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.
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.
A report by Engineers Canada (Ingeniéurs Canada) found that in 2006, well before the current economic crisis, Canada's seemingly t
In Australia both major political parties support record high immigration. This ensures that it is rarely questioned in Parliament or in the news.
Ambassador James Bissett
Canadian Centre For Policy Studies
September 10, 2008
Originally published on Immigration Watch Canada (www.immigrationwatchcanada.org).
In his September 6 column in the National Post, Robert Fulford wrote that the forthcoming election was one that was "going nowhere." One of the reasons it may be going nowhere is because some of the most important issues facing Canada are not going to be discussed. One of the most critical of these is immigration. Canada is facing an immigration crisis but immigration policy will not be on the agenda of any of the political parties.
In the so-called "ethnic ridings" each of the parties will promise to keep immigration levels high and will repeat the myth that we need immigration to combat our aging population and keep the economy growing by supplying desperately needed skilled workers for our labour force. Most economists in Canada and elsewhere have concluded that immigration does little to enhance the economy and that immigrants cost more in the benefits they receive than in the taxes they contribute. However, our politicians are not concerned about facts -- they are concerned about votes and see every new immigrant as a potential voter. What counts for our politicians is numbers.
There are now almost one million people waiting in the immigration backlog. All of them have met the requirements and by law must eventually be issued a visa to come here. Most of these immigrants are coming from Asian countries: China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Iran. Many of them are the parents or grand parents of people already living here. Furthermore, the Conservatives have promised that next year they plan to raise the annual immigration intake to 265,000. The Liberals and the New Democrats want even more. They believe we should be accepting 1% of our population, or in other words, 330,000 newcomers annually.
These are high numbers and added to them are thousands of so-called temporary workers who are brought here by employers to fill temporary needs. Many of these workers are unskilled and few will go home when their visa expires.
Canadians are led to believe that most of the immigrants and temporary workers are selected because they have skills, education and training that will enable them to contribute to our (and their) economic welfare. The fact is that only about 17% of our immigration intake is selected for economic reasons. The remaining 83% come to Canada because they have been sponsored by their relatives or because they are refugees, or there are humanitarian reasons for admitting them. It's little wonder then that 51% of those immigrants who have landed since the early 1990's are living below the poverty line.
Few Canadians would oppose uniting immigrant families or would reject genuine refugees, but it is unlikely they would approve a policy that resulted in over 80% of the immigration flow consisting of unselected family, refugees and humanitarian cases. If this is the rationale for our immigration policy then it is wrong headed - and worse - it is ineffectual.
There are more effective ways of helping resolve global refugee and humanitarian problems than by immigration. Augmented developmental assistance and increased financial contributions to international refugee organizations would be more useful. More to the point, our politicians do not justify the high numbers on humanitarian grounds but tell us immigration is for the benefit of our economy and our labour force - and this is simply not true.
It is likely the coming election will focus on the state of the Canadian economy and possibly on the environment, but although immigration impacts adversely on both of these issues immigration will not be raised as a subject of debate or discussed at all.
There seems little question that we are headed for a recession or worse. Already Ontario has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs and is slipping into the unenviable ranks of the "have not" provinces but no one is suggesting that perhaps it would be a wise course to slow down the enormous intake of immigrants. Every study about the impact of immigration on the labour force demonstrates that it lowers the wage rate of native workers but has insignificant effect on overall economic prosperity.
Canadians are known to have one of the largest ecological footprints of any country in the world and every immigrant who enters Canada from Asia within several months acquires a similar size footprint as the average Canadian. The extraordinary high levels of immigration since the early 1990's destined to Canada's three major urban centres of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, have caused serious environmental problems: traffic congestion, garbage disposal, escalating health, education and social welfare costs, as well as rising crime rates. Sadly, the stress on an already eroding infrastructure caused by massive immigration is a subject that cannot be discussed because of an ideological hang up about multiculturalism and diversity which for some reason now symbolizes the twin pillars of the new Canadian identity.
Time is running out for Canada and unless immigration becomes an issue that can be openly and vigorously debated as an important issue of public policy we will find that without knowing it our country has been radically changed. There are those who might believe this change to be necessary and beneficial and they may be right, but surely it is important enough to be discussed at the political level during an election campaign.
James Bissett is a Distinguished Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former head of Immigration Services in Canada and was Canada's ambassador to a number of countries, including its last in Yugoslavia.
By Andrew Miller, 16, High School Student
Canada is one of the most interesting countries in the world. From west to east and south to north, it has incredible biological diversity and beauty. It is a large country and because of this, there are regions which contrast with each other in every way imaginable. Because we have been lucky enough to settle here, why would we sell it? The truth is that a price cannot be set for it – it is invaluable. Despite this, as a result of mass immigration over the past 18 years, Canada has been put up for sale. New immigrants now account for close to 20% of Canada's population. If immigrants keep arriving at the present rate, the immigrant descendant population will account for half of Canada by 2050. My question is this: Why would we ever allow this to happen?
Many people like to say that the creation of cultural diversity, that bringing the world to us and that turning Canada into a laboratory in which a social experiment is being conducted, is in the best interests of the country. Those who say this and promote this idea are deceitful and unpatriotic to say the least. The fact is that Canada was settled by the native people, then Europeans. After having been a colony, we as a people aspired to becoming an independent land and succeeded in forming the Dominion of Canada. From then on, we worked with the struggles which confronted us and slowly built Canada into what it is today: a fair minded, relatively wealthy society but a society which quite frankly lacks respect for itself. If we worked so passionately to make Canada great, why would we ever even consider surrendering our country? Why would we support policies such as multiculturalism and high immigration which contribute significantly to surrender?
It would be shallow and extremely naïve to suggest that multiculturalism and high immigration are in our best interests because in reality they result in Canadians changing themselves and making way for people who have nothing to do with Canada and its accomplishments. A great example of this is the Christmas Holiday which has been transformed unnecessarily, into a celebration which no longer recognizes the birth of Christ. For instance, someone I now go to school with had attended, up until a year ago, a school which had been absolutely flooded by immigrants from the Middle East. In three years, the immigrant students accounted for one third of the school. Last year, at Christmas time they demanded that Christmas celebrations not take place in the school in days leading up to the Christmas Break, claiming that it excluded them. However, when Ramadan came along in May, they insisted that the Canadian students (still the majority of the school) join in the celebration.
As that case and many others demonstrate, multiculturalism and high immigration have resulted in discrimination against the majority in Canada. We are headed into becoming second class citizens in our own country. What’s worse is that we have Canadians encouraging minorities to force us to celebrate their traditions and saying that this is a positive occurrence.
Some may argue that cultures have changed and evolved in the past and that limiting immigration levels and selecting which cultures should be allowed into Canada would be interfering with a natural process. The difference between evolution and what is now taking place is that Canada's high immigration levels are not an example of evolution and they are the very opposite of being natural.
The argument that we need immigrants for our economy is a weak one because it means that we are willing to give up Canada for the sake of an economy which ironically will no longer be ours. If this country is to continue to prosper, let it prosper through our hard work and dedication
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In truth, when people have settled, worked with and developed an area, it is instinctive and moral for them to feel proud of it and to feel that it is theirs. It is a sign of national pride for a people to recognize that they are no longer newcomers but founders of country in which they live and that it is theirs to defend.
Lastly, I would like to address the argument that mass immigration and multiculturalism are inevitable and not allowing these to happen is resisting change. The question which needs to be asked next is whether or not in this case resisting change would be resisting progress. It is a common mistake to think that change and progress are the same. Change should never occur unless it is necessary. Any change which isn’t needed is change for change’s sake. Reforms which occur for this reason are often regretted later on because many times the damage they cause are irreparable.
In conclusion, I would say that this high immigration policy has to be abolished without delay. The idea that Canadian culture is equivalent to multiculturalism is wrong. In truth, multiculturalism and high immigration are things which have been thrust upon us and which some foolish Canadians have chosen to accept—along with the idea that one day we will no longer dominate this country which our people worked so hard to build into one of the most prosperous nations of the world.
Even though I am only 16 years old, I have felt this way for a very long time because I care about Canada and would never want to see it ever change beyond recognition.
It is time for Canadians to take their land back.
This week, a number of Canadians have enthusiastically greeted Statistics Canada census figures which state that the number of visible minorities in Canada continues to increase. Last week, the same group was expressing indignation and moral outrage at China's repression of Tibet. There is a contradiction between cheering Statistics Canada immigration figures and expressing disgust with China's repression, a significant part of which has been accomplished through immigration.
(1) Although recent media focus has been on China's violence in Tibet, it should have been on one of the main causes of the violence. Han Chinese immigration into Tibet has been a major cause. The Tibetan government-in-exile has stated that immigration from China has been used to culturally and economically overwhelm and marginalize Tibet's host population.
Most countries in the world, including Canada, are very sympathetic to the Tibetan point of view and most are calling upon China to make amends with Tibet. But, it is impossible to imagine Canada or any other country telling Tibet that making amends means that Tibet should accept Han Chinese immigration so that Tibet can become more diverse and multicultural. In fact, no suggestion could be more nonsensical because, to most world observers, it is clear that China has used immigration as a weapon in its past and that it is doing it again in Tibet.
According to Denny Roy, co-author of "Ethnic Conflict In China: The Case of Tibet", and others, China's disrespect for Tibet has been blatant. China has regarded itself as a superior "older brother" which had entered Tibet to look after a backward "little brother". To China, Tibet was quaint, but really a feudal society in need of change. China's government has regarded all religion as an opiate. In dealing with formerly-theocratic Tibet, it has done what it could to eradicate Tibet's Buddhist religion. The Tibetan government-in-exile alleges that China systematically destroyed 6000 Buddhist monasteries and temples, under-funded and secularized Tibet's traditionally religious schools, and promoted the degradation of Tibetans by making cheap alcohol available. China has also interfered by appointing in 1995 the Panchen Lama, second to the Dalai Lama in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism---after the Dalai Lama had already appointed someone else to that position.
But the overwhelming of Tibet's host population through immigration of Han Chinese has been the supreme cultural insult and humiliation. Accurate population figures are difficult to obtain, but the Tibetan government-in-exile and a number of Tibetan experts claim that China has moved significant numbers of its Han majority into Tibet in order to outnumber native Tibetans and achieve China's ends.
Here are two questions for Canadian media commentators, academics, immigration industry representatives and politicians who are cheer-leading announcements that over 16% of Canada's population is now visible minority immigrants and that soon it will be 20%:
(a) If cultural overwhelming of a population is wrong in Tibet, how can it be right in Canada?
(b) If some Canadians are morally outraged at immigration events in Tibet, and are willing to say "Free Tibet", why are they not saying "Free Canada"? Or, more specifically, why are they not looking at the near-overwhelmed or already-overwhelmed host populations of Toronto, Markham, Vancouver, Abbotsford, Richmond, and many other places in Canada and saying "Free Toronto", "Free Vancouver"? ...
It is true that in Canada's past, there have been times when the population in some parts of Canada has been overwhelmed by immigrants. However, because Canada's immigration levels have risen and fallen, people have adapted. But the difference is that today, Canada remains in an abnormality in its immigration history: 18 years of uninterrupted high immigration levels. Those levels show no sign of abating, the inflows have done minimal adapting, and parts of Canada have been overwhelmed-----a demographic situation much like that in Tibet.
(2) According to "Ethnic Conflict In China: The Case of Tibet", China's motive for getting a stronger hold on Tibet is brazenly economic and exploitive. China is interested in using Tibet as a buffer between itself and India. It also wants Tibet's forests and mineral resources. In addition, it covets Tibet's open spaces to dump its own wastes and those of other countries. Understandably, Tibetans claim that China has treated Tibet as a place to be plundered.
China began that process in 1950 when it invaded Tibet. It kept military and civilian officials there to administer the country. But later it used a variety of economic incentives to encourage Han Chinese to settle Tibet. The Han who have gone there permanently have transplanted their foreign culture on Tibetan soil. Those Chinese who go there temporarily summarize their attitude towards Tibet in one expression: "Thin on arrival; fat on departure." One Chinese official described China's practices in Tibet as "plain colonialism", but his views have been unrepresentative and largely ignored.
Like the Han Chinese who have gone into Tibet, most immigrants to Canada come here for economic reasons. Substantial evidence which should have restricted that motive was the Economic Council of Canada's major study in 1991 which declared that immigration produces virtually no economic benefits for our host population#main-fn1" id="main-txt1">1. In fact, Herb Grubel, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Simon Fraser University, calculated that "For all of the immigrants who arrived during the 13 years before 2003, the cost in 2002 alone is estimated to be $18.3 billion." The $18.3 Billion figure represented over 10% of all federal spending in that year. It is assumed that this pattern continues today.
Even clearer evidence of exploitation of Canada is that most of the 600,000+ people who have used our refugee system have done so for economic reasons. Contrary to what Citizenship and Immigration has told us, up to 80% of these 600,000 claimants have been allowed to stay here. Although the politically correct are now marvelling about the growth in visible minorities, many other Canadians will ask a big question. Why should Canadians be celebrating the fact that a significant number of the visible minorities in Canada today have either entered Canada fraudulently through the refugee claimant system or have been sponsored by a refugee claimant who entered Canada fraudulently?
Equally blatantly, large numbers of visible minority immigrants have abused Canada's Family Class programme and the Investor/Entrepreneur programme. Why should any Canadians be celebrating the presence of large numbers who have done that?
Canada's Employment Equity programme, now in effect for 20 years, is a more sinister kind of economic exploitation. One part of the programme has favoured visible minority immigrants and has caused untold economic damage to many Canadian-born. It has denied employment to white males and given that employment to visible minority immigrants (including the ones who have arrived fraudulently). Undoubtedly, a number of the immigrants who have jobs in Canada's private and public sector have them legitimately. But the blunt truth is that the very existence of that programme casts a suspicion on all visible minority immigrants who are now employed in both the public sector and many parts of the private sector. Here is the inevitable question: Did they receive their jobs because of merit or because of discrimination against people born in Canada? What Canadians (or Tibetans) would celebrate the arrival of people who have caused them the denial of a job?
(3) Undeniably, the Tibetan government-in-exile is using the Beijing Olympics to press its case for outside help against China's exploitation and abuse. Up to now, it has not received the attention it has wanted. According to this government, the majority of the businesses in many Tibetan cities are owned by Han Chinese and recent Tibetan protests have targeted those businesses in reprisal. According to that group, China has killed 1.2 million Tibetans in a wide variety of methods such as shooting, disembowelment, crucifixion, beheading, starving, drowning, etc. in successive waves of repression.
Obviously, Canada has not experienced this kind of violence. But it is no exaggeration to say that, like Tibetans, many Canadians feel that the immigrant overwhelming of their cities has been a cultural embarrassment and humiliation. To most Canadians, some immigration is acceptable and most will treat visible minority immigrants well. However, only the most obsequious tolerate becoming a minority in their own country. That is a key issue in the entire immigration argument in Canada and in Tibet.
Our House of Commons Standing Committee on Immigration seems completely oblivious to this and other real issues. On March 31, at the first of a series of its cross-Canada hearings in Richmond, B.C., most of the committee members demonstrated that they were going to use the so-called "worker shortage" in Canada's west to maintain and accelerate Canada's absurdly-high immigration levels. Unemployed, underemployed or welfare recipient Canadians in Canada's east or west and the cultural, economic and environmental interests of all Canadians are irrelevant.
If any committee members proclaiming a significant worker shortage had been asked to produce evidence to substantiate their claims, they probably could not have done so. To most committee members and to many of the carefully chosen so-called "stakeholders" who spoke to them, Canada could not get enough immigrants. And the faster they got here, the better.
To any observer of that spectacle, if Canada wants to commit suicide, who could do a better job of accelerating the event than many on this committee?
Most of that group, and others who have cheerled Statistics Canada figures this week, ignore the origin of Canada's immigration quagmire: Immigration Minister Barbara McDougall's crass, yet historic, immigration policy statement in 1990. That assertion was that the Progressive Conservative Party would raise immigration levels at that time in order to compete with the Liberal Party for the immigrant vote. Its own studies, which advised it not to do this, were to be tossed aside.
If Canadians think China's motives for overwhelming Tibet are crude and brazen, who in Canada can be classified as more politically crude and brazen than McDougall, all of the federal governments since 1990 who have maintained a senseless immigration policy, all the politicians from other parties who have supported it, and Canada's immigration industry?
It never had to be this way. Understandably, Canada has a deal with most of the post-1990 immigrants. But it doesn't have one with all the illegals here now and all those others who have entered Canada fraudulently.
And it certainly doesn't have any obligation to continue the post-1990 immigration disaster.
"Free Tibet", they say?
Of course. But equally important, Free Canada.
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. See also the Optimum Population Trust's media release "House of Lords’ immigration report “forgets environment”". #main-txt1">[back]
Barbara Kay: Multiculturalism was Canada's biggest mistake, 9 April 2008
Barbara Kay: Multiculturalism is an invitation to fragmentation, 8 April 2008
The following e-mail was sent to Karin Chykaliuk on Tuesday 3 March 2008
From: Tim Murray
To: Karin Chylkaliuk
Karin Chykaliuk,
Producer,
CBC Radio One 99.1
RE. CBC TOWNHALL MEETING WITH ANDY BARRIE OUR WONDERFUL MOSAIC March 6/08
The Aging Population Hoax
Originally published on 1 February as "The Aging Hoax" by Canadian population stability activist Brishen Hoff on his blog site ecologicalcrash.blogspot.com/
Over and over, the media tells us that we have an aging population, and that it is a bad thing.
Never mind the problem of growing overpopulation, the media is only concerned with the aging population angle.
They claim that the cost of taking care of these seniors will be tremendous.
They propose a solution: multiculturalism.
How do they define multiculturalism?
To them multiculturalism is the injection of 260,000 immigrants into Canada annually. In other words, cheap labour for big business and lowering of labour standards.
They claim that this makes for diverse, vibrant communities.
They would classify an unsustainable urban nightmare with 6 lanes of gridlock traffic, smog, sewage smells, etc such as Toronto as a diverse, vibrant community.
Multiculturalism/Mass-Immigration is the friend of big business as a way to boost their profits by adding more customers.
Big businesses like the Royal Bank of Canada lobby hard for the Canadian government to accept more immigrants so that they can make more short-term profits at the expense of Canadians and their environment.
The media has had a powerful influence deceiving the Canadian public.
People like Sean Webb from TVO's "The Agenda" forum discussion ask:
"And how do we deal with our aging population? In the next twenty to thirty years we are going to have a very old population. Who is going to care for all of these people when they are not able?"
To which I would respond:
Could it be that big business wants us to fear an aging population only so they can gain public acceptance of bringing in a quarter million immigrants each year to Canada so they can grow their short-term profits at the expense of Canadians and their environment?
The media has tried to convince the public that it is more compassionate to let the world into Canada than to protect the rights of existing Canadians and Canadian wildlife by not letting the world immigrate into Canada.
Sean Webb says: "It doesn't make any sense to just close off the border and seclude ourselves from the world. Not only do we hold a huge percentage of the world's available fresh water relative to our population, but we are really good at water purification. If we aren't willing to continue taking in so many immigrants can't we offer our expertise and resources to nations that need clean drinking water?"
I agree that Canadians should try to help other nations solve their problems. The best way would be making sure they have access to birth control.
There is no point in giving other countries the utmost water and sewage technology if it just means they'll grow their population so much that they'll make extinct all of their native species. Canada can't possibly play the parent of every other country in the world let alone allow in everyone who wants to immigrate here.
We must help other countries in their country of origin, when appropriate. Bringing them here is not a solution. We are a cold, arctic land with hardly any arable land and we are liquidating all of our fossil resources as exports to the point where in a few decades we won't even be able to sustain our present population.
What does Sean mean by "close off the border" when he says "It doesn't make any sense to just close off the border and seclude ourselves from the world"?
Is having a negative net migration synonymous with "closing off the border"?
If we have more freshwater than the rest of the world per capita, is it really ours to play Santa Claus with or should we protect it for all the salmon, otters, brook trout, etc that call Canada home?
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.
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.
Everyone gets in a lather when we propose an immigration moratorium for Canada. We are racist xenophobes with a fortress mentality who think that a national "gated" community will seal off CO2 emissions from China and India. Instead we should drop our fence, welcome newcomers, and thereby send out a message of friendship so as to gain global cooperation in our plan to fight global warming, and yes, over-population, which after all are GLOBAL problems that Canada can't solve alone.
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? …
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