Quote:
Originally Posted by Rerun
Our current immigration system doesn't work. We give preference to "professionals" and those "professionals" end up working as cabbies and janitors because they cannot get Canadian accreditation for their education.
.. and then once you arrive he you are allowed to bring over your immediate family, not matter what their skills are, under the family re-unification policy....
And they all get to go on welfare til they get a job, they get taught english as a second language, and all the other perks Canada offer our recent immigrants.
I think we need to re-think who we allow to immigrate as the current point system is obviously not working.
My grandfather was a German immigrant who emigrated from Russia. He came over here as a farmer and homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the early 1900's. Back then Canada needed farmers and he stepped up to the line. He didn't get any government hand-outs and he learned English on his own. He raised 8 children and they all become productive Canadian citizens and some of his grandchildren have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, and engineers.
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Not to take away from what your grandfather did, but the challenges facing modern immigrants are totally different.
Firstly, your grandfather was given a huge plot of free land:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Lands_Act
He came here with skills he already honed in his home country, was then given free land, and settled in a community where his ethnicity and religion were totally accepted. As you yourself said, current immigrants are faced with a totally different set of challenges. Their work history/education is not respected. They are forced to work awful jobs for near minimum wage. Living on minimum wage is ridiculously hard these days.
North American society is now entrenched and it's much harder to move through social barriers. Things like what school you went to, who your parents know, etc.. are all much bigger barriers in NA than they were a hundred years ago. You can't just get a piece of land, work hard, and then profit. Even then, back in the day, that plan only really applied to European immigrants. We've come a long way since then, but things are nowhere close to fair.
Once again, I'm not trying to take away from the hard work your grandfather put in. However, now hard work just does not take you as far as it used to, if you don't start with certain advantages.