by underwriting and pushing for rapid, unchecked economic and population growth. The benefits of runaway population growth to the major lending institutions are self-evident. More people, more demand. Demand for car loans, credit lines, and mortgages. Recently a credible argument was made that the Royal Bank was primarily interested in expanding its client base. (Canadian Immigration Reform, January 2/08) "Its about importing potential RBC clients.Canada's financial institutions realize that future client growth, thus profits, resides in immigration. No CEO wants to be in charge when share prices decline or remain stagnant." What is critical to the understanding of RBC's immigration politics is that the origin or complexion of immigrants is as important as their number. Canada must, CEO Nixon contends, "unleash the power of diversity if it wants to improve productivity and increase its standard of living." (The notion that one must have a diverse and heterogeneous society to achieve high productivity should come as news to the Japanese and Chinese.). Presently 80% of Canada's visible minorities are immigrants and almost 75% of them are visible minorities, who constitute 17% of the population. RBC wants to tap into this talent pool, hire and promote it and capture its business. It offers scholarships only to those born outside Canada. Most telling is that on the home page on Royal Bank Scholarships for New Canadians there is only a Chinese face presented to the reader, while on the Application checklist page, of the six young people pictured, three are "people of colour". Applicants are asked to write an essay on how "new immigrants have contributed to this country." No negative impacts are entertained. The underlying assumption of the literature is that due to its aging population, Canada will soon depend on immigration to grow its labour force and will have to compete for talented immigrants in the global marketplace. Unfortunately, few are talented as mass immigration is providing us with a superfluous population that generates GHG, crowds out wildlife habitat and , according to a Statscan report of May 2006, depresses wages and displaces jobs, including those of recent immigrants. And the so-called "skills shortage" is really, in the words of one 'Pax Canadiana', "a shortage in counter help at fast food restaurants," with Canadian engineering grads working them. One must also question the nature of the "diversity" that RBC champions. Just as it has co-opted the language of environmentalism with its liberal use of words like "sustainable", "footprint" and "green", the jargon of multiculturalism has been insinuated into corporate discourse. In a company committed to "building and maintaining an inclusive and respectful workplace", it is natural that every office needs a "Multicultural Calendar" like the one advertised in one of its links. In the month of January alone, 11 dates are set aside for equal commemoration, from Guru Gobind Singh's birthday on the 5th to "Pongal" on the 14th to the First of Muharramon on the 20th. But this kind of diversity is decorative. It is the fig leaf concealing a more calculating plan. RBC's diversity is much more focused than the United Nations. The kind of multiculturalism they have in mind is more like that of Richmond, B.C.---a monoculture. RBC, you see, is in pursuit of a more narrow, lucrative demographic---the South Asian population. Now 3% of the country, South Asians , as the fastest growing minority in Canada will double that percentage within the decade. By 2017, they will reach two million, equivalent to the number of Chinese-Canadians. The prospect of four million Canadians of South Asian and Chinese origin, augmented perhaps by even higher immigration levels, has RBC salivating. Clients of these cultural backgrounds save more, and take out more and bigger more mortgages than other groups. Bank branches located in Asian enclaves flourish. Simply put, Chinese and South Asians are a boon for the banking business. (cf. insideToronto.com Jan.17/08) It is not likely then, that the Royal Bank will be calling for a repeal of the White Paper of 1966 and a return to traditional immigration patterns. In a sense, RBC's immigration agenda is the inverse of the White Australia policy, but under a politically correct banner: "The Nearly All Asian Canadian Mass Immigration Policy" better expressed in code language: "Diversity". From this unflattering portrait a question emerges, what is the genesis of growth in Canada? It is not initiated by Ottawa. It is orchestrated by the big banks like RBC and big businesses who work with and pressure government to deliver population policy that will create the profits they want. A look at the political contributions made by the six biggest banks from 1982 to 2003 reveals just what they want from government. RBC really doesn't care a rat's backend for Official Multiculturalism. That's a smokescreen. Otherwise they wouldn't have contributed all that dough to the Reform Party and its successor, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. No, their bottom line is population growth (read economic stimulus) and low corporate taxes. A tax policy customized for Chartered Banks and not for Food Banks. And the Liberal and Conservative Parties they've paid off so generously have delivered with the Grafkin-Angus Report that recommends just that. Meanwhile food banks in Ontario have grown 14.3% since 2001. RBC and its corporate competitors are not beneficent enterprises. Chip off the green paint and the statements about corporate social responsibility and its still an organization that is about making profits for its shareholders and pursuing the obsolete and lethal paradigm of economic growth. But RBC does not work alone. It lobbies Ottawa for mass immigration at absurd levels and a growth rate which will accelerate the destruction of our environment, then cloaks its malevolence by green pronouncements, trivial green corporate practices and an unseemly arrangement with a high profile conservation group who lends the bank legitimacy in return for hush money. This group accepts the bank's money in return for saying nothing about the fact that immigration is eclipsing the wildlife it claims to be the guardian of. The collusion of big banks, environmental groups and the government's Multicultural Industry is a partnership in crime. RBC, Nature Conservancy, Multicultural-Immigration. A Triad of Ecological Ruin.

Multiculturalism is Canada's Ingsoc, a state ideology so powerfully pervasive that few in the media, in the educational institutions or the political parties would dare challenge it. One might think that the left would offer criticism, but apart from journalist and former socialist parliamentarian, Douglas Fisher, and columnist Larry Zolf, none come to mind.

The Liberal Party was able to steal the affections of working class voters earmarked for the social-democratic NDP by appealing to their cultural identities. Running candidates of the same ethnicity as the prevailing group in the riding, and granting federal money for the construction of ethnic centres was a classic Liberal formula for vote-buying. And it usually worked.

The NDP approach has always been to appeal to people's class identity above and beyond the language they speak and to their sense of solidarity to people who live similar lives but have different cultures. Multiculturalism has not been good for class solidarity.

J.S. Woodsworth, the father of Canadian socialism, founder of the CCF-NDP and described as the "Saint of Canadian politics", I think knew as much. Allen Mills in "Fool for Christ-The Political Thought of J.S. Woodsworth", wrote that during his leadership in the twenties and thirties he continued to evince a profound concern for " the social integration of the alien." Allen writes that Woodsworth talked "of uniting immigrants into a new Canadian type: he worried that the melting pot was not working and the country would become 'balkanized', there was a necessity to 'absorb', 'weld' and 'incorporate, immigrants into the Canadian way of life.'p.228

Although Woodsworth was an opponent of immigration in the 1920s and 30s because there were not enough jobs, he also recognized the need for more social cohesion. A higher proportion of newcomers of our own British traditions would mould these incoming armies of foreigners into 'loyal subjects'.

Greens have been among the most effusive champions of Ingsoc, with Green leader Elizabeth May justifying the country's absurdly high immigration levels as Canada's ongoing "multicultural project". Environmentalists claim that "cultural diversity" is the analogue to biological diversity, the necessary variation found in plant and animal forms. Trouble is, the immigration levels required to sustain these culturally diverse ethnic enclaves is fuelling urban sprawl and crowding out wildlife. Variety is the spice of life, but the human is flourishing at the expense of the non-human. Multiculturalism has not been good for the environment.

But there is a JS Woodsworth of Canadian greens. He is none other than the famous co-author of "Our Ecological Footprint", Dr. William E. Rees. This is taken from his "Globalization, Trade and Migration: Undermining Sustainability?"

"... there is sufficient evidence to hypothesize that multi-racial or multi-cultural countries are more likely to unravel chaotically in the event of rapid ecological change, resource shortages, or economic decline than are more homogenous societies. Because socio-political stability is a prerequisite for ecological sustainability, we thus have yet another reason for a pre-emptive cautionary approach to large-scale migration in coming levels and adopt explicit 'melting pot' strategies designed to facilitate the integration and assimilation of new-comers into the social and economic fabric of their adopted countries. They should also include ongoing public education programs that stress both the need for, and the national benefits of, limited immigration.

The main objectives of this approach are to discourage the development of persistent immigrant enclaves, to accelerate immigrants' development of a sense of identity with the larger society, and to improve public understanding of the modern role of economic and environmental changes that may be required for ecological sustainability. Immigration policies that favour multiculturalism and that apparently succeed during periods of growth and plenty may not be adaptive in the face of rapid global ecological change of economic decline."

So while the sheep continue to bleet "diversity", the wise old shepherds speak of the virtues of integration and cohesion.

Just as Central Asia exported the bubonic plague, and Central Africa exported the Ebola virus, Canada gave the world the ideology of Multiculturalism. It might be cautionary then to heed the words of our brave critics as they spoke them right in the guts of the ogre before the Thought Police could silence them.

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC
Canada
December 23/07

Note: This article was also published on webdiary on 19 December 2007. It had attracted 69 comments by 24 December 2007.

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Andy Kerr, former president of Alternatives to Growth Oregon, posed these questions, "To those who support generous immigration, I ask you this: Why are you are on the same side as Microsoft and the other huge computer corporations and of Archer Daniel Midland and the rest of the agribusiness lobby? How can you support a policy that helps ensure that our existing poor will never be adequately valued for their labor."

Kerr's questions could well be asked of so many left-wing critics whose first reflexive response to closed border arguments are that they are "right-wing", "reactionary", "racist" or "xenophobic", despite the fact that historically the first beneficiaries of mass immigration to North America, and several other localities, have been cheap labour employers. Naomi Klein, in "The Shock Doctrine" blemishes her excellent analysis with this commonplace attitude.

If Klein wanted to probe the shock therapy applied by big capital by using immigration as a battering ram to break down the working class, she need only have looked to the history of British Columbia, where her brother Seth labours for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In the nineteenth century Chinese labour contractors imported labour to the point that perhaps one-third of the entire workforce had become Chinese. Working for half the wages, paying no taxes, they were prepared to ignore safety regulations, so the Dunsmuir Coal Company used them to break a pivotal miners' strike in 1883.The Miners Union then presented a resolution to government to restrict Chinese labourers from working underground, and another one stating that these labourers were a menace to underground safety, had lowered wages, deterred other Canadians from seeking employment in B.C., offered unfair competition and were provocative to public peace.

In 1907 five Tokyo immigration companies filled an order to bring 6,000 Japanese labourers to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) when the province was experiencing a recession. B.C. workers were against the ropes, so the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council met to form an "Asiatic Exclusion League". Two days later a Japanese ship arrived with 1177 labourers. The chemistry was right for the infamous Vancouver anti-Asian riot of September 7, 1907, an incident which has been retroactively depicted as a simple and despicable act of racism. In fact it was a reaction to B.C. businesses which were then using Japanese cheap surplus labourers instead of their Chinese counterparts. It should be known that Native Indians also seethed with resentment at the Japanese presence.

Chinese immigrant labour had finally been slapped by a "head tax" by the federal government in response to decades of lobbying by the B.C. to level the playing field with Canadian labourers. But they wouldn't they wouldn't follow suit with a similar tax on Japanese labour for fear of jeopardizing trade arrangements with Japan. Hence the end run by employers and the pogrom by B. C. workers. To demonstrate labour's outrage at the collusion between now Lieutenant-Governor Dunsmuir and the C.P.R.to orchestrate the Japanese influx, a Socialist legislator moved a motion in the B.C. House that Dunsmuir be impeached.

It should also be noted ---and this is always omitted by revisionists-the Oriental Exclusion Act was actually a misnomer. It was in reality, the Oriental Labourers Exclusion Act. Chinese merchants and their families continued to enjoy access to Canada. The purpose of the omission is obvious, to foster guilt and shame so that an agenda of "justice" an restitution can be pursued by Canada's immigration industry so that corporate Canada can have its labour requirements satisfied in the same way that robber baron Robert Dunsmuir's was. Just 30 miles from where he used Chinese labour to break the miners strike of 1883, the corporation I was working for used Chinese labour to try and break my strike a century later. As waves of Chinese, fresh from Hong Kong, passed through my picket line, escorted by police, it occurred to me that I was having a "multicultural" experience. I was so enriched. Like the miners were in 1883.

The same misrepresentation and spin was made of the "Komagata Maru" incident where East Indians were denied entry at the Port of Vancouver. Does this mean that racist antagonisms did not alloy with legitimate economic grievances? It would stretch credulity to argue that case, particularly in light of the outrageous internment of Japanese-Canadians in 1942, the fact that Chinese-Canadians were denied the vote until 1948, or the right to own property in the exclusive British Properties among other indignities. But should illegitimate motives discredit and invalidate the very cogent arguments of working people to defend their livelihood?

These arguments have been made by socialists and trade unionists not only in Canada but in America a century ago by Jack London, Socialist Party leader Victor Gerber, and the legendary Samuel Gompers. They were also made by the heroic Cesar Chavez who was committed to restricting immigration. Chavez even picketed the border and reported illegal aliens who served as strike-breakers against United Farm Workers.

Today leading labour economists have carried on the fight. Dr. George Borgias of Harvard University is most notably among them. It is his contention that native-born American workers lose $152 billion annually because of job displacement and wage depression caused by immigration. And yet, how does the labour movement respond? This is what the Carrying Capacity Network asks:

"The AFL-CIO, the biggest labor union in the country, is AGAIN urging Congress to give amnesty to as many as 13 million illegal immigrants. Result: depressed wages and lost jobs for Americans while rewarding lawbreakers with the right to work and potential citizenship. Isn't the AFL-CIO sanctioning lawbreaking by pushing for an amnesty?"

Where does the Canadian labour movement stand? You can guess. In a letter dated May 4/06 to Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day and Minister of Immigration and Citizenship Monte Solberg, Secretary Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) Hassan Yussuf complained about the "zealotry" of the Canadian Border Services Agency. "(They) aggressively deported a number of undocumented residents, particularly those from the Portugese community as well as targeting members of the Asian, Chinese, Caribbean and Latin/Central-American communites. The manner in which those deportations were handled exposed a government acting with excessive zeal, hardness, and in some cases, an inexcusable lack of humanity.

I suppose the more "humane" course of action for the CLC would be just to let everybody who wants to come to Canada stay. Open borders. One world. John Lennon's dream. Just imagine. But that's globalism isn't it? Who will speak for the Canadian workers whose wages and working conditions are being hammered by this vision of brotherhood? Why, the CLC of course. Like its political arm, the NDP, it claims to represent them. Yussuf's letter concludes: "The CLC representing more than 3 million workers, joins with those calling for a moratorium on all CBSA deportation/detention activities."

How about a moratorium on immigration instead? That would do more for those 3 million workers. And more than a swift process, in the CLC's words, to "regularlize undocumented workers.whose skills are in need and who have been contributing to the economy." You have to love the CLC's politically-correct language. Calling an illegal immigrant an "undocumented resident" is like calling a drug-pusher an "unlicensed pharmacist". How does the labour movement like it when people call scabs "replacement workers"? And why doesn't the CLC just call "regularize" what it is---amnesty for law-breakers, or, as Geoffrey Blainey once put it, "an incentive for others to arrive, hoping to benefit from further amnesty."

Contemporary socialist and trade union affinity toward international solidarity even at the expense of national well-being can be traced to a Marxist legacy that sees class, not nationality, as the primary divide. Even social democracy taps into this tradition which combines as one strand in a muddled xenophilia with Christian and environmental thought. The latter mutation is expressed quintessentially in the Canadian Green Party line that since global warming is a global problem requiring global cooperation, to obtain this we must not send out an unfriendly message of "fear" by closing our borders, but on the contrary drop them instead. Presumably a radically downward adjustment in consumption habits and greener technology will compensate for all the extra millions who would swarm in. Instead of "workers of the world unite", the Greens offer us a new rallying cry: "more and more people, consuming less and less".

What is interesting is that American icon, Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate for President, does not share this Canadian love affair with the world. He had this to say in 2000: "We cannot have open borders. That's a totally absurd proposition. It would depress wages here enormously, and tens of millions of people from all levels, including scientists and workers, would be pouring into this country."

Australian political scientist Frank Salter had this to say about the socialist attitude to nationalism. "The Left, as it has evolved over the course of the previous century, looks down on the ordinary people with their inarticulate parochialisms as if the were members of another species. since they care nothing for the preservation of national communities. Ethnies are considered irrelevant to the welfare of people in general. It would be understandable to Martians to be so detached from particular loyalties. But it is disturbing to humans doing so, especially humans who identify with the Left."

Such is the European Left's identification with the Other at the cost of the resident national that, in the name of anti-racism, it was possible for left-wing novelist Umberto Eco to declare his hope that Europe would be swamped by Africans and third world emigrants just so to "demoralize" racists. And such is the identification of the AFL-CIO with 13 million illegal immigrants as potential recruits that it supports amnesty and essentially a corporate welfare program that reduces wages for the lowest of American workers. A scheme which advocates call "liberalism" but American workers call an invasion. The CLC (Edgar Bergen) and its social-democratic parliamentary arm, the NDP (Charlie McCarthy), sing the same tune. Crocodile tears are shed for "undocumented" workers who allegedly make great contributions to the economy, according to their hire-a-left-wing-think-tank. But Statistics Canada's conclusions about the effect of immigration on the Canadian work force echo those of Dr. Borgias for American workers. Except the May 2007 Statscan report showed that in Canada, it was the educated workers who were really taking a hit. Between 1980-2000 their wages dropped 7%. And in Britain, careful analysis revealed that the Trade Union Congress was wrong in its contention that amnesty would net the Treasury one billion pounds annually. Rather it would cost taxpayers 1.8 billion pounds a year.

But alas, socialist thought is not monolithic. The Leninists were wrong. For the working class, national identity was as important as class identity, or as Orwell put it, "in all countries, the poor are more national than the rich." If they can't find a voice on the Left, in desperation they will look to the Populist right, as they did recently in Switzerland. But just when it looked like the field was left entirely to globalists, maverick social-democratic and socialist leaders in the tradition of Berger, London, or Canada's J. S. Woodsworth are staking a claim for national, as opposed to international, solidarity. They are doing so after their constituents have been battered by one of the greatest migratory waves in history, that saw the United States for example import the equivalent of three New Jerseys in the 1990s alone, or 25 million people. One would have thought that Naomi Klein, a Canadian, would have known that the Father of Canadian democratic socialism, the Saint of Canadian politics, the Rev. J. S. Woodsworth steadfastly opposed immigration throughout his leadership in the 1920s and 30s. Woodsworth understood that his constituency was in Canada, not overseas. His motto was no doubt that of Vancouver Rev. Edwin Scott: "We are not universal nations yet. Universal nationality and universal brotherhood are two different things."

The Democratic Socialist Senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has begun to make some noise about the disaster that is the illegal immigration invasion in the United States. His voting record in reducing chain migration, fighting amnesty and unnecessary visas rates B-, B-, and A+ respectively from Americans for Better Immigration. "If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don't know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are now." To Sanders the American working, middle class is caught in a squeeze. "On the one hand, you have large multi-nationals trying to shut down plants in America, move to China and on the other hand you have the service industry bringing in lower wage workers from abroad. The result is the same-the middle class gets shrunk and wages go down." Five million people have left the middle class during Bush administration, Sanders observes.

Other social-democratic leaders have spoken out against open borders. Former Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt now admits that immigration under his government was excessive and damaging to Germany. In a book published in 1982 he confessed that "with idealistic intentions, born out of our experiences with the Third Reich, we brought in far too many foreigners." Dutch Socialist leader Jan Marijnissen is strongly opposed to the practice of importing East European workers to undermine the position of Dutch workers. East Europeans are hired as "independent contractors" to circumvent labour law. Marijnissen wrote "It is unacceptable that employers pay foreign workers 3 euros per hour and have them live in chicken coops as they were in competition in the nineteenth century of Dickens. The unfair competition and displacement of Dutch workers and small business is intolerable. Therefore we shouldn't open the borders further, but set limits instead."

Setting limits. Acknowledging limits. That is the great divide. In the past those limits have been perceived to be economic by those with the sense to perceive them. Now, some on the left are beginning to realize that the more unforgiving and immutable limits are set by nature. Former Labor Premier of NSW , Bob Carr, and his fellow Laborite retired veteran MP Barry Cohen joined environmental leaders Tim Flannery and Ian Lowe in exposing the myth of Australia as a big empty land begging to be filled up with people. Said Carr, "our rivers, our soils, our vegetation, won't allow that to happen enormous cost to us and those who follow us." Carr and Cohen call for severe immigration cut-backs and a population policy put in place.

In Klein's Canada, meanwhile, the phrase "carrying capacity" is as unknown in the socialist lexicon as it is the corporate. Biologists and ecologists might as well be speaking ancient Aramaic to leftists to make them understand that their human rights agenda cannot be built on an environment that will not sustain it. Canada cannot become the soup kitchen to tens of millions of refugees, nor can vital biodiversity services coexist with a population of 50 million Canadians. In economic jargon, its called "diseconomies of scale". In the language of real science, its called a "limiting factor".

This essay began with two questions from Andy Kerr. It will end with six or seven of mine.

Why? Why has opposition to a policy of mass immigration, a policy that drives down the wages of marginal workers, middle-income workers and professional workers been characterized and vilified as "right-wing" and "reactionary". Why has earlier socialist and trade union understanding of the negative consequences of this policy been overtaken by "love thy neighbour" zeitgeist of the post-war era? Why is the "Left" on the same side as the "Right"? The same side as Microsoft, ADM, the real estate developers and the cheap labour employers?

It is high time to challenge this labeling and to challenge those who use it to prevent thoughtful discussion. The question that needs to be posed today is not the conventional one, is it Left or is it Right? But rather, do we accept that there are Limits, or do we continue to persist in the fantasy that this country, and others, is a massive treasure trove of boundless resources waiting to be unlocked by an endless number of people who can exploit them without ecological consequences?

History shows, sadly, that the latter delusion is shared equally among the devotees of both Adam Smith and the Communist Manifesto and its derivatives.

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, B.C.
Canada
December 16, 2007.

Peace in our time, Habitat forever?

For those who recall the scene when Neville Chamberlain stepped down on the tarmac of London's Heston aerodrome on September 30th of 1938 waving his piece of paper, the announcement by the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia (B.C.) on October 16, 2007 must have seemed like déjà vu. On both occasions, an announcement promising 'peace in our time' (for people or wildlife) was met with jubilant relief from people who wanted to believe that the insatiable appetite of a monster can be appeased with an hors d'oeuvre.

In 1938 the monster was Adolf Hitler and he was not to be believed or trusted. In 2007 the monster is economic growth, and its need for lebensraum will not stop at greenbelts, farmland, wetlands and nature reserves. It will devour what it needs to fuel its momentum and bend governments and laws to serve its ends. The strictest land use plans will fall before its armies. Even the home of 'smart growth', Portland, Oregon, stood helpless as growth forced population to spill over tight urban boundaries into adjacent farmland. British greenbelts are beginning to suffer the same fate. As planning consultant Eben Fodor was moved to comment, "smart growth is merely the planned, orderly destruction of our remaining environment."

Economic growth is a function of population growth, driven in North America largely by immigration, coupled with obscenely excessive consumption---and it is crowding out wildlife habitat. The question is, can the dedication of conservation areas permanently shield wildlife and flora from developmental pressures? Experience suggests that it cannot.

In their 2005 Report, the National Refuge Association of the U.S. revealed that "many endangered or threatened species are not even found on the refuges, including 40% of all listed mammals, birds and reptiles, 75% of listed fish and amphibians, and about 85% of listed plants and invertebrates." The area outside refuges will be more and more a killing zone. Much of the 40% of all housing units that will exist in America in 2030 will be built on previously open lands, and "lands within five miles of fully 78% of the western refuges have been mined, drilled , offered to or otherwise controlled by mining, oil and gas interests." And nearly 40% of refuges have greater than 50% human-impacted landscape within 5 to 40 miles. Particularly vulnerable are the 20% of wildlife refuges smaller than 1000 acres, or refuges fragmented into small parcels that can't adequately defend the ranges of the species that need protection.

Of course, the announcement on October 16 by the B.C. government offers habitat protection on a vastly larger scale. An area twice the size of Jamaica of old growth cedar, pine and spruce, and a buffer of forest that is to be harvested with sensitive care. The coalition of ten environmental groups who fought for the habitat are sanguine. But even with 2.2 million hectares set aside, they would be advised to keep their powder dry. Especially when you look at the province's barren mountainsides and remember the government slogan, "Forests Forever".

The hard truth is, as long as economic growth runs loose like a mad dog, no land of any size is safe from predation. Growing populations and growing development envelop pristine sanctuaries, reach a tipping point, and then the resources that these sanctuaries are harbouring will be ravaged. Just as the B.C. government set aside this Mountain Cariboo habitat, the U.S. Congress once established Yosemite National Park. When mining and logging interests came knocking at the door, with the stroke of a pen, Congress released 1400 hectares of the precious park for their exploitation.

Shocking betrayals of this kind by government have and will be made when the economic chips are down, as the Plains Indians will attest. The solemn Treaty of Laramie guaranteed the sacred Black Hills to the Lakota people in perpetuity, but when white prospectors found gold, all bets were off and the monster was let loose. Miners flooded the area and in just eight years the Dakota territory was a white colony and the sacred hills a hub of activity.

One day soon, in a country near you, with the oil the price of gold and power down, there will be a desperate and ruthless scramble to use up resources wherever they can be found, even behind the sacrosanct walls of conservation lands. And government will pave the way.

First it was the tiny Sudetenland, then it was Poland and then it was the vast steppes of Russia. Feed a crocodile a morsel and he becomes stronger and bolder, coming back for more and more. The only safety for nature is to slay the beast, not to hide from it within the confines of a National Park. Economic growth must be stopped and a steady state economy instituted. Now.

Tim Murray, dirrector of Immigration Watch Canada
Quadra Island, BC
Canada
October 25/07

When SPA National President Dr. John Coulter responded to ABS figures showing record population growth by denouncing political leaders for continuing to promote such a suicidal policy, he could have used the same speech, with minor editing, to attack Canada's parliamentary leaders. Delete references to water shortages, but add some other insuperable challenges. But at least Dr. Coulter has one ally in his corner. Ian Lowe and the Australian Conservation Foundation. They are doing what one expects of an environmental organization: looking out for the environment. In North America, on the other hand, our flagship environmental organization, the Sierra Club, and its Green clones, is essentially a feel-good yuppie organization which, in deference to political correctness, chases peripheral targets rather than address the core cause of our crisis---economic and population growth. As we are being swept away in a population tsunami the Sierra Club and the Greens throw us a beach ball called greener lifestyles and renewable technologies. Apparently, if we all live like Ghandi and install solar panels, we can have as many people as we like. "Population is a red herring" said one Frank de Jong, who doubles as a club member and Ontario Green Party leader. It was when one of them spoke on behalf of the "environmentalist community" that I felt compelled to react. His name was Andre Maintenay of the Ontario Chapter of the Sierra Club, and this was my letter: Andre Maintenay mentions "the environmentalist community" for whom he presumes to speak. Where is this environmentalist community? When the Census Report was released to the media in the second week of March revealing that Canada suffered the highest population growth of any G8 country and numerous studies have been done demonstrating the damage that such growth has done to biodiversity in Canada, this "environmentalist community" said boo. The names of people who are paid to lead high-profile environmental organizations were notably absent from the letters sent to the media outlets complaining of their pro-growth bias and even euphoria. Instead, it is ordinary, individual Canadians, who endure more congestion and pollution and see more farmland and wetlands paved over for subdivisions to accommodate this constant diet of forced population growth, who must carry the ball. It used to be that an environmentalist was somebody who accepted Paul Ehrlich's IPAT formula. That is, environmental degradation was the product of population level times average per capita consumption rates times technology. Now he is somebody who completely ignores the "P" in that formula and simply focuses on reducing consumption, or in contemporary parlance, reducing our "footprint". This is the environmentalism of the willfully blind and the blissfully ignorant, of people more concerned about political correctness and avoiding taboos to curry favour and popularity rather than addressing root causes. Like the Moonies they boast of their many good works, but their various good causes that beat around the bush of runaway population growth amount to no more than, to use Albert Bartlett's metaphor, "polishing the wood furniture in a burning house." It was Dickens, I believe, who said that without courage, all other virtues are of no avail. Whatever virtues these Green organizations possess, they are of little value if their leaders do not summon the courage to acknowledge the Elephant-in-the-Room, explosive population growth in Canada and the United States, as a major factor in environmental erosion. "There is a minefield in the American environmental movement, and its name is population. Because negotiating that minefield is so dangerous, many environmental groups and leaders have stopped trying to cross it. But to ignore population as a central issue while talking freely about sprawl, air and water pollution, loss of biodiversity, agricultural land and animal habitat, global warming and many other crucial environmental issues is to deny reality." Jim Motavalli E/The Environment Magazine Jan. 2004 Tim Murray October 5/07

On Friday September 7, 2007, the venerable Canadian environmental author Farley Mowat made a boldly generous but stunningly futile gesture. He donated 200 acres of his Cape Breton land to "Nova Scotia Nature Trust". He called on others in the province to follow his example so that good land wouldn't fall into some developer's clutches and be destroyed for profit "like every other part of the western world." But while Mowat's motives are beyond dispute and his affinity for wildlife unquestioned, he continues to evidence no understanding of the root causes of biodiversity loss. In North America it is runaway population growth, fuelled largely by mass immigration and coupled with excessive consumption that is crowding out wildlife habitat, wetlands and farmland. The question to be put to the environmental movement is, can nature preserves, greenbelts and national parks permanently shield wildlife and flora from the developmental pressures issuing from this growth? Ontario commentator Brishen Hoff answers with a categorical "no". "History has proven that no lands are protected when the population surrounding them is growing. This applies to countries, national parks, islands, or whatever. Once growing populations that surround pristine areas reach a tipping point, the demand for the resources of the protected area will become so great that all safeguards, laws, or barricades will be obliterated and the resources will be exploited." That is why Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado established as his Fundamental Law of Planning that a workable, durable local plan cannot be effected in a community until the regional population is stabilized. Curiously, advocates of secure borders and more restrictive immigration have been reproached and ridiculed by soft greens and mainstream environmental NGOs for proposing the equivalent of an international "gated community" that couldn't hope, they allege, to fend off the heavy global traffic of people in the real world. Yet none of these critics will acknowledge that their little fortresses---their nature preserves, their greenbelts, their parks, their strict land-use zonings---have little hope of standing up to the pressure of the growing populations we have recently seen. Growth spilled out of the urban boundaries of Portland, Oregon---poster child of "smart growth"---into surrounding farmland. And with no let-up from immigration houses are being built on formerly sacrosanct British greenbelts, the "lungs" of Britain. And as long as economic growth is God, conservation lands are not secure either. They can and have been withdrawn by legislation and executive order. At one time an Act of Congress removed 1400 square kilometers of the original Yosemite National Park for timber and mineral production. "Wildlife habitat will continue to be lost as natural capital is relocated form the economy of nature to the human economy", until the economy shifts to a kind of steady-state model, writes Professor Brian Czech of Virginia Polytechnic Institute Oddly, there is virtually no environmental organization in Canada that makes a connection between immigration and environmental degradation of any kind. Not the Sierra Club, the David Suzuki Foundation, Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Canadian Parks and Wilderness, Ontario Nature---the list goes on. None of them speak of a connection. Quite the contrary. The problem is not whether we grow, so the mantra goes, but how we grow. If we grow "smart", we can welcome the whole world here. And the biggest Welcome Wagon in Canada is the leader of its Green Party, Elizabeth May, who argues for an immigration level even higher than that supported by her rivals. She calls this "Canada's Great Multicultural Project". May parrots those two sweet-sounding buzzwords that many environmental organizations use so frequently---"cultural diversity". But cultural diversity in Canada and the United States cannot be sustained without massive and fresh injections of newcomers to bolster existing immigrants who otherwise would assimilate. Viable multiculturalism requires unrelenting mass immigration. And mass immigration marginalizes wildlife habitat. Cultural diversity therefore comes at the cost of biological diversity. So let's dispense with the cant. The correlation is clear. Growing cities, vanishing wildlife, dial "1" for English. One final irony, who was the man who spear-headed the national fund-raising campaign this summer to raise campaign donations for Green Party leader Elizabeth May? None other than Farley Mowat, the man who wants to protect animals, birds, and plant life from human encroachment. It was Mowat who once famously compared our species to yeast in a vat, "mindlessly multiplying as we greedily devour a finite world." But apparently Canada's not finite, or at least that portion of it beyond the safe bosom of a conservation charity. To think that Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who dueled with Elizabeth May over the immigration issue when she was president of Sierra Club Canada, named his newest ship, "The Farley Mowat" That makes two contradictions.

Is there something endemic in state broadcasting in the Anglophone world which makes it taboo to discuss the population question and to air views that are critical of immigration? …

Since the early seventies, “a steady and insidious process among governing circles, opinion-formers, the greater bulk of the media, including the BBC, has built a powerful and near universal censorship, by consent…that the absolutely fundamental ecology question, the need for a sustainable balance between numbers and resources---is almost totally ignored. The sad corollary of this is that mass migration---since it has a major and obvious impact on the overall population situation---cannot be rationally discussed either.”

Is there something endemic in state broadcasting in the Anglophone world which makes it taboo to discuss the population question and to air views that are critical of immigration? If so, where is it coming from: the journalists, the presenters, the researchers, the producers or the administrators? Is state media more a captive of political correctness than the private media?

In attempting to answer some of these questions, it is useful to look at two fascinating accounts, one about the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC), another about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) and finally to summarize the disgraceful record of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

In “The Treason of the BBC” , the late Jack Parsons argued that “The BBC has been systematically excluding virtually all material on the question of basic population policy.” For example, BBC reporters allowed Beverly Hughes, a former Minister of Immigration, to “blandly repeat, unchallenged, the government’s mindless policy of continued mass immigration to meet the alleged needs of the economy.” Also, it granted a free pass to former Home Secretary Charles Clark to say that there were ‘no obvious limits’ to net migration and rapid growth. At the same time, the BBC did not question the fact that “our present government has adopted a policy (without discussion or mandate) of deliberately increasing our numbers by about one million every five years,” making Britain the fastest growing country in Europe with a population density almost twice that of China.

Parsons asks, “How can BBC claims about the carrying capacity of the prison system and its “overpopulation” be made so openly, so effortlessly, so devoid of fear and moral opprobrium, while not the slightest hint can ever be allowed to slip out vis a vis the vastly more important case of the carrying capacity and numbers of the nation as a whole?”

He accuses those who run the BBC of “colluding in a very Great Betrayal, fostering the myth that human numbers have so little consequence that there is no need to take them seriously.” “The charge I am leveling at all executive levels of the BBC as a corporate body concerns what I am convinced is coercive, institutionalized bias which for years has prevented virtually all BBC news of, and discussion about, a literally vital object, the long-term balance between human numbers, resources and the quality of life…; this was not always so, but has been the case for at least 15 years."

The signs of population myopia were apparent to Parsons in 1967 when he asked the BBC why it was so concerned about the Tory Canyon Oil-Tanker Spill disaster, but so unconcerned about the doubling of the world’s population in 30 years. Since the early seventies, “a steady and insidious process among governing circles, opinion-formers, the greater bulk of the media, including the BBC, has built a powerful and near universal censorship, by consent…that the absolutely fundamental ecology question, the need for a sustainable balance between numbers and resources---is almost totally ignored. The sad corollary of this is that mass migration---since it has a major and obvious impact on the overall population situation---cannot be rationally discussed either.”

Parsons, in a letter to a BBC Complaints Unit, asks, “Dare one hope that, one of these days, someone in the higher echelons of the BBC will screw his/her courage to the sticking point and actually issue and follow through on a set of instructions that free the BBC---and hence the nation­from this appalling and near-totally disabling taboo.” He is given to wonder “Why does this large, wealthy, powerful, highly prestigious institution…cringe so abjectly at the very idea of free speech in the realm of discourse?” And why the taboo? “Has there been an explicit but secret directive to all producers to steer clear of the subject? Has this policy been built up by means of nods, winks and frowns on high; or does it stem from tacit acceptance by all concerned at the prevailing orthodoxy in the wider society?”

According to Parsons, four things are needed to reform the BBC. Firstly, there needs to be major change in ‘media Zeitgeist’ (thinking) that will permit an open discussion about population. Secondly, the BBC needs to “stop cowering beneath its cloak of political correctness” and, by honest analysis, foster the emergence of a mature, ecologically informed electorate. Thirdly, the BBC needs to hire reporters who are population experts. “Some BBC presenters, who have an overweening confidence in their qualifications, start laying down the law on those population topics which are allowed a mention, and in the process frequently display their ignorance…They pick up and mindlessly repeat half-baked notions about alleged labour shortages and pension problems, and swallow hook, line and sinker any free-floating opinions about how much better things will continue to become as numbers inexorably swell.”

Fourthly, it would be nice if the BBC followed its own Producer Guidelines. “Due impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC. All BBC programmes and services should be open-minded, fair and show a respect for truth. No significant strand of thought should go unreflected or unrepresented at the BBC.”

Until then, however, its Motto will remain that of the Three allegedly Wise Monkeys: See no population problem! Hear no population problem! Speak no population problem!

Mark O’Connor, poet and one-time Vice-President of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population (AESP, re-named SPA), has made a similar assessment of the ABC. In his upcoming book, "Overloading Australia", O’Connor concedes that the ABC is critical to Australian democracy and is able to speak to the people---“and often does”. “But the ABC has in some parts of its news and current affairs sections failed to provide objectivity or fairness to portray debates or news coverage relating to population, immigration or economics." It is living the Comfortable Lie: that growth is good and sustainable, and that the mass immigration that fuels it must continue. “The fact must be faced. There is something deeply wrong in some parts of it.”

But O'Connor is unable to locate precisely where the fault lies. Whether researchers withhold information from presenters, or presenters refuse to use the research provided to them, or whether producers, strategy planners or management dictate programming, is a question outside observers can't answer. "But there certainly is a bias," he asserts.

He offers some examples of this bias. During those years when Australia had the highest per capita immigrant intake of any country in the world, the ABC refused to challenge propagandists who illogically and brazenly claimed that Australia's high immigration intake was "shamefully low" and "proof of racism". In addition, the ABC collaborated with both the government and the opposition party to promote high immigration by ignoring inconvenient facts like the one about Australia's high per capita immigrant intake and suppressing most of the debate. And while going after the jugular of the One Nation Party as if it were alone in its call for a zero net immigration policy, “among its many acts of censorship, ABC TV News suppressed the fact that the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Democrats (two other parties) had long been calling for zero net migration."

O’Connor speculates as to why the ABC behaves in this manner. “The ABC’s failure through nearly three decades to deal with population issues ­the most important matter facing Australia today--- may have less to do with individuals than with a pervasive institutional culture.” Nevertheless, “if there are such persons blocking the debate, then it is assuredly time they were persuaded to move on to other areas where their biases will do less harm.”

He concludes, “The ABC has a problem with its news service and current affairs programs. It may not be able to rectify past unfairness, but it needs urgently to offer guarantees that the censorship will cease, and that at least in future those who disagree with high immigration or with ‘birth-bribes’ will receive equal time on its programs.” New ‘balance and accountability’ guidelines announced by management in October of 2006 “will not address ABC News’ pro-growth, pro-natalist, pro-conventional economic views.”

Can what has so far been said of the BBC and the ABC be said of the CBC as well? In one word, yes, and more. While some regional centres have attempted to bring more balance to immigration issues, CBC Radio, especially the National centre in Toronto and the Vancouver centre, have emphatically not. In general, the CBC (like the ABC previously) has refused to engage the public on the two questions that critics keep asking: Why is the government importing more people per capita than any other country in the world? And what effect is this infux, which gives us the highest growth rate of any G8 nation, having on our economic, cultural and environmental health?

Timidity and cowardice are not the exclusive province of CBC journalists, but the fact is that only the private media outlets have on occasion exposed abuses of the immigration system and questioned the country’s high immigration intake. The CBC, on the other hand, has done what it can to promote mass immigration on the basis of its misinterpretation of its 1991 legislated mandate to promote “multiculturalism”. Somehow, CBC logic equates the stated “CBC Vision” (to reflect “the cultural diversity of our people”) with support for mass immigration. In addition, to the CBC, the promotion of a diversity of cultures displaces the promotion of a diversity of opinions.

Those very many Canadians who voice negative concerns about immigration are simply denied airtime by the people they subsidize. As Immigration Watch Canada has noted, the CBC sees no contradiction between holding out one hand to ask for public funding while clenching the other in a fist to drive into the mouth of the taxpayer who dares to challenge the CBC line on immigration. Furthermore, the CBC allows generous airtime and interviews with pro-immigration groups, so that they may in turn, as a quid pro quo, advertise for the non-commercial CBC. So to partiality and deceit, one can therefore add corruption to the list of CBC immigration vices.

So what then is the remedy? Suffice it to say that the CBC’s commitment to mass immigration and multiculturalism comes at the cost of balanced, honest journalism. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage can obviously rectify this situation by ordering the CBC executive to answer for this conflict of interest. It can further help by demanding that the CBC terminate the corporation’s corrupt arrangements with the immigration industry, its blatant pro-immigration advocacy and the employment of its employees who engage in it.

Such measures would seek not to curb journalistic freedom, but to end shameless CBC journalistic abuse---and return public broadcasting to the public. As with the BBC and ABC, our National Broadcaster should be offering a forum where indeed “no significant strand of thought should go unreflected or unrepresented”. The exclusion of topics or the shunning of voices should be foreign to its corporate culture and democratic mission.

The BBC, ABC and CBC conspiracy to silence critics of immigration and population growth has been an insult to democracy and to the public that has had to put up with it. The conspiracy has to end now.