Hundreds protest Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s and Canada’s immigration policies on Nov. 4, 2012 (CityNews)
“The numbers are very disturbing. Considering we’ve been a place of refuge for those forced to flee from their home countries, the trend is troublesome. It means Canada is abandoning the most vulnerable around the world and not living up to our obligations.”
- NDP Immigration Critic Jinny Sims, commenting on the sharp decline of Canada’s acceptance rates for refugees (from 47% in 2006 to just 28% in 2012).
“90% of Canadians oppose higher immigration levels. [But] I wonder if those 90 per cent of Canadians understand just how important immigrants are to population growth across Canada – particularly in the country’s growing mid-sized urban centres?”
- David Campbell, journalist for the Globe & Mail, discusses the negative economic and social effects controlled limitations on immigration have for mid-sized urban centres, like Moncton, NB.
“Both the University of Regina and the Government of Saskatchewan oppose deportation of these two young women for a small honest mistake. Will Jason Kenney agree?”
- Saskatchewan Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, protesting the deportation order for two young women from Nigeria, who accidentally violated their student visas with brief employment at Wal-Mart.
“Post-war Germany and Britain required thousands of workers to re-build the country and work in factories, but decades later when the jobs disappeared, the guest workers remained unemployed and frustrated. Many of Europe’s problems with its immigrants can be traced back to the short-sightedness of its policy makers back then.
Drawing from these lessons and labour practices in other countries, Canada could encourage its businesses to employ international headhunters and advertise positions abroad and sign contracts with the people they need to hire. Their families should be allowed to join them, their children should be able to school at a subsidized rate, the spouse should be able to pick up a job if she can find one and their tax rate should be lower than for Canadians…”
- Pradip Rodrigues of CanIndia discusses Canada’s skilled worker shortage and criticizes the current ‘solution:’ addressing shortages with an immigration strategy alone, he insists, is not the answer.
“We’re basically here to honour those we think should be honoured, including the 13,000 people who are deported every year under this government.”
- Protestor Kareen Baqi, one of 300 marching in protest of the Conservative government’s “stringent and unfair” immigration policy on November 4th 2012.
