Opinion: More Con, Less Pro on Immigration

by Barry Artiste | March 14, 2008 at 06:20 am

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Opinion
Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor

Perhaps a quote by Liberal immigration critic says it all.

Liberal immigration critic Maurizio Bevilacqua had the chutzpah to say yesterday that "family reunification attracts many skilled workers to come here."

(Mr. Bevilacqua presumably means to say that some of the best and brightest are attracted to Canada because of the chance that family reunification offers them to bring their parents, grandparents and dependent relatives here in the future.

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The problem I see is with Mr. Bevilacqua above media statements are that Immigrations was supposed to assist in our declining birthrate, assist our labour shortage, and wages earned and taxes were to prop up our ailing social security and health care costs.

Bringing Immigrants into Canada who then bring in his immediate and extended family and relatives later on serves no one in Canada, especially the elderly ones, who bring in absolutely no benefit to Canada and the Canadian economy. This results in the elderly immigrants, comprising of their parents and relatives to immediately enjoy our generous Canadian FREE Health and social security benefits as soon as their feet hit Canadian soil. Social and Health benefits all Canadian pay for with their taxes to help us now and in our old age. Why should those who land in our country be eligiable to go from the airport to the Health and Social Security office to get their Health Card and Social Security cheque, without ever having to work or pay taxes a day in their life in Canada? As Baby Boomers age, we will be royally screwed if this continues, today taxpayers are paying their taxes for seniors who retired in the 1970s and early 80's, who is going to pay for retired seniors social security from the 1990s and 2000? Immigrants thats who!

If they bring in more eligiable elderly immigrants who outnumber the working immigrants, then the working immigrants tax paying ability to pay for our Health and Social Security becomes a Moot point.

Of course there are those who will disagree that this assessment is not politically correct? True, but economic figures do not lie, and that my friends have nothing to do with political correctness, just cold hard facts. You can't argue with facts now can you?

What we need are immigrants who will contribute to the Canadian economy, learn the language and assimilate into Canadian society, instead of draining our scarce economical resources which we all pay for. Otherwise why bother with immigration at all if it doesn't benefit anyone or our economy?

Tell me people, Where is the logic in that?

Fixing the Liberals' immigration mess

National Post Published: Friday, March 14, 2008

There are credible arguments that Canada needs a great deal more immigration than it allows now in order to secure its future prosperity. And there are credible arguments that Canada could do with a lot less. An honest person can defend either position. But here's one that can't be defended: that Canada should accept far more immigration applications than it ever intends to process. For two decades or more, the backlog of immigration paperwork has been growing, and waiting times for acceptance lengthening, without any serious attempt to shrink the gap. The Conservative government now finally intends to do something about it, while continuing to keep overall immigration at or above current levels. And the Liberals, who are mostly responsible for creating the problem, are not happy.