A scarier strategic problem - no people

[Long in the tooth]

I'm sorry, but can't people see the obvious?  If you don't have kids, who do you think will be around to visit?  Horrifically expensive, emotionally draining, but the only surety to our future.

 

[Kirkhill]

Thursday, May 17, 2007
110,000 abortions per year in Canada
The Globe reported today that teen pregnancies are down and abortions are declining; it was a decent article, but the last line caught me off guard:
"In Canada, there are about 330,000 lives birth each year, and about 110,000 abortions."

Source

Canada to accept up to 265,000 new immigrants in 2008
Ottawa, October 31, 2007 — The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, announced today that Canada expects to welcome between 240,000 and 265,000 newcomers in 2008.

  Source



265,000 immigrants to offset 110,000 abortions (+ those prevented by birth control).


And ultimately what is the issue?

The issue is the attitude of us in society that sees pregnancy out of wedlock as a problem.  We stigmatize the mothers.  We fail to support them and their children..........and that support issue isn't just a government problem.  It is a problem of all of those "grandmothers and grandfathers" that fail to step up and support their own kin - their daugthers and sons and grandkids.  As often as not the mother is ostracized, and occasionally murdered.

The solution to our declining population?  More families like the Palins - with more government policies that would support the types of decisions that the Palins have made.  Policies that support a conventionally extended family.  Policies that encourage marriage and family, that allow grandparents to accept their grandkids as full dependents and that adjust support accordingly.

In Indiana my wife and I used to remark on the number of incidences of babes in the arms of 17 year old mothers with 34 year old grandmothers, 51 year old great-grandmothers and 68 year old great-great grandmothers.  Assuming that the fathers are of like ages that represents a clan of 4 generations of working age adults in a position to support their infants, - not to mention the 85 year olds who are also often able to contribute, if only as baby sitters and advisors.

If we increase the cycle rate (reduce the generational interval from 27 years to 17 years) and take away the barriers to having and raising out of wedlock children that encourage desperate young women to throw away potential Canadian citizens then the problem disappears quickly.

And that isn't too difficult to accomplish....

All that would have to happen is for those uptight socialists down east to develop the same attitudes  towards families as Albertans and Native Canadians.  For all their problems the Natives are out reproducing the White Folks.

In eastern Canada and BC and the Yukon the birth rate is around 10 per 1000.  In Alberta it is 30% higher.  Even in Manitoba and Saskatchewan it is 20% higher.  In Alberta you certainly are more likely to run into Palinesque clans but in all three provinces you also have a strong Native cohort.  And up north, in the Territories it is 60% higher while in Nunavut it is 140% higher.  Both of those are Native dominated societies.  The Inuit, I would suggest because of their relatively recent* exposure to White Society (as opposed to White Traders) still have the most semblance of their traditional structures intact. Source

It is not that we don't know how to solve the problem of creating more Canadians.  That bit is the fun bit.  The only question is how do we support them.

I would be placing my bet on the clan - and not looking at every new birth as a potential ward of the state and a source of dishonour to the mother and her family.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* Most Canadian Government intervention in the north appears to have not happened until the era of Diefenbaker and Mowat and the forced relocation of the Inuit to the High Arctic in the 50's.  Consequently their has been less time for the Government to damage their society than there has on the prairies or in the east.

 

[Kirkhill]

....The most important thing to know about the left today is that it is centered on social issues. At root, it always has been, ever since the movement took form and received its name in the revolutionary Paris of the 1790s. In order to drive toward a vision of true human liberation, all the institutions and moral codes we associate with civilization had to be torn down. The institutions targeted in revolutionary France included the monarchy and the nobility, but even higher on the enemies list of the Jacobins and their allies were organized religion and the family, institutions in which the moral values of traditional society could be preserved and passed on outside the control of the leftist vanguard.

Full human liberation always remained the ultimate vision of the left--Marx, for one, was explicit on this point--but the left in its more than 200-year history has been flexible and adaptable in the forms it was willing to assume and the projects it was willing to undertake in pursuit of its anti-institutional goals. For more than a hundred years, the central project of the global left was socialism.

It's hard to credit today, but as recently as the 1940s most Western political elites believed government ownership of business and national planning were the keys to economic modernization. Even when socialism's economic prestige was eroded by the West's capitalist boom after World War II, socialism retained credibility as a means of income redistribution.

It was the turbulent 1960s that proved a strategic turning point for the left. The worldwide social and cultural upheavals that culminated in 1968 were felt as a crisis of confidence by institutions in the West. Some institutions (universities, for example) defected to the rebels, while others saw their centuries-long influence on the population greatly weaken or drain away virtually overnight.

In the short run, most political elites weathered the storm. A big reason, the left gradually realized, was that socialist economics had become an albatross. Increasingly, the democratic parties of the left in Western countries downplayed socialism or even decoupled from it, leaving them free to pursue the anti-institutional, relativistic moral crusade that has been in the DNA of the left all along.

This newly revitalized social and cultural agenda made it possible for the left to shrug off the collapse of European communism and the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago. Even in countries like China where the Communist party retained dictatorial power, socialist economics became a thing of the past. Attempts to suppress religion and limit the autonomy of the family did not.

For the post-1960s, post-socialist left, the single most important breakthrough has been the alliance between modern feminism and the sexual revolution. This was far from inevitable. Up until around 1960, attempts at sexual liberation were resisted by most educated women. In the wake of the success of Playboy and other mass-circulation pornographic magazines in the 1950s, men were depicted as the initiators and main beneficiaries of sexual liberation, women as intolerant of promiscuity as well as potential victims of predatory "liberated" men.

With the introduction of the Pill around 1960, things abruptly began to change. Fears of overpopulation legitimated a contraceptive ethic throughout middle-class society in North America, Europe, Japan, and the Soviet bloc. China, which discouraged contraception and welcomed population gains under Mao Zedong, flipped to the extreme of the One Child policy in 1979, shortly after pro-capitalist reformers took charge and fixed on strict population control as an integral and unquestioned part of the package of Western-style development.

The fact that the Pill was taken only by women gave them a greater feeling of control over their sexual activity and eroded their social and psychological resistance to premarital sex. "No fault" divorce, a term borrowed from the field of auto insurance, in reality amounted to unilateral divorce and began to undermine the idea of marriage as a binding mutual contract oriented toward the procreation and nurturing of children. Contrary to nearly every prediction, the ubiquity of far more reliable methods of contraception and the growing ideological separation of sex from reproduction, coincided with a huge increase in unwed pregnancies.

Though earlier versions of feminism tended to embrace children and elevate motherhood, the more adversarial feminism that gained a mass base in virtually every affluent democracy beginning in the 1970s preached that children and childbearing were the central instrumentality of men's subjugation of women. This more than anything else in the menu of the post-socialist left raised toward cultural consensus a vision in which the monogamous family was what prevented humanity from achieving a Rousseau-like "natural" state of freedom from all laws and all bonds of mutual obligation.

If this analysis is correct, the single most important narrative holding the left together in today's politics and culture is the one offered--often with little or no dissent--by adversarial feminism. The premise of this narrative is that for women to achieve dignity and self-fulfillment in modern society, they must distance themselves, not necessarily from men or marriage or childbearing, but from the kind of marriage in which a mother's temptation to be with and enjoy several children becomes a synonym for holding women back and cheating them out of professional success.

  Source

This exegesis of the left's philosophy is largely in accord with where I find myself.

In Israel the principle internal tension comes from the divide between the Corporatist Jabotinski Faction of the Jews of the Diaspora (Likud) and their fellow Displaced Persons, the Socialists of the Kibbutzim (Labour).  The Nationalists versus the Internationalists (Workers of the World Unite).  This dichotomy is complicated by the presence of a Traditionalist Religious Faction. 

(Please note - if you are offended by flippant comments be advised that I do not question the right of Israel to exist, nor the right of Jews to defend themselves nor to create a society in whatever fashion they see fit. They have exactly the same rights as any other group.  They can have what they can hold.)

The same split of beliefs and factions are played out in every country in the world - including Canada.

The Kibbutzim were described by my Dad's mates in the Paras in derogatory (and I have no doubt, given that we are talking about 18-21 year old "celibates", envious ) tones, as Stud Farms.   Their belief, slanderous or not, was that in the Kibbutzim men of their age not only were not forced to be celibate (officially) but in fact had access to all the women and would never have responsibility for their children because the "State-Kibbutz" would raise them.  For a 19 year old Tom far from home with few friendly female faces around it all sounded too much like paradise and much too good for those "jew-boys" hiding guns to kill them, murdering them in their cots and hanging their sergeants.  There was certainly a degree of animosity - mutual.

Leaving aside the viciousness of the jew-baiting inherent in that belief (in 1967 Dad could find himself cheering on Israeli Paras), the notion that fostered the concept of the Kibbutzm is at the heart of the ongoing pressure towards separating the family and the church from education, putting it in the hand of a socially inclined state apparatus (bureaucrats and teachers), reducing the standards for removing children from their family (residential schools were part of that continuum and related to the phenomenon that drew socialism out of Manchester churches and Ayrshire libraries and the CCF out of a Scots Methodist Minister - Bill Blaikie will understand the connection).  It is also part and parcel with the push to national early daycare and keeping children in school longer. 

State run "orphanages" are a staple of Stalinist (and for that matter Hitlerian) regimes.  Ceaucescu's being only the most recent and notorious.

It is also the driving force behind Death/Inheritance Taxes.  In the early 60s, when the Beatles wrote the song "Taxman" they and many other Brits, including my Father and Sean Connery, were driven to leave Britain by the taxes imposed by Labour.  This was the era of the National Trust when impoverished "Great" families were required to sell-off/donate/open their estates because the tax burden was too great for them to be able to afford to keep their property.  That was an explicit aim of Labour's socialist policies - to drag everyone down to the same starting point in the expectation that with an equal start and equal opportunity then an equal outcome would eventuate and the millenium would be achieved, So help them God.  And God was an explicit part of their belief system (The hymn "Jerusalem" (lyrics)was, for many years, the Labour Party's anthem - sung along with "The Red Flag" and "The Internationale" - thus reflecting the the internal tensions within the Labour Party).

My Grandfather reflected the personal tensions of that struggle between Nationalists and Internationalists.  He was son of an Ayrshire miner and Labour Party organizer and as such associated with Socialism.  Burns was his favourite poet (Nationalist) but his favourite poem - after Tam O'Shanter - was "Is there for Honest Poverty" - best known for its line ..."The Rank is but the Guinea's stamp, the man's the gowd (gold) for a' that"  a favourite of the Internationalists and the Marxists.  But he, like most of his ilk, was also a staunch Presbyterian, an Elder of the Kirk that held the Sabbath close and a practicing Mason (who like most in those days did not advertize the fact - even to his grandson).  He was also a strong militarist, taking pride in both his family's military service and his own service as an "ERK" in the RAF during WW2.  His wife, a fellow employee of the Co-Operative, and a member of "The Rural" and "The Women's Institute" shared his views

Jock Davidson and the Clydesiders like George Galloway were, and are an abomination to everything that they believed in.

No, I am firmly in agreement with the above article. It is not that there is a conspiracy.  A conspiracy suggests a few directing the many.  It is worse than that.  It is a generalized, cross-cultural belief that somewhere, somehow, sometime - IN THIS WORLD - the lion shall lie down with the lamb (here's the actual quote and here and here
is its setting).  Just as a note - there is damlittle of peace in that passage.  It is all about revolution, red in tooth and claw, and divine retribution resulting in the good guys winning so that the only people left are those that agree with the aggrieved down-trodden. 

That is an Old Testament passage - based on the concept of the perfectability of this world.  A belief held dear by Scots and Boer Covenanters and Presbyterians and other Calvinists like the Huguenots.

The New Testament which defines "Christians", interestingly enough, takes the opposite view.  There is no perfection to be found in this world.  You will have to wait for the next to find peace.

PS - reference my previous submission - My Grandparents, dearly beloved but still stiff-necked Presbyterians and adorers of Tommy Douglas, would have been amongst the first to Tsk-Tsk at the notion of an unwed mother.  The Left come by their intolerance honestly.  It is in the genes and their traditional, family, upbringing.

 

[CougarKing]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is an article to which we should give careful attention because it also applies to Canada;

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080905.wreckoning0906/BNStory/International/home
Immigration is absolutely essential for Canada’s future prosperity – hell’s bells increased immigration is essential for our very survival.

BUT we need carefully targeted immigration. We need to recruit people who will, largely, “hit the ground running” and integrate, fairly easily, into a sophisticated, tolerant, liberal-capitalist culture. There are, at this moment, two ‘good’ sources for large numbers of those ‘desirable’ people: China and India. There are also some ‘bad’ sources – areas that offer people who have, by and large, demonstrated difficulty in adjusting to Canada, even in the second generation.

Demographer David Foot was just interviewed on CBC tonight, IIRC. He says that Canada should hold off on to accepting more immigrants since it's unfair to the legions of young, educated people here in Canada who are just entering the work force, which I highly disagree with not only because I am an landed immigrant myself but also because such a measure would be a form of trade/labour, pro-unionist protectionism. It would also clash with your above conclusion/recommendation.

However, if you want people to actually "hit the ground running", such as those people from China and India, you have to stop all these labour barriers that prevent them from being PRODUCTIVE members of society, such as the lack of provision of recognition of foreign credentials- which explains why there are many highly-educated immigrants who are initially forced to actually work menial jobs while they go to school at night so they can eventually get local Canadian equivalents of their credentials. Like the Chinese pediatrician forced to become a cashier or that Indian man with 3 graduate degrees forced to become a security guard simply because no one recognized his credentials in Canada - the latter story obviously featured on a CBC special segment.

When I mean provision of recognition of foreign credentials, I mean something like allowing them to take the test to get the certification their foreign credentials without them having to go back to school just to get a Canadian equivalent; this happens in the US as well. I have even heard of a long-practicing doctor from the Philippines forced to become a NURSE in the US simply because it would take longer time and cost for her to get the US equivalent of her foreign medical degrees. Also, IIRC from a CPAC segment I was watching, of one of those Parliamentary Committees/hearings, it was mentioned that in Australia they had a system whereby skilled immigrants would be tested on whether their education measured up to Australian standards even before they were allowed to enter Australia.

In reference to what most of what everyone else on this thread said earlier, Dr. Foot's arguments seemed to agree with the statements here that Russia, Germany and Japan are actually in decline when it came to their populations; he also mentioned the eventual negative effect that China's one-child policy will have on its labour market and how India may eventually overtake China in population as well as a supplier of cheap skilled labour.

Furthermore, he also actually mentioned 3 powerhouses that will actually surprise everyone in decades to come: Turkey (not surprising considering the birth rate of a Muslim population like theirs- Foot said that the EU will actually need Turkey more than Turkey will need Europe), Brazil (not surprising as well considering they have a huge largely Catholic population which is reluctant to advocate much birth-control practices) and lastly Vietnam (which is another emerging Asian Tiger that he thinks may even surpass China- I think that part of that growth may be owed to the large number of Vietnamese expats/former boat-people/exiles returning who are eager to get a piece of Vietnam's recent boom; the fact that many of these former South Vietnamese exiles, from the various diasporas throughout the West, are Catholic may also help with the later population growth).

I am only surprised that Dr. Foot did not include Indonesia in his list of emerging population powerhouses; one cannot ignore the world's largest Muslim country- with about 234 million people- who are mostly Islamic, although there are some minorities like the Christian Indonesians in the Moluccas area of Indonesia and the usual Chinese diaspora/overseas Chinese community/华侨 that is characteristic of other Southeast Asian nations and whom control a sizeable portion of the wealth there.

http://www.footwork.com/profile.asp

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Despite having a Univesity of London law degree and 7 year before the bar in Malaysia, my wife had to go through a 3 year process to become a lawyer here, including articling and "play court" Most of the stuff they covered was a rehash of what she previously studied. she also commented that the standards here were lower than Malaysia. Added to this was the fact that for the first year she was not allowed a work permit, which I figure cost us $40,000 in lost wages, which would have helped a lot.

 

[chanman]

Despite having a Univesity of London law degree and 7 year before the bar in Malaysia, my wife had to go through a 3 year process to become a lawyer here, including articling and "play court" Most of the stuff they covered was a rehash of what she previously studied. she also commented that the standards here were lower than Malaysia. Added to this was the fact that for the first year she was not allowed a work permit, which I figure cost us $40,000 in lost wages, which would have helped a lot.

My neighbours moved to Vancouver from Taiwan back in 1994.  The father is a dentist, and four years later, he still wasn't able to practice, so they moved back to Taiwan while renting out their house here and dropping by every year to check on the paperwork.  They didn't move to Vancouver for good until 2005 or so.  I hope that timeline's not representative for overseas trained dentists

 

[CougarKing]

Despite having a Univesity of London law degree and 7 year before the bar in Malaysia, my wife had to go through a 3 year process to become a lawyer here, including articling and "play court" Most of the stuff they covered was a rehash of what she previously studied. she also commented that the standards here were lower than Malaysia. Added to this was the fact that for the first year she was not allowed a work permit, which I figure cost us $40,000 in lost wages, which would have helped a lot.

See what I mean? Protectionist labour laws. Like the kinds that protectionist, unionist NDPers would favour.

And speaking of which, if the Conservatives want to appeal to a wider immigrant (who are already citizens and can vote, that is) base as well, they have to figure out a response to Stephan Dion's promise to amend for these protectionist measures by not only investing up to 800 million more to fix Canada's immigration system but called for the recognition of foreign credentials and degrees:

http://www.liberal.ca/story_14546_e.aspx

Liberals will restore fairness, streamline immigration system
RICHMOND, British Columbia – A new Liberal government will reverse the irresponsible immigration measures introduced by the Conservatives last spring and invest a total of $800 million in new federal funding to deal with the immigration backlog, welcome more new Canadians, and ensure that they succeed, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said today.

“Last spring the Conservative government gave the Immigration Minister sweeping discretionary powers to reject whole categories of immigration applications,” said Mr. Dion. “When I am elected Prime Minister I will immediately reverse these unfair and dangerous immigration changes.”

Mr. Dion went on to discuss the Liberal vision for Canada, which includes ensuring new Canadians receive the support they need to fully participate in Canadian society.

“Immigration will account for all of Canada’s net labour and population growth during the next five years and is a key element of the Liberal plan for Canada’s future success,” said Mr. Dion. “A Liberal government will make the necessary investments to increase the number of permanent residents to Canada every year and ensure they have the necessary tools to succeed.”

In full partnership with provinces, fully respecting agreements such as the one with Quebec, over four years, a new Liberal government will invest:

$400 million to modernize the immigration system, process applications more efficiently and support the admission of significantly more permanent residents to Canada.
$200 million in New Beginnings Canada – an enhanced language training initiative designed to help newcomers master the language necessary to get jobs that match their qualifications; and
an additional $200 million for Bridge to Work – a new initiative that will better prepare newcomers for the workplace through the use of internships, mentorship and work placement opportunities. And we will help get foreign credentials recognized, by providing direct financial support to assist foreign-trained doctors and other professionals in obtaining their Canadian qualifications.“A successful immigration plan is built on the sound principles of fairness, accountability and opportunity,” said Mr. Dion. “We will welcome new Canadians everywhere in Canada to help us enrich our country, and we will provide and expand their opportunities to succeed.”

And how can we achieve that if we have attitudes like this prevailing among some voters?

I don't know about you but I'm in no flippin' hurry to have some "Doctor" with some third world matchbook degree just waltzing in and becoming a "Doctor" here..............a few years in our school system sounds about right to me.

: Umm, You do realize that Canadian immigration doesn't just let anyone in? They accept landed immigrants and even just work permit holders, IIRC, based on a points system whereby they consider a number of the individual applicant's qualifications- including their degrees and so forth. It just seems so retarded that we have these well qualified invididuals who are told they can make a new life here only to find out they can't practice their trade in spite of their qualifications and years of experience. If you want to make sure whether their training is up to par with Canadian standards, then you should have them tested overseas, as Australia does, IIRC, before even allowing them in.

 

[wannabe SF member]

The idea that we will have to rely entirely on immigration to sustain our population in the future really brings up the risk of cultural clash. Won't the growing mass of foreign-educated people favor the development of some kind of sub-culture more and more removed from our original values?

My 0.02$

 

[TCBF]

- We don't have to 'grow' to 'grow rich' and growth just for the sake of growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell.

- The richest countries in the world OTHER than the USA generally have populations under twenty million.

- I find it morally reprehensible that we strip away the well educated from developing countries so that they may drive taxis in Toronto.  Since it is a case of protectionism by our professions, I believe that the government should insist that NO immigration takes place UNTIL a professional has been accorded the Canadian equivalent and can walk off an airliner and straight into practice.  If the Canadian 'guild' wants him, they can do the accrediting.

- Our educational budgets are overburdened by ESL loadings.  Priorities should go to those who speak one or both of our two official languages.

- We should use immigration as a nation-building program in a scientific way.

- Refugees: No paper ID?  No passport?  Back to the last country they stopped in (or point of flight origin).  Airline pays the tab or loses their landing privileges into Canada.



-

 

[TacticalW]

The idea that we will have to rely entirely on immigration to sustain our population in the future really brings up the risk of cultural clash. Won't the growing mass of foreign-educated people favor the development of some kind of sub-culture more and more removed from our original values?

My 0.02$

I recall there being an article on how Israel told Canada it was concerned that its stance towards them might change because of the rising muslim population. I suggest we all start making babies and contribute to the welfare of the country and our allies  8)

 

[Edward Campbell]

The idea that we will have to rely entirely on immigration to sustain our population in the future really brings up the risk of cultural clash. Won't the growing mass of foreign-educated people favor the development of some kind of sub-culture more and more removed from our original values?

My 0.02$

Yes; just as, over the past 400+ years, successive "waves" of immigrants have added their "sub-cultures" to the mosaic - enriching it.

Also: we MUST separate immigration policy from refugee policy. We 'recruit' immigrants that we need and want for our own, selfish purposes.

We do not seek refugess and, broadly, we should not 'welcome' them to Canada.

A refugee is, by definition, a person who flees his home in fear of life or limb; the refugee, also by definition, 'wants' to return to his or her home as soon as it is safe. Our refugee policy should aim to 'welcome' refugees to safe, secure places as near as possible to their homes. There, we should provide services - health, education and so on, and we should work to end the crisis which 'made' the refugees in the first place. As soon as the crisis is resolved the refugees disappear - back to their homes.

 

[Marmite]

I think we have redefined ourselves over the last 20 years. Canadians are seen overseas as being multicultural. Diverse. A true melting pot. When I first came here from the UK in 1979 at the age of 6, living in Ajax, a person of color, or non white, was rarely seen. Today, in my daughters Kindergarten class, in Whitby, she is one of 6 white students. The other 12 are Chinese, African Canadian, Indian and Pakistani. I have no problem with it, but it just goes to show, what an explosion of immigrants we have had over the last 20 years, and how it changes our identity. We are no longer that British influenced, Anglo Saxon, colony that has ruled for all these years. We are a nation of diversity and cultures.

And I disagree that our immigration policies is for our own selfish purpose. Those policies are in place to help others move to a safer, more prosperous place to live. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

... Those policies are in place to help others move to a safer, more prosperous place to live.   

If that's the case then our politicians are quite mad and very bad.

All national policies, in all nations ought to be 'selfish' - they are there, primarily to benefit the country and the people in it. If, as a secondary or tertiary matter a policy can do something for others then that's probably, usually, a good thing but it's not why one makes policy.

The policies that help others move to safer places are the "out migration" policies of other nations - if they allow their people to leave (some nations make it quite difficult) and if we want those people then they get to come here. If one of the other of those conditions is not met then those unfortunate people may remain poor and in danger.

As I have said before, refugees are a whole other matter - and it does involve making people safe, or, at least safer. But we must keep immigrants and refugees and the policies involving each very separate from one another.

 

[CougarKing]

We do not seek refugess and, broadly, we should not 'welcome' them to Canada.

A refugee is, by definition, a person who flees his home in fear of life or limb; the refugee, also by definition, 'wants' to return to his or her home as soon as it is safe. Our refugee policy should aim to 'welcome' refugees to safe, secure places as near as possible to their homes. There, we should provide services - health, education and so on, and we should work to end the crisis which 'made' the refugees in the first place. As soon as the crisis is resolved the refugees disappear - back to their homes.

I for one disagree with this notion. But both of us can at least agree that political refugees or those being persecuted in their home country -and would not thus not have any place to turn to- should be at least given the option of being able to apply to have refugee status here. And then you have asylees- those seeking political asylum.

You are obviously aware of those refugees fleeing due to political reasons or those conflicts or social upheavals that may be happening in their nation of origin, and the difference between them and those coming to Canada simply for economic reasons, but whom do not necessarily have anything to offer than the wllingness to work at a lower wage in dollars, such as those thousands of illegal Hispanics that flood the US borders everyday.

 

[a_majoor]

For refugees, Edward is right. The concept of refugees is people fleeing from persecution but who are willing to return to their homelands if their safety can be assured.

WRT immigrants, a more important point than even skills is attitudes. Skills can be taught, after all, but the people who choose to come to Canada (or lower Volta, for that matter), need to have the attitude that they are making their new home HOME, and there should be no attempt to drag their problems and attitudes from the old country to the new.

Samuel Huntington talks about the ideal of Civic Nationalism in his book "Who are We?", discussing the American experience. What I gained from that work is that large blocks of people coming en mass are trouble because they are "settlers" rather than immigrants, and bring their own defined culture and world view to the new nation, to the exclusion of others. We have seen this in Canada in spades, with Sikhs battling the Indian security service from Canada after the storming of the Golden Temple; Serbian and Croatian "Canadians" providing money, support and sometimes themselves to warring factions in former Yugoslavia, the LTTE levying "war taxes" on Canadians of Tamil descent to fund their insurgency in Siri Lanka and attempts to impose Sharia law and shut down free speech  in Canada by Islamic extremists.

I think we can all agree that these are not pieces of the cultural mosaic that  are welcome in Canada, but little or no effort is made to assimilate the newcomers to the social,  cultural, political or legal "norms" of Canadian society. Indeed, Multiculturalism explicitly calls for newcomers to remain "hyphenated", and not assimilate at all. I don't support that sort of multiculturalism, especially since it brings the seeds of trouble to our ground.

 

[TCBF]

For refugees, Edward is right. The concept of refugees is people fleeing from persecution but who are willing to return to their homelands if their safety can be assured. ...

- Good point - so: Immigrants should be allowed a process towards Canadian citizenship - Refugees should not.

 

[a_majoor]

Using the power of the State to manipulate human reproduction. No one in this article seems to note the huge imbalance in the male:female ratio that is creeping up in China as a side effect of the one child policy (and will reach fruition in the 2020's. In Mark Steyn's hilarious formulation "China will become the first gay superpower since Sparta").

This also becomes a bit scary in the context of the "culture wars" in the United States. "Blue" states have below replacement birth rates, while "Red" states have much higher than replacement rates. At this rate, "Progressives" will become extinct in about two generations while Sara Palin's family will be able to recolonize Canada. "Progressives" are well aware of this, and are currently in positions to manipulate tax codes, school choice and other factors to redress the balance or at least put "Red" states at a severe competative disadvantage.

Canada has a below replacement birth rate of @ 1.48 children/couple; our elites have decided the solution is flood the nation with immigrants and provide lots of State subsidies to encourage immigration.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/archive/2009/01/22/the-temptation-of-totalitarian-birth-control.aspx

The Temptation of Totalitarian Birth Control
Posted Thursday, January 22, 2009 9:46 AM | By William Saletan

People in a democratic country wouldn't let their government restrict family size ... would they?

Yes, they would. Agence France Presse reports:

More than 80 percent of Filipinos support family planning and almost half believe the government should limit the number of children a couple can have, according to a survey released here Monday. ... 44 percent believed that "the government should pass a law specifying the number of children."

Why would Filipinos say this? "The Philippine population now stands at around 90 million, with an annual growth rate of 2.04 percent, one of the highest in Asia," the article explains. And guess who's behind the high birth rate?

The findings come despite a widespread campaign by the dominant Roman Catholic Church opposing a draft law that would make family planning services more widely available in the Philippines. ... The Catholic Church, which counts over 80 percent of Filipinos as followers, has said the reproductive health bill, which has been pending in Congress for months, is headed for defeat after a high-pressure campaign by bishops.

What a mess. On one side, we have the Catholic bishops, who are so adamantly opposed to contraception that they're blocking the provision of birth control for voluntary use. On the other side, we have an emerging near-majority of the population that now favors coercive limits on family size. Do the math: The Church claims to represent 80 percent of the population, yet more than 80 percent reject its teachings on contraception, and 44 percent think the government should impose laws in precisely the opposite direction. It looks as though the bishops' anti-contraceptive absolutism is driving their own flock into the arms of a totalitarian remedy.

But in a modern society, no government could really enforce a cap on family size, could it?

Sure it could. Look next door at China, which uses state-controlled subsidies to punish couples who bear more than one child. It's quite effective. And here's what's really scary: The Chinese government has learned to treat children like any other state-allocated resource. It doesn't just impose a quota. It does what it can to guarantee your share. This helps the population accept the system.

In effect, China provides a "warranty" on children: You're limited to a state-prescribed quota, but you can refill the quota if you lose your child under specified circumstances, such as last year's earthquake. And what a warranty! The central planners don't just offer you the right to have another kid. They really deliver. Here's the report from Xinhua:

Officials of the National Population and Family Planning Commission told a conference here Friday that 757 Chinese mothers who lost children in the May 12 quake have become pregnant again, reflecting special exceptions to national and local population policies. As of Dec. 31, the officials told the agency's annual work conference, 5,724 bereaved mothers had received free reproduction services, including counseling, guidance, health exams, sterilization reversals and fertility treatments.

This is exactly what the government promised seven months ago. And, sure enough, according to the New York Times, the regime has "sent teams of doctors to carry out reverse sterilization operations." Now, that's what I call service. The state uses financial penalties to close up your reproductive system. Then, if you end up below quota, the state reopens you for business. In fact, if necessary, it does the business itself. Even the fertility treatments are free.

But state manipulation of family size is just an Asian thing, right? It couldn't happen here.

Think again. Guess which country now has Europe's highest birth rate? France. How has it achieved this? "State-provided child care and family support payments," including "nanny subsidies."  Australia has "cash payments for newborns." Spain pays "2,500 euros per new child." Austria offers "monthly payouts of $547 for the youngest child until the age of 3, and additional monthly checks ranging from $132 to $192."

These are governments that think they need more births. Most governments think they need fewer. If their citizens decide to support state-enforced limits on childbearing, and if agencies help each family fill its allotment, it's easy to envision a world where population growth is finally brought under control by the financial power of the state.

 

[a_majoor]

More "Gay Superpowers" on the way?

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006007.html

Sex Ratio At Birth Rises In Vietnam

Selective abortion of female fetuses is common in China, India, and some other Asian countries. A Plos One report finds that Vietnam shows signs of following the same pattern with a rise in the number of male births to 100 female births (Sex Ratio at Birth or SRB).

Birth history statistics indicate that the SRB in Viet Nam has recorded a steady growth since 2001. Starting from a level probably close to the biological standard of 105, the SRB reached 108 in 2005 and 112 in 2006, a value significantly above the normal level. An independent confirmation of these results comes from the surveys of births in health facilities which yielded a SRB of 110 in 2006–07. High SRB is linked to various factors such as access to modern health care, number of prenatal visits, level of higher education and employment status, young age, province of residence and prenatal sex determination. These results suggest that prenatal sex determination followed by selective abortion has recently become more common in Viet Nam. This recent trend is a consequence of various factors such as preference for sons, declining fertility, easy access to abortion, economic development as well as the increased availability of ultrasonography facilities.

One potential problem from a surplus of males is obviously more violence. All the single guys competing for women and feeling sexual frustration can cause problems.

But there's an evolutionary angle that is more interesting. The surplus of males heightens competition for reproductive resources (i.e. women) and therefore heightens selective pressures. One might expect economically more successful men to have an advantage in such a situation. If so, the effect will be to select for genes that code for smarter, more ambitious, and more driven males.

 

[Kirkhill]

Surplus males aren't a bad thing if you figure a lot of them are going to end up catching bullets for the greater glory of the greater number.

 

[a_majoor]

And people are needed to power economies as well:

http://www.briangardiner.ca/hespeler/?p=1958

Demographic Depression
May 5th, 2009

For almost ten years now if you find yourself sitting next to me at a social function, and make some passing comment about being able to afford a cottage when you retire, or what with the prices of houses what kind of house will your kids be able to buy? you would quickly discover I have a theory. It’s not an optimistic theory, it’s not a pleasant thought, but, I lost nothing when the stock market declined last year because I had an idea what was coming (although, it came three years earlier than expected).

The theory? As Mark Steyn says, “lets start with demographics, because everything does.” I argue that the greatest amount of wealth is getting set to retire, that is, the possessors of that wealth will retire.  Which means that instead of investing in stock markets, they will invest in bonds. When wealth leaves the stock market, the market contracts. Contract fast enough and it will crash. Forensic economists will sort through the rubble, but don’t be surprised if that’s partly what happened last year. Furthermore, housing prices will drop, says the theory, as these people get out of all those homes built from the 60’s to now, and move to condos, apartments and those retirement cottages. The single family home: who wants one? and those that do will find two on the market for every buyer.  Especially true of those mammoth McMansions that have predominately been built the last twenty years.

It is with some trepidation that I note, the experts (who always seem to be wrong) are starting to catch up to me. Bloomberg today has an article on just such a demographic depression, and quotes Harry Dent, author of The Great Depression Ahead:

    What you can’t see in the most recent housing numbers is the least-visible driver of home prices today: demographics.

    Baby Boomers

    The baby-boomer generation, the largest in American history, will be buying fewer single-family homes.

    The U.S. is experiencing a 40-year generational peak in consumer spending, one that will lead to “the first and last Depression of our lifetimes,” author Harry Dent predicts in his book “The Great Depression Ahead” (Free Press, 2008).

    Although we may not be headed for a 1930s-style Depression, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that boomers are dumping their four- and five-bedroom suburban homes for two- and three- bedroom condominiums.

    It’s also unlikely that the “Generation X,” born between 1965 and 1976 (or more derisively called “baby busters”), will bid up home prices. They are only 44 million strong, not as wealthy and even more in debt from college loans.

    The baby boomers are reorganizing their finances after a rocky decade in stocks. They aren’t buying as many second homes and vacation properties in warmer climates.

I was further surprised to read a press release for Dent’s book, in which he predicts a decline almost exactly as I have through the years:

    Harry Dent forecast the housing slowdown years before it occurred and sees the minor recession of 2008 as
    the beginning of a greater stock crash and depression to unfold between 2009 and 2012, with the worst crash
    for stocks and housing likely between late 2009 and mid 2011. Home prices will continue to decline into late
    2008 and then will likely experience a minor rebound in early to mid 2009. However, rising inflation, interest
    rates and a last commodity bubble will bring a final blow to stocks, the economy, housing, and even the greater
    emerging market bubble in stocks overseas.

A time frame of 2009-2012, when those boomers start retiring en masse, is exactly what I have been saying. Houses will be sold to pay for retirement, and money that was in stocks will be taken out to safer environs. The followup generations, including mine, have no capacity to fill the void. A decline in stock and housing prices must occur under those circumstances.

I’m not hiding in a bunker, scared of the future, in fact I’m quite optimistic. But a sense of this is what I have been saying has pervaded my reading of much of the economic news the past six or nine months. No need to panic, but be aware, there is likely more bad coming down the pike in the next three years.