Bill C-24 Second Reading on February 27th:

[MrB]

Yes, as you said in your own post, immigration levels have increased under this government. That was my point. Now if Cons were truly "racist", would they do that, or would they seek to reverse the trend and allow less immigrants into Canada? Also, the Cons were the ones, rightly or wrongly, who created the whole TFW mess. Like it or not, they did allow in more foreigners and provide a path to PR for them.

How the immigrants feel about a government is irrelevant to the government's immigration policies. The same immigrants that are complaining about c-24 all received their PR's under the current conservative government. I bet they felt pretty good about the Conservatives when they received their COPR in the mail.

Reading the various threads in this forum, it seems like the Cons just can't win. You criticize them for cutting down on FSW, while others criticize them for not having enough jobs in Canada for FSW's that were previously allowed in. You call them racist while others abuse them for allowing in too many foreigners under TFW. Make up your minds!


We need to learn to distinguish Immigration from Citiizenship people! What is happening with Canadian immigration(increasing levels) is simply the inevitable i.e for an ageing population and an underpopulated one. To the issue of citizenship, you can have permanent residents contribute to nation building but allowing them to become citizens has political implications, it changes the political landscape. Remove the wool from your eyes, I'm not a fan of CONspiracy but there's a motive.

All the so called issues such as "backlogs", "citizenship of convenience" can be effectively dealt with through alternative means e.g making it mandatory for Canadians outside the country to pay taxes in order to enjoy benefits. I can assure you that an extra one year is a water drop for "citizens of convenience"...it is nothing. Hire more people, make administrative changes such as increasing applications fees, that will take care of the backlog.

 

[torontosm]

We need to learn to distinguish Immigration from Citiizenship people! What is happening with Canadian immigration(increasing levels) is simply the inevitable i.e for an ageing population and an underpopulated one. To the issue of citizenship, you can have permanent residents contribute to nation building but allowing them to become citizens has political implications, it changes the political landscape. Remove the wool from your eyes, I'm not a fan of CONspiracy but there's a motive.

So are you saying that the Cons are racist when it comes to citizenship, but not so when it comes to immigration?

 

[Tolerance]

So, by your logic pulled directly from Discover Canada, we should immediately send out a worldwide communication to the millions of Canadian born people currently living and working all over the world that they are to return and do jury duty and care for the environment and volunteer somewhere, or else lose their citizenship? Sure as hell they all don't vote, even though it's a "responsibility" of a citizen to do so.

How about the people who are working towards "taking responsibility for oneself and one's family" by working abroad where the opportunities are the greatest, rather than potentially sitting at home on Canadian taxpayer's welfare?

And finally, if you could please tell me how exactly I can prove or disprove an "intent to reside" at a past point in time, I'd be much obliged to hear it.

We are expanding the Bill now: if you violate what is in that brochure, your citizenship has to be revoked, plus throw any other medieval punishments on them .

Discover Canada has become a law in itself .

 

[doctorkb]

So, by your logic pulled directly from Discover Canada, we should immediately send out a worldwide communication to the millions of Canadian born people currently living and working all over the world that they are to return and do jury duty and care for the environment and volunteer somewhere, or else lose their citizenship? Sure as hell they all don't vote, even though it's a "responsibility" of a citizen to do so.

As I just posted -- I would change the law that requires citizens to return for jury duty, and to vote (by mail would be fine with the latter).

And finally, if you could please tell me how exactly I can prove or disprove an "intent to reside" at a past point in time, I'd be much obliged to hear it.

I would say the burden is on the disprove. And that comes back to the making of statements, as well as establishing of ties. If a person has no ties (no friends, permanent work, etc.) and makes statements that they're only here as long as they need to be to get citizenship, I'd say that's disproven.

 

[CanV]

You seem to be confused. In your mind, if not the government, who exactly determines policy? Are you saying policies are dictated by some third party and are set in stone? If so, then why even bother electing a government?

The Cons can change immigration policies whenever they want, as they have done with sub-areas such as refugees and TFW's.

If you cannot ditinguish between laws and policies and how one functions with the scope of the other, then this discussion ends here.

But I will still answer your question on why to elect a government. Its to make you feel you live in a democracy.

 

[Tolerance]

I assume your wife has given up her American passport? She has no intent to live there, does she?

I smell blood .

 

[on-hold]

Well, by making such a broad statement, you just happened to stereotype all Americans as gun-loving, trigger happy, immigrant hating racists while concurrently painting Mexicans as poverty stricken people who have to resort to theft to feed their families. Racist much?

Like most conservative people who try to accuse other people of racism, you can't seem to get things straight. Several mistakes that you made:

1) I wrote 'guys who are trying to come over and pick vegetables and support their families', not 'Mexicans'. Most people who try to cross into America illegally from Latin America are poor -- that's why they're coming. Many of them work in agriculture -- I don't look down on that in the least, it's a valuable service.. Nothing in my post indicated disapproval of them.

2) I wrote 'you', referring to DoctorKB, whose attitudes towards immigrants are very, very similar to the 'gun-loving, trigger happy, immigrant hating racists' who hand out on the Rio Grande threatening people. Secondly, even if I did say that Americans are all those things, I completely deny that would be 'racist'.

So in other words, Mexicans were never mentioned, I didn't have anything negative to write about undocumented immigrants, and Americans weren't even mentioned -- or do you have a definition of 'racism' that includes gun-toting vigilantes as a race?

 

[doctorkb]

I smell blood .

Naturalization is different from birth-right. That's well enshrined in the US citizenship rules (i.e. naturalized citizens are not eligible for the presidency).

Furthermore, the only time intent matters is during the application for a new citizenship. If I was trying to get American citizenship, without the intent to reside there afterwards, I'd be hoping someone would scrutinize that.

 

[MrB]

So are you saying that the Cons are racist when it comes to citizenship, but not so when it comes to immigration?

You can call the CONS whatever you want. They are a political party with their ideologies that identify them as conservatives. The CONS created the Canadian Experience Class because they recognized the value of Canadian experience for IMMIGRATION, but in turn the "Canadian Experience" has no value when it comes to Citizenship? Hence the elimination of pre-PR times. You can call it racism, xenophobia e.t.c All I know is that things don't add up.

 

[doctorkb]

2) I wrote 'you', referring to DoctorKB, whose attitudes towards immigrants are very, very similar to the 'gun-loving, trigger happy, immigrant hating racists' who hand out on the Rio Grande threatening people. Secondly, even if I did say that Americans are all those things, I completely deny that would be 'racist'.

So what, my attitude towards immigration being that immigrants should be contributing members of society is now akin to being a "gun-loving, trigger happy, immigrant hating racist"?

Pardon me for not wanting this country to turn into the land of hand-outs for people who can't contribute (and can't get hand-outs in their home country).

I'll say it quite plainly -- my desire to see greater (legitimate) immigration into Canada is pretty rare among natural-born Canadians. I do know of a great deal of people that would say the immigration reform isn't going far enough.

 

[on-hold]

Naturalization is different from birth-right. That's well enshrined in the US citizenship rules (i.e. naturalized citizens are not eligible for the presidency).

Furthermore, the only time intent matters is during the application for a new citizenship. If I was trying to get American citizenship, without the intent to reside there afterwards, I'd be hoping someone would scrutinize that.

Yep, I thought so. You hate immigrants, have all kinds of ridiculous rules for them (no transferring money home, no travel, must WORK FOR CANADIANS). But . . . but . . . your wife's an immigrant! How to separate her from all the other, not-so-good, smelly immigrants? I know! If she breaks the citizenship rules, well, none of them apply to her! She doesn't have duties, they're for those Middle Eastern immigrants who are -- wait, what I'm about to write might make some people feel faint -- travelling on a Canadian passport. Yes, you heard correctly, such monsters do walk the same earth as us!

That Wikipedia authority you brought up didn't mention that those duties of citizenship only applied to naturalized citizens, did it? How is your wife fulfilling those, up here in the North?

 

[on-hold]

So what, my attitude towards immigration being that immigrants should be contributing members of society is now akin to being a "gun-loving, trigger happy, immigrant hating racist"?

Actually, the reason that phrase was in quotes is because it is from your friend/sock puppet, torontosm. If you don't like the word, write to him. I believe mine was 'yahoo', which has a much more refined meaning.

 

[Tolerance]

Yep, I thought so. You hate immigrants, have all kinds of ridiculous rules for them (no transferring money home, no travel, must WORK FOR CANADIANS). But . . . but . . . your wife's an immigrant! How to separate her from all the other, not-so-good, smelly immigrants? I know! If she breaks the citizenship rules, well, none of them apply to her! She doesn't have duties, they're for those Middle Eastern immigrants who are -- wait, what I'm about to write might make some people feel faint -- travelling on a Canadian passport. Yes, you heard correctly, such monsters do walk the same earth as us!

That Wikipedia authority you brought up didn't mention that those duties of citizenship only applied to naturalized citizens, did it? How is your wife fulfilling those, up here in the North?

I think that pretty much completes his ridiculous Discover Canada argument.

 

[MrB]

So what, my attitude towards immigration being that immigrants should be contributing members of society is now akin to being a "gun-loving, trigger happy, immigrant hating racist"?

Pardon me for not wanting this country to turn into the land of hand-outs for people who can't contribute (and can't get hand-outs in their home country).

I'll say it quite plainly -- my desire to see greater (legitimate) immigration into Canada is pretty rare among natural-born Canadians. I do know of a great deal of people that would say the immigration reform isn't going far enough.

No disrespect, you write well, so I assume you are well read and can think well too. I would like to challenge you to a healthy debate, for all the claims you've made about the "many" who abuse the system, show me the evidence i.e stats, data, journal articles. They better demonstrate that those who abuse the system are significant in number. You are buying into the dangerous narrative that the integrity of Canadian immigration is under threat.

You talk about citizenship of convenience as if an immigrant can just walk into Canada and after a year or two become a citizen. Even if that's the case which is clearly not, tell me how adding a year to the currently required 3 years would deter those seeking "convenience". Or am I missing something is there a separate stream(faster) for those seeking convenience? I'll love to join it...lmao!

 

[Matt the Aussie]

No disrespect, you write well, so I assume you are well read and can think well too. I would like to challenge you to a healthy debate, for all the claims you've made about the "many" who abuse the system, show me the evidence i.e stats, data, journal articles. They better demonstrate that those who abuse the system are significant in number. You are buying into the dangerous narrative that the integrity of Canadian immigration is under threat.

You talk about citizenship of convenience as if an immigrant can just walk into Canada and after a year or two become a citizen. Even if that's the case which is clearly not, tell me how adding a year to the currently required 3 years would deter those seeking "convenience". Or am I missing something is there a separate stream(faster) for those seeking convenience? I'll love to join it...lmao!

Remember, it'll be 2 years for some of us with no pre-PR time counted!