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  #21  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2017, 10:54 PM
GernB GernB is offline
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Originally Posted by wave46 View Post
I'll argue the opposite.

Every time we've had a 'national goal', we've done a better job of effectively dividing ourselves than uniting ourselves - with maybe the exception of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The era of 1970-1995 was filled with "national goals" and it was one of the most bitter eras in federal-provincial relationships. By and large since then, we've not had much in the way of national goals and things have been relatively peaceful.

Things that unite other countries tend to divide us - for instance, the World Wars produced division in Canada whilst they produced unity in other countries.

We're a funny country that way. We do better when we focus on maintaining the status quo and getting things done by incrementalism, especially at the federal level.
I'd argue that that's more a symptom of timid federal governments that are afraid of using their constitutionally sanctioned powers. The Trans Canada Highway for instance could have been started in the 1930s, had the feds had the balls to invoke their declaratory power. They could also have expanded it to a national freeway under the same clause in the 1970s, rather than allowing the original agreement to lapse. National healthcare could have been instituted in the late 1940s had Mackenzie King the will to push harder for it. The TransCanada pipeline could have been built to Montreal had St. Laurent not been afraid of offending Duplessis. The idea of a national power grid that only recently has been floated again could have been started in the 1960s had Pearson not been afraid of offending Lesage. Diefenbaker was afraid to risk upsetting the provinces by pressing his Bill of Rights as a constitutional document. Bennett and Mackenzie King allowed New Brunswick to block constitutional patriation in 1935-36.

On the other hand, the Trudeau Mk. 1 and Mulroney governments allowed their preoccupations to distract them from dealing with the economic crises of the 1970s and 80s, while those same preoccupations exacerbated the problems they were ostensibly attempting the deal with, so I suppose an overly bull-headed government isn't a great thing either.
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  #22  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2017, 10:59 PM
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My admittedly unique Vancouver perspective is Canada doesn't have any immigration standards at all, both on the working class and elite ends of the spectrum. We get other country's garbage, and they're turning Vancouver into garbage.
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  #23  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 3:14 AM
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some of us are immigrants or have family members that are immigrants. Your comment is therefore not cool at all.
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  #24  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 6:40 AM
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My admittedly unique Vancouver perspective is Canada doesn't have any immigration standards at all, both on the working class and elite ends of the spectrum. We get other country's garbage, and they're turning Vancouver into garbage.
OK, pot.
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  #25  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 10:52 AM
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In terms of selecting people to be admitted to the country Canada's immigration system is the furthest thing from a free for all. It may not be perfect but it may be the closest thing there is to a global gold standard.

Only someone opposed to most any immigration at all would see it as opening up our doors to the masses of great unwashed. (For lack of a better term.)

Refugee admissions are another story but of course if we are going to be compassionate we don't have the luxury of choosing where crises and wars break out and which types of people are going to be in danger and lose everything.
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  #26  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 1:06 PM
kwoldtimer kwoldtimer is offline
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[QUOTE=Acajack;7952190]In terms of selecting people to be admitted to the country Canada's immigration system is the furthest thing from a free for all. It may not be perfect but it may be the closest thing there is to a global gold standard.

Only someone opposed to most any immigration at all would see it as opening up our doors to the masses of great unwashed. (For lack of a better term.)

Refugee admissions are another story but of course if we are going to be compassionate we don't have the luxury of choosing where crises and wars break out and which types of people are going to be in danger and lose everything.[/QUOTE]

Although we do retain, in general, control over whom we decide to accept as refugees.
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  #27  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 4:21 PM
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It seems like despite the large differences in the sources, selection processes and socio-economic profiles of the immigrants, many developed western nations do not seem to differ that widely in terms of the number of immigrants taken in nationally.

Many of these countries seem to take in roughly between 100, 000 - 400, 000 immigrants a year, like UK, Canada, Australia, and many similarly sized European countries. The US (and more recently Germany) are the western nations taking in around a million within a year but they are larger than most western nations.
So, overall no country is taking much more than one million people a year, and most of these take hundreds of thousands.

A lot of these countries have their total percentage of foreign-born population in a similar range -- from about the 10s -20s % , with countries like the UK, US, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Spain the Netherlands falling within the 10-15% range and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand on the higher end in the 20s percentage-wise. Countries in the world with higher percentages than that tend to be small, or city-states, or be the Gulf countries where foreigners tend to be "guests" rather than long-term immigrants.

So, it seems like attributes of either the immigrants themselves and how they integrate, or of the host country and the reception they get seem to drive "how successful" immigration is seen, rather than the raw number of proportion of immigrants.
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  #28  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 4:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
Refugee admissions are another story but of course if we are going to be compassionate we don't have the luxury of choosing where crises and wars break out and which types of people are going to be in danger and lose everything.
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Originally Posted by kwoldtimer View Post

Although we do retain, in general, control over whom we decide to accept as refugees.
Most refugees from the Middle East, Africa or Asia that manage to leave don't really make it really far though, especially to a developed western country.

That's why many millions of Syrian refugees are in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey and although Germany has taken over half a million, only tens of thousands are in Canada, and fewer in the US still.

The Rohingya refugees are mostly in neighboring Bangladesh, but hardly any have managed to be accepted into a western country like the US or Canada.

There are times, however, not too long ago when there have been more refugees accepted in the west than in contemporary times, such as when the US accepted nearly a million Vietnamese refugees in the aftermath of the Vietnam war.
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  #29  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 5:20 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
some of us are immigrants or have family members that are immigrants. Your comment is therefore not cool at all.
Obviously I'm speaking in generalities and there are exceptions.
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  #30  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 5:21 PM
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OK, pot.
I'm in the process of leaving the country so if I'm garbage I'm not going to be Canada's problem much longer, thankfully.
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  #31  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 6:28 PM
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While we certainly don't have any options on where these refugees ORIGINALLY come from, we do have total control over where they Immediately came from.

Canada should not, under any circumstance, accept any refugee that comes from an immediate safe country ie USA, Europe. Refugees are exactly that.........people fleeing due to imminent threat for an aray of reasons {ie religion, ethnic minority, sexual minority, political repression etc}. People coming from a safe country are doing no such thing but simpy country shopping. It will be interesting to see how many of these supposed refugees are denied status and quickly return to the suppossedly oppressive US/Europe.

As far as refugees arriving in from a non-safe country, their reviews should be done within 3 months maximum without these endless appeals. Our civil servants are well aware of what a refugee is and their decision should be final avoiding the court systems. The reason why Canadians have near zero respect for our immigration system is that those who are clearly not refugees still get to take advantage of our social system for years on end and of course have a kid which guarntees their acceptance.
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  #32  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 6:30 PM
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As far as the skilled immigrants being denied certification, they should be informed of their lack of employment opportunities well before they arrive so they can make a more informed decsion. Ottawa could use this as a tool and force the issue but won't.
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  #33  
Old Posted Oct 14, 2017, 10:01 PM
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Agree with ssiguy regarding refugees especially about informing people of their job prospects and qualifications.

Also disclaimer. I have left Canada but lived here for decades. I originally came here through the refugee system. We didn't country shop but instead stayed in the the FIRST safe country where we were first in a holding facility, and then in a rental accommodation waiting for over a year until we had a choice of countries (Australia, South Africa, Canada). Canada was picked and we got a LOAN for a plane ticket to Newfoundland. Not many jobs there in the 80s and eventually shifted west (I was younger and still with my family). In all likely hood not a single person from my family will die in Canada...after decades of living here.
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  #34  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2017, 6:57 AM
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Originally Posted by drew View Post
Just an FYI - but it is extremely difficult for a Canadian trained engineer to work in Quebec, let alone immigrants.

I don't know of many "national" engineering consulting firms that maintain offices in Quebec.
I know that for mining engineering/consulting there are companies here in Timmins that work on projects in Quebec. And there are Quebec based companies that have offices and operate here. One example:

Exp http://www.exp.com/ has an office in my neighbourhood. It seems to be a Quebec-based company. When I was in Rouyn-Noranda a few weeks ago I noticed that the company has a much larger office there.

Here's another example of an engineering company based in the Quebec City area and offices and projects across Canada including here in Timmins with its subsidiary Northec. http://www.ebcinc.com/en/contact/siege-social/
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  #35  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2017, 4:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Loco101 View Post
I know that for mining engineering/consulting there are companies here in Timmins that work on projects in Quebec. And there are Quebec based companies that have offices and operate here. One example:

Exp http://www.exp.com/ has an office in my neighbourhood. It seems to be a Quebec-based company. When I was in Rouyn-Noranda a few weeks ago I noticed that the company has a much larger office there.

Here's another example of an engineering company based in the Quebec City area and offices and projects across Canada including here in Timmins with its subsidiary Northec. http://www.ebcinc.com/en/contact/siege-social/
I think it's more common in one direction than the other, though.

Quebec companies are more likely to bit the bullet and deal with the regulatory differences and set up shop in the "ROC" than vice versa, because the potential market is much larger and the language barrier is not as difficult to overcome as more Quebecers are bilingual than ROCers are.
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  #36  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2017, 12:10 AM
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Originally Posted by drew View Post
I can't speak for other professions, but for Engineers - it should be no mystery to any immigrant as to what countries the provincial associations view engineering degrees as "equivalent" to those obtained in Canada.

For those that arrive in Canada with degrees from countries that don't meet the criteria, there are ways to demonstrate technical competency, and obtain the necessary Canadian experience. It happens all the time, but does take time and requires a willing employer.

The provincial professional associations have a legal duty to protect the safety of Canadians - not to fast track immigrants into getting credentials that could pose serious public safety risks.
Engineering shows you exactly what's wrong with professional governance in this country. We have 13 regulators. For a country of 35 million. Ridiculous.

There should be a "Canadian College of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists" (or something to that effect) that is the national licensing body for the country. Sure, we have different licensing regulations in each province. But there's no reason, they shouldn't be harmonized and why there can't be a single national regulatory body that handles licensing and accreditation.

A single national regulator would also likely be much more capable to both assessing and shepherding through foreign trained engineers.

And this is just one profession. Look at the new ones popping up, like HR. Even they have provincial divisions. Why?

The fact that we are a tenth the size of the behemoth to the south should compel us to seek out economies of scale where possible. And that should normally mean we do more at the national level. Instead, this country's instinct is to run to their provincial corner on just about every single issue. Professional governance is just one more manifestation of this. And this does impact us. It destroys productivity while costing us top tier marginal talent.
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  #37  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2017, 12:38 AM
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^ When you compare Canada to pretty much any other Western country it's quite apparent how radically decentralized we are and how the provinces are practically countries. Even the US, supposedly a union of sovereign states, has a stronger central government than we do.

Heck, the separate countries in the European Union in many ways have more binding them together than our provinces do.
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  #38  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2017, 5:22 AM
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
^ When you compare Canada to pretty much any other Western country it's quite apparent how radically decentralized we are and how the provinces are practically countries. Even the US, supposedly a union of sovereign states, has a stronger central government than we do.

Heck, the separate countries in the European Union in many ways have more binding them together than our provinces do.
It generally works, though? Certainly not perfectly, but given the alternatives, I'll take it.

Decisions made at the lowest level possible tend to make for the happiest outcomes IMO.
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  #39  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2017, 5:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Truenorth00 View Post
Engineering shows you exactly what's wrong with professional governance in this country. We have 13 regulators. For a country of 35 million. Ridiculous.

And this is just one profession. Look at the new ones popping up, like HR. Even they have provincial divisions. Why?
Because labour law is the domain of the provincial governments.

The US has a number of states that are very small in population, yet have all the licencing requirements of larger states.

Building consensus in this country is hard. Really hard. To the point that the compromises needed would likely destroy any efficiency advantage that might be achieved.

Realistically - aside from Quebec - is it really difficult to change professional designations aside from the bureaucracy? I would have no problem moving to another province and practicing my career. Maybe other professions are different?
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  #40  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2017, 5:37 AM
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Originally Posted by Pinion View Post
I'm in the process of leaving the country so if I'm garbage I'm not going to be Canada's problem much longer, thankfully.
Pray tell what high standard did you meet to qualify for immigration to this other country?
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