Excluding Cheap Labour Was Largely An Economic Issue
It’s possible that history might finally be corrected in British Columbia. More than a century ago, Canadians’ jobs were displaced by cheap imported labour from Asia. At that time, Ottawa did the right thing by restricting Asian labour. And historians, up until the early 1970’s, presented the events of a century ago as primarily an economic issue. In the 1970’s, however, a handful of historians and the immigration lobby sought to remake Canadian history in their own image and presented those events as a racial issue. See details at http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/2011/02/21/immigration-canot-be-a-welfare-program-for-asia/
Today, as a result of Mainland Chinese corporations being given the right to import to Canada up to 2000 Mainland Chinese miners as Temporary Foreign Workers, and the uproar that has ensued, Ottawa may be seeing that the events of a century ago are very similar to those of the past few weeks. Ottawa may also be seeing that its predecessors were correct in restricting Asian labour a century ago. The evidence for saying this is that Ottawa has responded to the recent Chinese miner incident by ordering a complete review of its Temporary Foreign Worker programme.
Now, like then, Canadians have responded by standing up for the protection of Canadian jobs. Almost unanimously, Canadians have opposed the flagrant use of imported Chinese miners by a Chinese corporation. Similarly, they oppose the underhanded manner in which both Chinese labour contractors and the B.C. government itself have tried to conceal the process. Canadians are especially angered by the fact that employers have been able to bypass unemployed or under-employed citizens in favour of people brought in under the “Temporary Foreign Worker” programme. This is clearly an economic issue, not a racial one.
In fact, if one could be so bold as to suggest, Ottawa should do several other things while it is doing its review of the Temporary Foreign Worker file.
1. Determine how many other employers have been doing the same thing as the Mainland Chinese mine owners / labour contractors have done, but who have so far gotten away with it.
2. Review its entire regular immigration policy, which has caused even more damage to Canadian workers. Assert to the world what Canada should have asserted long ago : that immigration exists for the benefit of Canadians. The world has received the impression that Canada exists as a job-finding agency or as a social assistance provider for the world. Canada will continue to provide some aid to other countries, but Canada cannot continue to be a milk cow for the world. Ottawa can make this clear by re-stating what the Science Council of Canada declared in 1976 : Canada’s large land base does not mean that it can have a continuously-increasing population. In the Science Council’s view, Canada had to restrict immigration, stabilize its population at what it has now, and conserve all of its resources, particularly its farmland. If it did not do that, it could not maintain a decent standard of living for its population. In The Science council’s view, if the world’s population increases, but the number of food-exporting countries decreases, Canada’s economy and balance of payments could benefit greatly in future if Canada were a major exporter of a truly renewable resource like food.
3. Be aware of the cunning that many other countries practice. Canada was first duped when it allowed Canadian employers to out-source many Canadian jobs to countries such as China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan. These countries were and continue to be grossly over-populated. They should be a lesson to the world that countries that fail to control the size of their populations soon develop low standards of living and will probably never be able to reciprocate in trade agreements with Canada. Canada was duped for a second time by allowing countries such as China to cunningly undervalue its currency in order to export large numbers of their low-wage products. Canada is being duped for a third time by allowing other countries to export to Canada significant numbers of their own populations, many of whom are intent on re-creating their own failed societies here.
4. Canada should retract the apologies it has made to several ethnic groups. These apologies which Ottawa, some provincial legislatures, and even some municipal councils have made show that these Canadians do not understand Canadian history. The current example of the Chinese miners demonstrates that there were good reasons to discourage immigration from these countries then. There are equally good reasons now.
The Diversity Coalition has created an enormous lie about our past. This group as well as their historical revisionist friends should be making an apology. Those who should receive it are Canadians of a century or more ago. The people of that time saw the writing on the wall and did what they had to do to save Canadian jobs for Canadians at Canadian wages.
As a unique twist in the history that is now unfolding, Ottawa should demand this apology and finally correct a major historical injustice.
