I agree with TTTT

Those of us who lobby to keep the population growth at zero are concerned about the capacity of Canada's inhabitable and arable land (not nearly as vast as people think) to support human beings, yet we're constantly chastized and warned by the powers that be that we can only surive with more and more "growth" to keep our fiscal systems going. This is a falsehood. While there might be a slight shift in the standard of living until the quirks of the old age security system are worked out, it's a small price to pay for a future that would be sustainable and healthy.

Already in many areas of Canada, our water supply is reaching its limit, thus the time for reasonable population control is NOW. Or will we be duped, like England, into pushing our carrying capacity to the max in the next few decades, so we can all live like rats in a cage?

Yes, of course, we will. Because growth is ALL that matters in a consumerism-oriented and childish society devoid of intelligent thinking-- one that is incapable of planning for the future.

And just what does all this cost?

Wow. Some folks must hide in their basements. They just don't know what's going on.
Quote: "Canadian multiculturalism has been
remarkably successful so far."
When CAJ (Canadian Association of Journalists) met here in Vancouver in 1998, journalists from the east expressed concern that they had landed in Signapore.
Former British leader Blair abandoned multiculturalism as a policy because of the problems. So did the former leader in Oz.
Have we all forgotten that some of these folks brought us the Air Indian terrorist disaster(1985)and those folks still live here. We've also welcomed gangs, drug dealers, fraudsters and similar ilk.
Like are we stupid or what? The cost of ESL is horrendous and special needs children are suffering as a result.
When we used to actively campaign for
Europeans many who arrived here didn't speak English but they taught themselves. The Sophron forestry dept was a tribute to them. My lawyer's Dad came here from Italy and taught himself.
One day while teaching in a Richmond school where no one spoke English in the hallways, I announced to a class "We only speak English in here." and they all clapped. Read Kim Bolan's book on Air India or Stewart Bell's COLD TERROR: how
terrorists have infiltrated Canada. Good story on cash payments to politicians in Kim's book. Get educated. Get real.

When in Rome....

As an immigrant, I have noticed that the newer arrivals do not try to assimilate as we did.
Instead they congregate in select areas and take over entire neighbourhoods.

That may be cozy enough if they want to transplant their own country and culture to Canada, but that was not the agreement when they were offered an opportunity to come here!

Why is English as a second language suddenly is a needed subject? my kids were temporarily living in Denmark and simply adapted to hearing and speaking the for them new language (which was never spoken at home), no big deal, kids are flexible!
Older folks can attend classes at night,that could be one goal for their cultural organizations.

Maybe this is the key? Once arrived in Canada we never talked in Danish again, following the old saying: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!"

Quebec insists on everyone acknowleding French as the offical Language, but here we bow to pressure and allow foreign signs and customs to influence our ways.

Yes Immigration has speeded up the way Canada has grown, for better or for worse.

Perhaps a better scrutiny could have eliminated some of the less desireable influence?

I arrived here clutching a paid for return ticket, fully prepared to return should Canada not live up to what I had hoped for; maybe others should arrive with a similar attitude: if it is not good enough use that return ticket!

The vast number of

The vast number of immigrants, like the vast number of born-in-Canada Canadians are wonderful, beautiful people. What a richness we have with such a multitude of people from all over the world! Let's not lose sight of this!

Only lately...

"Once arrived in Canada we never talked in Danish again"

Same here. We were firmly determined that our children should have English as their first language. It is a Danish dialect, by the way, but has evolved along different paths, gobbling up far more Latin, Greek and French words than other North-Germanic languages.

Lately, however, we have not been able always to resist the temptation to turn the tables on those groups, who are used to having it so easy being exclusionary by choosing another language. Of course most do understand English, but it is interesting to see the surprised annoyance of such people when suddenly faced with a language foreign and unintelligible to them. That wasn't supposed to happen!

Multiculturalism my foot! You can boil that down to pandering to etnhnic groups that have enough numbers and money to throw around. But if you belong to a smaller group, particularly a 'non-visible' one, your cultural peculiarities are considered fair game, and sometimes viciously so, probably we're substituting for those whom people do not dare to bother. I am still waiting for a test case on the 'protected group' nonsense in regard to the Charter of Rights. The words "and in particular" has curiously (it must have been done by an immigrant) been translated into " but only" . The Charter section actually prohibits discriminations per se, no matter what petty reason might lie behind it, and the current mainstream interpretation of section 15(1)is a crock.

I have lived in this country for thirty years, and have brought up my children here. It is a great country, but it feeds quite a number of dumb, greedy people, who are in the business of running everything into the ditch. The growth paradigm is one bad trip. I hope more and more people will see that. To me, the fact that inhabitants of a country do not breed so as to effect growth is an instinctive, and sound, response to crowding. I find it grossly insulting that politicians and zealots of various kinds think they can browbeat people into accepting that this is'wrong' and must be 'corrected'. Show some respect, and quit the pep-talks about how we should 'treasure' everybody who land themselves on our doorstep. How many such people are you personally sponsoring is my question? It is easy to be free with other people's money.

The sad truth is, despite

The sad truth is, despite our culture's assumption that we really all can get along (nothing more than a cover to keep up the "growth"), most of the people immigrating into Canada these days have no intention of getting along, rather they are setting up their own networks of commerce and society within our system - Richmond being the prime example. The trouble with this is that you essentially get two cultures in the same place, and as the respective cultures' networks grow, so do the divisions between the two.

And what happens when there are two cultures in the same place vying for the same resources? (political, land, money, oil, gas, etc)

Civil unrest. Once the cultures have their cultural systems solidly set in place and start to demand their due (political representation, power, money, their own borders) the troubles will start.

And our regret will follow.

Nice summation

Two of the best summations I've seen in a while on our current immigration system and results both here in Canada, and to the city of Vancouver. Thank you, dorothy and van-island. I find your comments incredibly pertinent, relevant and prescient, today. Not sure what else I can add other than to say, I, too, have grown exceedingly unhappy with the 'ghettos' we have created and refusal of many new immigrants to at the very least choose to learn and speak English (or French). If I were to choose to suddenly emmigrate to France, Italy or Japan - I would consider it unthinkable I could consider doing that without learning the language of these countries.

This theme of growth, too, in these times of ever-increasing scarcities and depleted environments, resources and urban infrastructures is also another huge issue just not being addressed by these politicians and studies insisting we take in ever-increasing numbers of immigrants to our country. I have two thoughts on this - it's time the federal government start coughing up the money to pay for the much-needed infrastructure variables to support this steady increase in population growth, and, secondly, perhaps enforced depopulation to rural and smaller communities that can take the additional growth are in order. Not sure how such an directive could ever really be enforced though.

Tactics are important in this argument

I think tactics (and tact) are important when making the case for reduced levels of immigration. Approaching the problem of over-immigration by criticizing (or attacking, as some might see it) foreign cultures is treading dangerous water and puts complainers in a negative, racist light, however justified the complaints might be. In our politically correct culture it's also the easiest and fastest way of being dismissed by the mainstream as "xenophobic nuts" or at best, "intolerant" of other cultures.

The most logical--and in my opinion most truthful--way of helping people understand that the onslaught of immigration must be curtailed is to point out how dire and constrained the water supply and food-producing land will be for Canadians and their children in the future. And they will be, no doubt about that.

Throwing more money after infrastructure at the same time we're bringing in more people is akin to nailing pieces of saran warp across the holes in the bottom of a sinking, leaking raft.

(For those interested, COUNTERPUNCH has an eye-opening article on today's website by Paul Roberts, I think - on the increasing immigration in the US, and how it's displacing American workers' jobs. It seems that basing the reasons for being anti-immigration on unwanted cultural diversity instead of on "sustainability" is, on moral and humanistic grounds, the wrong tactic to take--it's backfired on them, especially in states like California. I wonder how long it will take for the same thing to happen here...)

SPEAK ENGLISH!

English works in every province, I've been there. It works in Mexico, Europe and Dubai. It even works in most parts of the USA. It's English, and English only if you want to come here to live. No interpreters, no free English lessons, no free anything. The language of the business in Canada is English. Even in Quebec there are few who dare try and get by in life without it.

ghettos

It really is too bad most new immigrants form ghettos in the city. I would like to see more of them in the hinterlands. The handfull that live in my community are brave souls indeed and they do not have the luxury of communication in their native tongue here. We could use more diversity here in the sea of rednecks. That said it is a natural human tendency to seek the comfort of the familiar. Canadians and Americans who move overseas often form ghettos as well. They create a culture more familiar to them and avoid having to learn a foreign language. Most other nations though have not exactly thrown open their doors to welcome those in north america who wish to emigrate.

What the *uck

holy christ, I didn't bother to look at this article until now as I had read a snippet in other internet news sources about Canadian immigration.

Turn over the immigration rock, and it's amazing the number of the intolerant who skitter out. A litany of idiocy and moaning. Bitching about a lack of English skills, while in the same breath bitching about having to spend tax dollars on ESL. The only people who really have a legitimate beef about immigrants are First Nations. They're the ones who really got the shaft. Of course now we don't think of ourselves as recent immigrants even the majority of Canadians only have family roots here going back a few generations. While First Nations go back millennia.

Most of us benefit immensely from continued immigration, as they replace what would otherwise be a declining population. What's more, the vast, vast majority of recent immigrants contribute far more to this country than they take away. They work, pay taxes, build our society, and enrich it with their own cultural contributions.

Alda you're right though, it's more palatable to hide racism and intolerance behind notions of scarcity and environmental degradation. Spinning the problem as not being that we hate all the "evil colored people speaking in tongues", but that they will eat us out of house and home like a pack of ravenous zombies... yeah that sells much better and conveniently give people an excuse to shut off their ethical radar.

Disgusting.

Mr. Burns:

"Most of us benefit immensely from continued immigration, as they replace what would otherwise be a declining population."

OK, I need further illumination here. Why do you think the population is, or would be, in decline? Could it be, that people actaully have some sense and feel it would benefit us to become thinner on the ground? Deplete our environment at a less break-neck speed? Or, pray, what do you think is the reason? This we must understand, before we can decide whether it makes sense to try to 'make up' for it.

Personally, I do not care what color people have, and their culture is not a problem for me, until and unless they think, that I have to help support it by forgoing my own culture and providing for theirs, although they do not reciprocate. It's not the color, 'it's the attitude, stupid'...

Language is a facetious deal, when two people sitting in the bus chatter away in a non-shared language, and then remonstrate with the driver over some trivial concern in perfect, unaccented English. You can only term that as rude, to be exclusionary by choice. It is a whole other issue, to work with people whose command of the official language is less than stellar, and have bad things happen as a consequence, because clarity is lacking. And, we're not supposed to call a spade a spade here, because then people like you will slap that facile and tiresome label of 'racist' across our face. Get through your head, please, once and for all, that not everybody is a self-serving, underhanded, and hypocritical low-life. Sometimes, there are good reasons for standing on adherence to norms, as in intersections of all kinds, and we should eventually grow out of having a problem with standards and authoritah.

Whoa

Immigrant ghettos are nothing new and they are not unique to Canada or Richmond. What people on this thread are forgetting and what they so blithely dismiss is that assimilation is not an instant phenomenon.

Sure, there are folks who decide to dive into the native culture they immigrate to and become mainstream - whatever that may mean - but by and large if you study history, the main complaints lodged by the previous posters can been seen in similar complaints from WASP New Yorkers during the immigration boom in the 1800's, and elsewhere in different points of history, as well.

People looks at immigration as a slice in time rather than as a process that takes generations - sometimes half a generation as it did in my case - but sometimes longer. Assimilation happens over time - many of the young yellow or brown faces so numerous in Vancouver are second-generation immigrants whose parents lived in ghettos. Is Chinatown still the hub of Chinese culture? No. Will Richmond remain dominantly Chinese in another generation or so? Maybe, but it may be relegated to the history bin as the successive generations of children grow-up and then - gasp - move to West Van or White Rock. The Indo-Canadians who live in Surrey will likely disperse in later generations as assimilation happens.

Fact is that economic exigency and a need for community drive the creation of cultural ghettos, but that these ghettos are not everlasting, as the children of the restaurant owners, dry cleaners, grocery store owners, go to UBC and then work professional jobs and assimilate. No need to fret about ghettos and ESL - it'll all work out in the end. . .of course, assimilation is not one-way, but the mainstream is also changed through absorbing that previously inscrutable "other".

Finally, I find it interesting that the arm-chair immigrants claim that they would abandon their own language and culture in a heartbeat if they decided to move to another country as immigrants. It's not so easy and you ought not to be so cavalier in making this judgment until you've tried it yourself.

Dorothy - you're not in Kansas anymore

Dorothy - Guess your post came in while I was writing mine. . .but I have to say that you have lowered the bar of discourse here.

I'm not sure if I read you correctly, but did you just cite a case of people talking in a different language but being able to speak perfect English as something rude and exclusionary?

If so, I would like to know why you believe that 2 people talking to each other using a different language to be so offensive to you? They're not talking to you, but to each other. You know, there are multilingual people around who speak more than one language fluently (me included). Would it have bothered you similarly if they had been speaking French? I mean, that is an official language of Canada whether you like it or not. Would that have bothered you?

Or was it that these people were speaking some non-western European language, maybe Cantonese (which I agree can sound quite harsh) or Punjabi, or the language of some other swarthy, non-Christian unwashed immigrant culture?

"..you have lowered the bar

"..you have lowered the bar of discourse here.."

Thank you, I try my best.

"Would it have bothered you similarly if they had been speaking French? I mean, that is an official language of Canada whether you like it or not. Would that have bothered you?"

No, it would not have bothered me. I understand French, as well as German, Danish, and English. Besides, I am the immigrant here and will have to put up with the Canadian Babel, as I adopted this country, warts and all, knowing what it was.

"Or was it that these people were speaking some non-western European language, maybe Cantonese (which I agree can sound quite harsh) or Punjabi, or the language of some other swarthy, non-Christian unwashed immigrant culture?"

There you go with your "racist" knee jerk reaction. No, I simply adhere to old-fashioned courtesy. If people want to be private, then they can go to a private place. If they sit in a public transit conveyance, then they are obliged to share the space, as well as the communication. If you read my letter, you would have seen that my experience in trying my own old language with a friend has been, that there was great annoyance in the 'other' people at having the little game of one-upmanship turned on themselves. Color schmolor, I think it is you who are obsessed with race, since you cannot separate it from the action, and you obviously believe all jerks are white.
I also try my best to distinguish one situation from another. If people are quietly discoursing in a language I cannot make out, I would sometimes ask, as languages interest me, just as I have been asked by others, what my language is in some situations. I am talking about people, who speak in a loud and domineering way, occupying the shared space with their sound, and then doing so in a language they reckon most people do not understand. That is an unmistakably bullying behavior, that clearly tells everyone else they are viewed as dirt under these people's feet.

I am not for 'assimilation'. Canada is not a Borg collective. But I am for decorum and courtesy in the public square. And you are trying to drown my question of why our population is in decline, and why we would need to make up the 'shortfall'.

Shortfall

These high and mighty types need to defend against anything perceived as politically incorrect. Must have picked that up from the media as they also seem to think growth equals progress. They see the twinning of lower mainland bridge as inevitable as the population in the region grows and grows and grows...

Bad or rude behavior, usually a sign of an individual who is unaware. They come in all shapes and sizes, every colour and speak any language. Behavior ignored is behavior accepted. Anyone above who plays the race card so careless and easy should perhaps consider that they might have gone a little too far. Care to rephrase your argument?

Petty

Bitching about someone's lack of English skills isn't rude behavior?

Spinning the excessively poor development decisions of our local governments as a problem caused by immigrants misses the most important point. Those decisions are primarily about the maximization of profit for the most politically connected.

My response had nothing to do with anything "high and mighty". My response is informed my the fact that the majority of my friends and my intimate relationships have been with immigrants or the children of immigrants. I've seen plenty of instances of thoughtless and petty assholery from just about every group. Ignorance is clearly the biggest problem, rather than outright hatred. But petty bias does have consequences, particularly when it comes from those who have the power to make decisions that seriously affect people's lives. Making people, especially the latter group, think before they make decisions, is a good thing. If their decisions are informed by petty bias, then I applaud the fact we live in a enough of a "politically correct" society that those decisions can come back to bite them in the ass.

But I'll never understand why people who experience instances of an individual's behavior as grating or negative, then apply that behavior to ALL of that individual's group, but only when that individual can be safely identified as "other". The sheer lazy stupidity of that never ceases to amaze me.

Yes, I imagine that when someone is called out for their petty bias it's uncomfortable. Good.

Agreed...

... and thanks for speaking English.

Reply to James Burns

James:
Of course, Canada has benefitted greatly from immigration in the past. What I'm saying is that while I disagree with those who use racism as the basis for their argument for lower levels of immigration, I don't disagree their contention that lower levels of immigration are needed. You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Changing environmental conditions in the world mean we need to rethink everything, including how population levels will affect future sustainability. Our government tries to frighten us into thinking that "zero-population" means death. I say BS to that; what will be death will be over-extending our reach.

Thanks to global warming, the oil and agriculture industries, AND increasing population, Alberta, alone, will be facing a frightening decline in its water supply within 30 years. In some regions, water depletion is already looming - vis-a-vis the massive Athabasca River that will apparently be sucked dry by the ravenous oil industry to a mere trickle within twenty years. Projections of how water shortages will affect us as population increases, look, frankly, horrendous. The message from scientists here is this: if global corporations continue to extract our oil -- and you can bet they will-- and if global warming continues -- and you can bet it will -- it's not logical to keep bringing more and more people on board, either. Thus, it's a three-way problem.

It's NOT a matter of "hiding" racism, it's a matter of arguing the case for lower immigration on the LOGICAL, scientific BASIS of resource depletion. (If this were the 1960s when resources were plentiful and free,who would be saying anything about immigration? Not nearly as many, I don't think.)

The Calgary Herald just published series of article on the dire water situation in Alberta, including mention of the fact that farmers are currently scouring the province trying desperately to find arable land that includes water rights for irrigation. As well, towns in ALberta will be exceeding their water supply license amounts as early as 2012. Drought is no joke, and we're facing it, soon.

Atlanta is coming to a theatre near you.

You think other countries in the world aren't being "eaten out of house and home like a pack of ravenous zombies?" Travel the third world, my friend, and tell me there's enough water and arable land to support everyone living in those countries.

What's unfortunate is that we can't talk about this issue of resource depletion without people screaming "racist." This suits TPTB perfectly, because it means that they can, without challenge, use the ever-expanding immigrant population in the service of FURTHER RESOURCE DEPLETION. Now THAT's what I call disgusting.

Setting the record straight

"Bitching about someone's lack of English skills isn't rude behavior?"

It would be, but then I wasn't bitching, which would entail making the people in question feel uncomfortable in the situation. Then, I was referring to the lack of skills as an aside, whereas the thing I was 'bitching' about was people with fully adequate skills, who choose to be exclusionary in a loud and demonstrative manner in a public setting and with a semi-captive audience.

If you think that stating an opinion you do not agree with amounts to bitching and rude behaviour, what are you doing in a debating blog? This is for trashing out differences of opinion and thereby learning more together. If it has to be so censored, that one cannot make a point reagrding behaviour without getting an answer amounting to 'tit for tat', what's the point? There is a distinction to be made between debating and bickering.

And, my question to you was, why is our population in decline, and should we really make up the 'shortfall'. Why or why not? You said decline was a great ill, but have not brought any argument to back that up. This would interest me, but you keep throwing sand in everybody's eyes instead of elaborating.

How about a caveat on immigration.......

....to the effect that immigrants must settle in the least populated regions, until they become Canadian citizens......?

Make Way for New Canadians

One thing immigration has done for sure has made it very difficult for many Canadians to afford homes because of the increased land prices because of the increased immigration even in places like Saskatchewan now that's something. I would like to have seen Canada and her provinces better prepare for the influx of new Canadians to her soil and ready its bursting cities for all its new citizens while ensuring its lower income residents are not forced to her streets for the common good but so far its seems to be about the millions and millions of dollars you can get for a couple thousand sq feet. I can see the benefits for land developers, etc., but can also see Canada's housing market go sour much like the Americans. It's not about Canadians not having babies its about the loss of our social safety net as women are not going to have children where they will be forced to endure abuse or take to the streets and eat garbage and it truly is not far off from that because there is no place for them to go as safe shelters send them packing after 30 days and it doesnt even matter if you had your eye gouged out.

So let's get specific

So Dorothy, if I read your clarification right, you're objecting to the fact that the 2 people in question on the bus were talking too loud and in a language you did not understand.

Your objection stems from the fact that in a public space, eg. a bus, people were talking in a domineering way and impinging on your space. I get that - yes, I would agree that this is annoying. But, it is your assignment of cause of rudeness that I object to: they were speaking a language you didn't understand AND you assumed they were immigrants.

If they were speaking Danish, French or any other language that you understand (and kudos on being such a polyglot), are you saying that it would not have been rude? What if they were blathering-on loudly in English about the Canucks in a domineering way - doesn't decorum transcend culture, regardless of language?

More clariifcation (did I have bad day, or??)

I did answer the question previuously:

"Personally, I do not care what color people have, and their culture is not a problem for me, until and unless they think, that I have to help support it by forgoing my own culture and providing for theirs, although they do not reciprocate. It's not the color, 'it's the attitude, stupid'..."

In fact, to me it is immaterial, whether people are themselves immigrants, or their great-grandparents are, and the family stuck assiduously to their imported cultural norms. I wish they would, I do not see any merit in the wishy-washy cultureless consumer blather we call culture here and now, the so-called mainstream. If people have their diverse mindsets and skill-sets more or less intact, perhaps we will always have the human resources we need for any situation, since the Canadians of today represent cultural adaptation to almost any set of living conditions you can come up with.

Myself an immigrant, I can say that I am probably more Danish today, than when I arrived on these shores, for the pressures of the maninstrem has forced me to clarify exactly who and what I am, sweeping aside my youthful romantic notions of being a 'citizen of the world' That being said, my undivided allegiance is to Canada, to making it work and seeing it prosper. That is why I think, that anything that could serve to be divisive and ghettoizing must be spoken against, so it will not grow to be detrimental. I think Canada needs a well-thought out social contract, of which the Charter of Rights could be a beginning. I think multiculturalism in the form people have chipped away at it now for decades has been a spectacular failure. I think we all now are in some kind of SCA setting, trying to find our persona and put it together and present it in a way that is intelligible to others. It is highly contrived and is not working.

So, yes, we must seek out the terms of 'decorum', which indeed transcends culture and language. As for my sojourn on public transit, my initial remark (people should make a habit of reading back to the origin instead of jumping on something far progressed) was, that I had been studiously using only English for years, but, lately, had been tempted, in the face of other people's exclusionary manners, to use Danish, and had experienced people getting 'miffed' over their prerogative being upstaged.

...more

...the more

I think that people firing off loudly about the Canucks may hit my eardrums in a somewhat harsh way, but I don't, of course, feel excluded, and that to me is the crux of the matter. If you put yourself in other people's face, you cannot at the same time exclude them, just like I would never sit at a seat with a stranger, and then move over to a single seat, when one becomes vacant. It is as good as telling that person, that somehow they are undesirable to sit next to, and I consider that rude. Unless the other person was very 'portly' and looked clearly unconfortable, when I settled down on the outer seat. In other words: I think that as crowded as we are, the onus is on every single person, to not just 'be himself' in a childlike, unthinking fashion, but try to think what impact our choices may have on others. Suicide is a hazard of the degree of crowding we are subjected to, and I do not happen to think people commit suicide because of one catastrophic event, but that it is, most often, 'the death of a thousand cuts'. Well, I try to not deliver any of those little 'cuts', and I object, when other people act like unthinking robots and lay away their humanity, not showing any caring.

Clubofrome wrote:

"Bad or rude behavior, usually a sign of an individual who is unaware. They come in all shapes and sizes, every colour and speak any language."

Amen to that. My point is, that I do not think we have a right to that 'unawareness', once we are past childhood.

Hope this clarifies

maybe all newbies

should be required to spend some time amongst First Nations...learn some manners.

Sad

I have to disagree on so many points. Multiculturalism has been a spectacular success, especially when compared to the kinds of integration that have not really taken place in most of the rest of the industrialized west, especially Europe.

The most integrated and tolerant people are the young who were raised here and that includes the children of every immigrant group. The that first generation raised here are already largely integrated and adapted to our society and culture, and they enrich it with their own traditions.

All I hear here are age old curmudgeonly complaints that have been commonplace since immigrants have been coming to this country. It really is pathetic to read. I believe a few years back there was a particularly insightful British comedy that poked fun at a family from India who had immigrated and were attempting to be more British than the British. I hear echoes of that kind of foolishness in this thread. It always amazes me, how so many people can hold on to such profound ignorance.

Ghettos are a problem? I wonder how often that was said about Irish, Italian and other non-British European ghettoes that sprang up during the first waves of immigration from those countries? I find the kind of casual and petty bias on display here quite disturbing. It bespeaks a profound lack of empathy, and a willingness to find fault in those who don't match particular ideas of what acceptable mundane everyday social behavior is. It's really pathetic, and it goes to the root of why integration can be so difficult for new immigrants, because they experience and unending stream of petty mean spirited irritation from countless thoughtless self-centered narrow minded curmudgeons. Little wonder they seek out and congregate with those they can more easily relate to, particularly if this thread is any indication of the kind of reactions they receive out in the every day world.

Why is it?

Everytime someone has something to say about an issue someone will say, "Well What About So and So" and its filler. Its like your kids telling you "Well Mary gets to do what she wants". So? And I'm not buying all this multiculture stuff because I haven't seen to much of it instead I've seen a lot of racial tension and hate instead as there appears to be very little tolerance for difference and that could very well explain the downsizing of the human rights commission and time limits before bringing forward compliants and believe me there are tons of them. I'm not against well though out and planned immigration which will be benefical to Canadians and its new residents but that's simply not the case its been a big dash for cash and its working. Before long new Canadians much like fellow Canadians will decline to have children do to trends and that's sad because we will lack true Canadians native to the land and what is uniquely Canadian will soon be lost.

Cast more light on this, please...

"...petty mean spirited irritation from countless thoughtless self-centered narrow minded curmudgeons..."

You're losing me here. Could you be more specific? I have looked at every post here and cannot find anything petty or mean-spirited. Can you give a couple of examples of what you are referring to? This is a very important and engaging subject, but just grumping the way you do does not further debate at all...

Well, let me join the line...

...of people who want to use Dorothy as a pinata.

I think your first comment about immigrants on the bus was off base too - if they were at work, I would expect English or French, but on their own time, whatever language suits you I can't honestly care about, whether Grok or Esperanto.

On the other hand, I'd like to take you up on yours (and others') comment about immigration.

These immigrants are being born already, regardless of where - you won't slow their rate of increase by keeping them where they are. Those who immigrate, do so for opportunity, and generally acheive a modest increase in family wealth when they do so. Axiomatic to demographers is the fact that increases in wealth bring a corresponding and immediate reduction in birth rate, usually to below the rate of replacement. Quebec is our own personal and best example of this, from 5.8 children per family in the 1960s to 1.7 in the 1990s.

So if more immigration offers greater family wealth to more families, the population growth rate on the planet will fall faster than if we deny them opportunity and force them to eke out their existence in the unfair situations their home countries most often offer them. Discrimination is not the sole province of WASPs in Canada - here I agree with you.

Now I don't want to adopt everybody in the world as a Canadian, and neither does the rest of the Western world. But everybody after you has been arguing about the scarce resources available to Canadians, and how immigrants would strain even those.

LOL!!!!! For people who WASTE 54 gallons of water to wash their SUVs every month when most Asians I was privileged to observe during my months there in 1997 took the opportunity of rainfall to wash their cars - if they owned one....oh, my gut hurts....

Last, economists the world over, even the neocons, have been insistent that the way to raise the standard of living for everyone, as well as to lower the rate of population increase, was to increase the total wealth of the world. If we continue to bring immigrants here, we can only increase our total wealth, making each of us individually wealthier still. Each Canadian is approximately 7 times as productive as each Indian from India, so the opportunity of an immigrant from India to add 7 times his potential to our total national wealth ought not be sneezed at.

Go ahear - try those economists out. If they're wrong, let me know. The world won't be in any worse shape for the trying.

PS - same principles apply in spades for refugees. They're poorer, more fecund, and offer greater potential for improvement than any other population group in the world.

The bulge passeth...

No wait - one more "last"

Last, when the "baby bulge" retires/dies off, who is going to take over the jobs done by them? We're already having trouble finding properly qualified nurses and doctors, and my own field of hospital facilities management and engineering is suffering as badly, taking any breathing pulse we can find of any age, only there aren't any. Overtime is endemic.

What's going to happen in twenty years when we're all too old/sick/cranky to be working, but still consuming the necessary services such as food/housing/utilities/health-care, and we haven't bothered to provide opportunities for the appropriately-assimilated, properly-educated or culturally-engaged people to take over in our stead.

...having not bothered to provide enough of our own in the first place. Or to provide them with suitable ethics in the first place, like working honestly at a trade or profession for a living instead of scamming for ill-gotten wealth in suitcase banking, real estate sales, stock brokerage, marketing, or narcotics.

well since you are in Vancouver I don't expect Burns to know

that those earlier european immigrants did not take over entire suburbs - the inhabited entire neighborhoods within a larger city, not entirely separate from others.

I'm not against immigration, just the massive and destructive levels we have now coupled with failed multiculturalism.

Many of you are being sickly dishonest - multiculturalism is not a Canadian invention but has been practiced longer in Europe and is now being thoroughly rejected there because of all the negative consequences.

I would move to America with all it's problems in a heartbeat if I could to escape.

please note Canadians are waking up to the idiotic non-assimilation policy of multiculturalism - political correctness' inbred cousin:

http://tinyurl.com/hxsqy

In Canada as a whole, multiculturalism is:

a failed policy of the past
75%
12299 votes

an indispensable part of our future
25%
4174 votes

globe and mail...

Rude/Not Rude, etc.

I'm mystified why Dorothy thinks that when in a public place, people have to speak English. If two people are having a conversation meant only for themselves, why does being in public mean that they have to include everyone else around them by allowing them to hear and understand them? Mind your own business! Being disruptive to others around you, on the other hand, no matter what language (even sign language!), is rude.

I think incredulous describes the immigrant assimilation process well. I would only add that how well someone assimilates depends on how old they are, how similar their culture is to Canadian culture, and the size of the population of their ethnic group already here. I'm not concerned about their degree of assimilation, in so far as that they abide by the law, pay their taxes, and aren't overly reliant on our social services. I don't think they are entitled to government-funded ESL programs. As immigrants, the onus is on them to acquire the necessary skills to properly function in our society. However, that doesn't mean they have to abandon their mother culture at our doorstep.

At the same time, diversity is important culturally, intelectually, and economically. We are a richer, stronger society that embraces and encourages the creative input of broad experiences and points of view. Open societies are the ones that flourish in various realms of public life, not closed ones. There are historical precedents. To have the attitude that "in order to get along, people have to be just like me" is xenophobic and ignorant.

As for future levels of immigration, I agree with alda about the population problem. I would add that as the non-rich countries increasingly suffer from climate-change-induced disasters (which the IPCC notes they will suffer disproportionately), we may see a flood of climate refugees banging on the door to escape the environmental calamities caused by our excesses. Bringing in more immigrants to maintain an unsustainable way of life is lunacy.

Taking Over Entire Suburbs

Yeaj, TTTT, earlier European immigrants didn't take over entire suburbs. They took over entire continents, resulting in the near annihilation of countless indigenous peoples.

"Professional" Organizations

These are just old boys clubs that don't want their power status challenged or diluted by foreigners. Otherwise, why raise the bar on perfectly qualified immigrants much higher than locals? Local experience as an employment requirement is so provincial.

An attempt at demystification...

"I'm mystified why Dorothy thinks that when in a public place, people have to speak English. If two people are having a conversation meant only for themselves, why does being in public mean that they have to include everyone else around them by allowing them to hear and understand them?"

You may try to cast your thoughts back to when Jenny Kwan was first elected to the legislature. I think the woman personally is a sweetheart, but her little speech in Mandarin I found misguided. She justified it by telling us, how important she thought it was for people of Chinese descent to 'hear their mother tongue spoken in the legislature'. Well, I'm not from here, and English is not my mother tongue, but I believe we are in Canada now, and so I do not expect, or indeed wish for, Svend Robinson or anybody else of Danish ilk to break out in my mother tongue in any legislative assembly anytime soon.

It's about being in the same boat. If you jump in for the goodies, you cannot have this little back door open, your little special deal, the noncommittal approach. It is about, as Ms. Kurl once put it, 'picking one and being that'. One of the MLA's from the other side dumped on Jenny Kwan, claiming she was 'lying'. Now we don't know that she was; but that's the whole point, we don't know, which is what I think the man was trying to express. In Denmark, a journalist, who understands Arabic, was apalled to sit in a mosque and hear a speech by a cleric, prevailing on the adherents to 'have lots of sons, so we can win this country for Allah, by conquest if we must'. ...more

the more

Now, of course, since most of us do not understand Arabic, this journalist could be lying, and so it goes, on and on. People run this risk, if they sit next to someone and might be talking private, or might be plotting to mug and rob the person who does not understand their language. Place yourself in a life-boat on the open sea for days, with two people, who chatter away in a lingo unintelligible to you...do you think first, that they're discussing the weather, or do you think they're making contingency plans for the eventuality that you are not rescued in time for all three to not starve to death?

If we are to live peacefully together, we must be open, or keep out of the public square while we're 'private'. I must ask myself, just how theoretical the on-the-bus situation is for you. Having spent years riding the buses every day, I know I am not alone in my views, all you need do is read the faces. You can, of course, dismiss such views as 'wrong', but that does not do away with them. We are dealing with survival instincts here. The only way out of this is through it. It is self-defeating to try to crack the whip on political correctness. Better talk things out in places like this one, for instance. If I must play the role of pinata/devil's advocate, so be it. I am willing to do my bit to see to it that nobody is left bleeding to death in the village square.

Hope you're less mystified now...if not, ask intelligent questions, that is how progress is effected.

about requirements!

Doctors are of course the ones who really try to avoid anyone else from joining their ranks;
I would suggest that every doctor licenced in Canada learns how to write legibly! before they are allowed to scribble more prescriptions that nobody can read

Common courtesy

It seem that a lot of posters here feel it is quite ok for people to communicate in a foreign language in a public place;
Maybe they are the same people who managed to spoil USA's reputation right after WW2, when the slogan was "The ugly American"?

The visiting Yanks made themselves unpopular big time by acting as if everything was there for their convenience and that the "locals" just were funny creatures.

Once again if you have any sense about decorum, then you do as the Romans do, when in Rome! even if you plan to stay in Rome the rest of your life!

Of course "common courtesy" is not so very common,is it?

Rant

Pardon me if I rant here, I have lived with this issue for over 50 years, and it is good to have a forum to express some of my findings.

First off it is difficult to arrive in a new country and learn all of its peculiarities; so give new immigrants some slack here, please!

One simple lesson is that when a newbie do not understand you, it is of no help whatsoever if you keep raising your voice! he is not deaf! Instead use a different word!

If he arrives here with a skill that local youths do not possess, then realize that perhaps he did not attend school till he was 25, but instead was out there learning a trade?

If he is not fascinated with your interests, then consider that there is more to life than hockey and golf!

Now, about the new wave of immigrants we have a totally different story, they are not interested in becoming Canadians, except for the benefits they may claim.

While the "old school" immigrants would set up shop and try to eke a living out of selling you groceries for example, the new generation go to exclusive shopping centres where nobody speaks english!

Their kids drive fancy cars and have no regard for anyone's safety because they can afford the fines.

We have allowed rich foreigners to come in here and take over entire communities, leaving us to move out into the hinterland.

If that is progress, then please explain who benefits?

Do The Math

Alive

If that is progress, then please explain who benefits?

I guess the people that sold the houses in these so-called communities have benefited. They were able to sell for vastly more than they probably ever dreamed of due to the influx of immigrants. So these voluntary sellers are now flush with cash.

Alive

If you're talking, as others have, about Richmond I disagree. I regularly (at least twice a month) go to the centres there and I have always been served in polite English. Same in the restaurants there too. Always. Same in Metrotown and Punjabi Market. Am I missing something; or are you?

Alive

First of all there's something distasteful using the adjective 'fancy'. It betrays your dislike, or some other emotion. There's nothing wrong with new cars or non-fancy cars as long as they are road worthy, it's the way they are driven that's important and this is a policing matter. Drive around some parts of Surrey, Delta or Langley and tell me if you think the crazy 'white' kids screaming around in beat-up old cars and trucks make you feel any safer!

As for Dorothy; how does one distinguish tourists from immigrants? If you're traveling with a friend in Mexico or Japan do you ensure that you are only speaking Spanish or Japanese in public? Do you think it would be good idea to have tourists here wear identifying armbands to distinguish them from immigrants so as to allow them an exemption from your dictum?