PRESS RELEASE
Immigration Minister Volpe's recent immigration-increase proposal may never come to fruition because of the instability of his government. But Canadians should take careful note of his proposal because it provides some important insight into the immigration deceit practiced by him and other members of the federal government, says Immigration Watch Canada.
As many Canadians know, Volpe recently proposed an overall 40% increase in Canada's annual immigration levels from a current 245,000 to around 320,000. To reach the 320,000 level, he has proposed a series of increases over the next five years. The first rise would occur in 2006 and would total about 10,000 immigrants.
Canadians should take careful note of the composition of the extra 10,000 for next year: over 9000 of the increase will be family class immigrants, such as parents or grandparents of existing immigrants. Such immigrants are not required to have any education, occupational or language skills and often compete with Canadians for limited health care, education and social safety net resources.
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Canadians will recall that when Volpe announced his 40% increase, he said that Canada desperately needed more skilled workers.
The logical question Canadians have to ask is this: If Canada desperately needs skilled workers, then why didn't Volpe call for the majority of the proposed 10,000 increase, to be skilled workers? In fact, if Canada needs skilled workers so desperately, then why do skilled workers make up only 20% of Canada's entire 245,000 intake this year?
The blunt answer is that Mr. Volpe, like his predecessors, knows perfectly well that Canada does not need these extra immigrants. It also does not need the large numbers it has been bringing in since 1990. He has let his other responsibility in the federal cabinet, Political Minister For Ontario, (meaning he is responsible for the Liberal Party's fate in Ontario in the next election) take precedence over his role as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In other words, Volpe is crudely trying to maintain his party's hold on power by guaranteeing the re-election of a significant number of MP's in urban ridings, particularly those in the Greater Toronto area. Pandering to the interests of recent immigrants, he has learned, has provided electoral gains.
The overall good of the country and the long-term welfare of the immigrants allowed in has been and continues to be minor and unimportant.
The problem does not end there. The real significance in Volpe's deceit is that it is symbolic of a much larger deception practiced on the people of Canada since mass immigration began in 1990.
Immigration ministers, government officials and Canada's immigration lobby have used a number of false claims to perpetrate their deceit.
One has been that Canada is facing a declining population. In 2001, however, Statistics Canada
projections indicated that without any net immigration whatsoever, Canada's population would continue to increase until 2018. Immigration beyond the net figure would increase Canada's population.
Another false claim is that, as Canadians live longer and Canada's fertility rate falls, Canada needs immigrants in order to support the increasing proportion of older people in its population. However, the government's own estimates show that, since immigrants also grow old and tend to have smaller families when they settle here, immigration will not provide a practical solution to the problems associated with an older population. Despite this, Canada continues to bring in far more immigrants than its economy or primary immigrant destinations can absorb. The result has been that these three urban destinations have been inundated. The federal government's response to any complaints about the flood is that Canadians should celebrate their drowning.
Finally, the federal government has falsely claimed that Canada needs large numbers of skilled workers. Most Canadians can accept the use of targetted immigration to solve labour shortages–but only if members of the current two million officially and unofficially unemployed Canadians cannot be found to fill these skilled worker jobs or if Canadians cannot be trained to fill the jobs. But, as Canadians have seen, the federal government has deliberately deceived Canadians by exaggerating the need for skilled workers. Nothing exemplifies this exaggeration better than the recent unsubstantiated claims for skilled workers made by Volpe—claims that he himself has chosen to ignore or do anything about in his recent immigration-increase proposal.
For doing what they have done, these members of Canada's government should not be rewarded with re-election. These MP's, those who have supported them, and Canada's entire immigration lobby have inflicted very significant environmental and economic damage on Canada's major urban areas and on the country. In the very near future, all of these people should have to make a severe accounting to all Canadians for their actions.
END OF PRESS RELEASE
NOTE: For additional reading on this issue, please see the Immigration Watch Canada web site (News Articles section) for Randall Denley's Ottawa Citizen column of November 6: “Visiting Canada's Largest Cities, Have You Ever Said, 'Boy, There Just Aren't Enough People Here'? The column questions the desire for continued population growth.
