cacruden
Senior Member
How does Scandanavia,Australia and many other developed countries and cities do it?This generous government should stop giving handouts to special groups.religions.refugees etc and start using some of that cash on our transportation infastructure.
Here is an example of a contribution of aprox $25million handed out by Ontario government that could of easly gone into our transportation infastructure.
40 ON $24,882,505 Toronto District
School Board
Citizenship &
Immigr.
Basic English language training for adult
newcomers to Canada, Contribution
I think every new Canadian should know Basic English before Canada excepts them as a landed immigrant.Let that burden be on the country of origin.
There are several classes of immigrants to Canada, the skilled immigration (largest class) - is points based - and it is almost impossible to immigrate without getting some language points (English and/or French).
ESL language training is needed for two groups of immigrants, those that hop the fence and declare refugee status (not real refugees but our system takes forever to deport them - if ever), and REAL refugees - those that we actually have to help get here from third countries. For me, I see Education as one of the very top priorities that we have as a country - since we are really investing in our future. And in a lot of cases, the people that we subsidize for ESL will eventually pay back that investment. For example, when I was younger - my parents sponsored a Vietnamese family, who were in a refugee camp, which lived with us for 18 months while they got their feet under them. They took ESL language courses at the college, and some skill training, and have become relatively successful (enough so that they at one point owned 2 houses) and have more than paid back the investment in them. There are of course others that never do, but on average I believe that the money is well spent.
Toronto has benefited from a diverse immigration policy (IMHO). When I was younger - I hated the idea of immigrating to Toronto for work (from small town Ontario/PEI) - because it was boring..... I preferred Montreal. It is amazing how much things have changed in 25 years.... where Toronto has become an interesting and diverse city. Are there problems - yes - there will always be problems.... Do I think that there are generally cultural problems with immigration from certain countries - yes..... I have to admit I prefer immigration from Asia than some other countries since IMHO they tend to integrate into society much easier..... I would like us to work on a trade agreement with ASEAN (primarily Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand) which includes full labour mobility for employment purposes. Malaysia actually was one of the visa waiver countries that we had before 911, but after, we omitted them due to concerns from the US. I would prefer we at least reinstate visa waivers for Malaysia, Singapore (which already has it), Thailand (addition), and be open to extending it to others such as Laos, Vietnam etc.
Of course I also support full trade agreements, with labour mobility with Europe, and the US. I would even consider adding China to it, but that would be a little farther out.