Ottawa to unveil immigration plan

[Said1]

I'm going to print this and give to my ex-husband, just to watch his head explode...."Parked trucks!! tell the Goddamned prime minister Turkers are making the same damn wage they made in 1991! High gas prices = low wages you stupid c**Ksukers!!!" "Equal opportunity.....kiss my ass!"

Ottawa to unveil immigration plan
Plan would see levels rise 40 per cent in five years

Alexander Panetta

September 23, 2005

OTTAWA -- Canada's current immigration levels would rise 40 per cent within five years under a plan that will soon be presented to the federal cabinet, The Canadian Press has learned.

Prime Minister Paul Martin described immigration in a speech this week as key to Canada's economic success in an era defined by low birth rates, an aging population and an ever-deepening shortage of skilled workers. His immigration minister will address that challenge by announcing the target by Nov. 1 after consulting cabinet colleagues.

Joe Volpe will table a document in Parliament setting out the goal and will also deliver a wide-ranging plan for meeting it in a presentation to his cabinet colleagues next month.

Volpe declined to provide specifics but said something needs to be done to ramp up the country's immigration levels.

"We've got to have more," the minister said in an interview Friday. "There isn't a place in the country that hasn't used that four-letter word: 'More'."

Volpe said the reality of Canada's immigration needs hit home as he travelled the country over the last five months and heard the same refrain from coast to coast, in rich and poor provinces and in urban and rural areas.

Government sources say his proposed target would see immigration levels rise to one per cent of the Canadian population within five years - or about 328,000 per year and growing.

That would represent an increase of about 40 per cent from last year's level of 235,824 people who became permanent residents of Canada - which fell within the government's current target range of 220,000 to 245,000 new residents per year.

Prime ministers have long cited the one-per-cent goal without success. Volpe's plan would set out a strategy for finally achieving the target, though one Opposition critic said the Liberals are merely recycling a broken promise.

"I find it interesting that after 12 years the Liberals are talking about meeting their own targets," said Tory critic Diane Ablonczy.

"Parliament's going to want to know - what's changed?"

Municipal and provincial officials, labour leaders and businesspeople struck a recurring theme while lobbying Volpe over the summer.

Economic growth is being hampered in places like Edmonton, Calgary and Fort McMurray because they can't fill jobs fast enough, Volpe said.

Rural communities in Atlantic Canada are dying and existing public services such as schools and hospitals are emptying for lack of use.

About 6,000 long-haul trucks are sitting empty in New Brunswick because there aren't enough truckers to fill the available spots, he said.

Volpe said he also heard that 5,000 skilled jobs needed to be filled in Saskatoon. In Abbotsford, B.C., the need was for 1,000 computer engineers for graphic-and video-game design.

"There's a big sea change in perspective in the entire country - virtually everywhere you go. And I do mean everywhere," Volpe said.

Continued

 

[rtwngAvngr]

maybe the key is to cut public spending if public services are going unused. I guess white people just don't breed fast enough to increase the tax base as quickly as lefties desire.

 

[Said1]

maybe the key is to cut public spending if public services are going unused. I guess white people just don't breed fast enough to increase the tax base as quickly as lefties desire.

That's an option, but it's also difficult for people to just move 1000 miles away from their homes. If you have family and obligations in one province, moving to another can prove to be very difficult. We did it when I was a kid, but i had family all over the country then, willing to put us up for a few weeks. Many of those people are dead or back in Ottawa now, I don't think I could do that as easily as my parents were able to. If I was offered a job and a place ot live, I'd be more open to the idea.