Did it really worth it?

[keesio]

Why do you think the immigrant student's who come over here excel in schools over here as compared to Canadian students ?..because their basics and foundation is much higher.

In addition to ferge's comments, I'd like to add that the reason why many immigrant students do well academically is because they often come from cultures that place a premium on education and are motivated to take advantage of it or are pushed by their parents to do so. Especially from Asia. This is supported by the fact that statistics in the US show that Asian-American students excel in academics, including the ones who were born and grew up in US. Hence it had nothing to do with "superior" education standards in their "home country" since all of their education was from the US. It was mostly because of the drive to excel in the US with of course a big push from the "tiger" mom and dad. There are similar parallels in Canada.

 

[CanadianJeepGuy]

In 2013, white applicants are at a tremendous advantage if you look at the labour market as a whole. This is demonstrated by the fact that at equal education levels, even Canadian-born non-white men earn considerably less than white men (24% less).

Any equal opportunity programs that exist don't manage to level the playing field overall.

In the federal public service, visible minorities continue to be underrepresented. They are even more underrepresented at the executive level. See this Senate report for the statistics:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/403/huma/rep/rep02jun10-e.pdf

Do these statics reflect the desire to work in any given profession? Do they reflect the preparedness to enter the workforce at anything better than a survival job? Do they also take into account that visible minorities make up more than 90% of immigration to Canada?
Go check out any government office in the major centres in Canada and tell me that minorities are under represented. The CEO of Canada Post is Indian. All of my supervisors in Toronto were Indian/Pakistani or Filipino.
When applying to any police service preference for candidacy are given to women and people of colour even if they have scored lower than white male applicants of which there are a significant majority of applicants.

Opportunities exist to level the playing field. The question is do people take advantage of those opportunities?

 

[frege]

Do these statics reflect the desire to work in any given profession? Do they reflect the preparedness to enter the workforce at anything better than a survival job? Do they also take into account that visible minorities make up more than 90% of immigration to Canada?
Go check out any government office in the major centres in Canada and tell me that minorities are under represented. The CEO of Canada Post is Indian. All of my supervisors in Toronto were Indian/Pakistani or Filipino.
When applying to any police service preference for candidacy are given to women and people of colour even if they have scored lower than white male applicants of which there are a significant majority of applicants.

Opportunities exist to level the playing field. The question is do people take advantage of those opportunities?

Given that even Canadian-born members of visible minorities have far worse outcomes than whites in the labour force, I don't believe that the differences are due to a lack of interest or a lack of desire to work. The figures also take into account education levels.

As for the federal public service, here is an excerpt from the Senate report:

The results of the first stage of the committee’s study were tabled in the Senate in
February 2007, in a report entitled Employment Equity in the Federal Public Service –
Not There Yet.

The committee documented how it had learned that the public service
has reached some of its goals for hiring women, Aboriginal peoples and persons with
disabilities. These groups are now represented within the federal public service at a rate
that is higher than their workforce availability. However, the public service had still not
yet met its goals for hiring visible minorities, who continue to be represented at less than
their workforce availability. In 2006, representation of visible minorities in the public
service was 2.3 percentage points lower than their workforce availability (visible
minorities represented 8.1% of federal public service employees during that year, while
their workforce availability rate was 10.4%). Furthermore, from 2000 to 2005, while
employment applications from visible minorities averaged over 25%, this group received
only 10% of appointments – this phenomenon was called ―"drop off". The committee also
expressed concern that although representation for most designated groups may be
becoming more equitable on a broad scale within the federal public service, the growth
that has occurred has primarily been at the lower levels. All four of the designated
groups continue to be underrepresented in the executive ranks.

 

[truesmile]

Go check out any government office in the major centres in Canada and tell me that minorities are under represented.

+1 . . . Amen!

 

[CdnandTrini]

Reply: Is it really worth it?

WOW! you sound like one of those spoilt people who always find something to complain about everything. Agreed that as a country India does have its misses but there are many plus points too. You just were too obsessed with your crankiness to see them. From your post it just seems that you were the person having problems with everything. Have you lived in Hamilton, ON? Have you driven thro streets of Toronto suburbs? Do you drink tap water in Canada or do you buy water bottles from the store even here? You are one of those people who will find faults with stuff where ever u r.

WOW! You sound like one of those people who are bitter about someone expressing an "opinion" based upon their own experience. That is not "obsessing" or "crankiness" or "fault finding". "You are one of those people" that may want to check the "log" in your own eye before you criticize the "speck" in someone else's. SMH.....

 

[CdnandTrini]

Reply: Is it really worth it?

You're an idiot. Your points are anecdotal at best. The reality is far different. New immigrants do not mix in with the established demographic. Why? Because they feel more comfortable being around all things familiar. The worst thing any new immigrant can do it move into the "ghettos" new immigrants create for themselves. All major Canadian cities are far more diverse and open than any other cities abroad.

As for foreign professionals...you may have met some but I am married to one. There are many programmes specific to helping foreign nationals establish themselves here. Unfortunately they rely on the advice of others from their own countries to give them advice. They do not come informed or prepared. A medical professional would have to go back to university for 2 years to get their Canadian equivalency. Engineers.... it takes at least a year. 80% of the jobs available to professionals in their field are not advertised on Workopolis etc. You have to be a member of the association for that field to get access to the jobs.

While I would agree that our public school system is lacking our post secondary education is the best in the world. You have 10's of 1000's of foreign students applying to universities to get the best education possible. How many Canadian kids are applying to Indian, Chinese or Filipino universities to get their degrees? Hard to believe the parents of these kids would spend their life savings to send them to Canadian universities to get an education worse then what they would receive at home.

Moving to places like Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg are not treating them like second class citizens. It means that they have a better chance of success then competing for jobs in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal. Life in Winnipeg while much colder in the winter is a much better quality of life than living in Toronto from pay cheque to pay cheque. "Racism", "discrimination" exists everywhere but there are laws and policies in place to protect those that are victims of it. Never heard of affirmative action? Never read the addendum at the end of most employers job ads stating that they are equal opportunity employers? That they strongly advise women and members or a visible minority to apply? The second most spoken language in Winnipeg is Tagalog. There are Filipino councillors and MP's. So its very disingenuous to submit your own ignorant opinion as fact.

CJG...really? You feel the need to call someone an idiot? Come on, if you want to express your opinion, go ahead but stop being mean. It is so not necessary and the poster never indicated they were stating facts. Your post would have had a lot more impact without the personal insults. Do not look down on others unless you intend to lift them up. -1

 

[Abe1004]

I m sorry i stopped readin on where OP claims Europeans have it easy compared to everyone else. Guess what its not your face that matters, its your passport (and to be quite frank even that dont matter most of the time).

I have seen more people get in to Canada from rest of the world, besides Europe. So saying that is pretty rasict. Sorry.

Now if you dont think its worth it (the wait and the move) then why not stay in Iran? I mean afterall, u want to be with your husband because you are married not because hes in Canada right?

 

[frege]

I have seen more people get in to Canada from rest of the world, besides Europe. So saying that is pretty rasict. Sorry.

Can you say why it's racist to suggest that CIC goes easier on Europeans? You may disagree, but it's not racist.

 

[keesio]

Ok this thread is starting to get out of control. Let's all calm down and leave this thread alone.

 

[on-hold]

Given that even Canadian-born members of visible minorities have far worse outcomes than whites in the labour force, I don't believe that the differences are due to a lack of interest or a lack of desire to work. The figures also take into account education levels.

As for the federal public service, here is an excerpt from the Senate report:

Though the quote didn't come through, I'd just like to point out that frege's statistics and Canadian Jeep Guy's point are not actually in conflict. Frege shows that visible minorities are under-represented in the public service by about 2.3% beneath their workplace availability, and CJG is talking about how this is not related to racism. Since the stat 'visible minorities' combines immigrants with Canadian-born minorities, it would be expected that the public service employment rate would be lower than workplace availability -- many visible minorities will be recent arrivals, or ones who have not been here long enough to qualify for public service; and so they will have no option of becoming public servants. Now, if Canadian-born visible minorities are under-represented, that is more serious.

This stat would also be affected by the percentage of immigrants who speak both French and English . . .

 

[Abe1004]

Can you say why it's racist to suggest that CIC goes easier on Europeans? You may disagree, but it's not racist.

Because i am Italian ethnicity and holder of European Passport I get treated same as guy from lets say India, matter of fact his application takes less time. So there goes your "europeans get breaks" theory out of the window.

 

[frege]

Though the quote didn't come through, I'd just like to point out that frege's statistics and Canadian Jeep Guy's point are not actually in conflict. Frege shows that visible minorities are under-represented in the public service by about 2.3% beneath their workplace availability, and CJG is talking about how this is not related to racism. Since the stat 'visible minorities' combines immigrants with Canadian-born minorities, it would be expected that the public service employment rate would be lower than workplace availability -- many visible minorities will be recent arrivals, or ones who have not been here long enough to qualify for public service; and so they will have no option of becoming public servants. Now, if Canadian-born visible minorities are under-represented, that is more serious.

This stat would also be affected by the percentage of immigrants who speak both French and English . . .

We have to look into the definition of "workforce availability" used in the Senate report - I admit I didn't do this at first. However, since this under-representation was a point of concern to the Senate, I imagine that they would have eliminated such obvious counter-arguments. The total percentage of the population that belonged to visible minorities in 2006 was about 16%, so the figure of 10.4% "available" obviously already takes into account the effect of many of them being recent immigrants.

In fact, here is the definition of workforce availability:

Workforce availability (Disponibilité au sein de la population active)

The distribution of people in the employment equity designated groups as a percentage of the total Canadian workforce. For federal public service purposes, workforce availability is based on Canadian citizens in those occupations in the Canadian workforce corresponding to the occupations in the public service and is derived from census statistics. Estimates for persons with disabilities are derived from data, also collected by Statistics Canada, in the 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS).

The point about executive positions remains, as the under-representation is more serious in that case.

 

[gongdi]

I think for the few Chinese who are accepted into university, they receive an absolutely first-rate education.

You are wrong. I am currently working in the education industry in China and also have experience working at a University there. Unless we are talking one of a tiny handful of elite schools in Beijing and Shanghai, it's slim pickins for quality post-secondary education for the vast majority in China.

Generally, I think it's undeniable that non-white people face considerable discrimination in Canada. At equal education levels, non-white immigrants earn less than whites.

Don't think the past two generations of supposedly "priviledged" white males are not having similar problems with underemployment and offshoring as every other demographic. The past five years haven't been a cakewalk for anyone (except the banksters and CEOs).

 

[Melisaa]

Wow... Come on guys.... Please watch your language and respect any opinion. My intention for starting this thread was only to share some experiences here. Some of you has taken this much further. It's really sad to see some people cannot even practice democracy on the internet on a small group discussion, and you still expect the government and CIC to respect your rights? That's it, I'm gonna leave this topic. Thanks again to those who politely shared their thoughts and experience.

 

[gongdi]

This stat would also be affected by the percentage of immigrants who speak both French and English . . .

Great point. I gave up looking at opportunities with the public service because the first questions you are asked on any govt job application is whether you can speak French fluently. That eliminates 80% of the applicants, at least. If you are from a minority group, you can check the box on the application and perhaps get a better chance, but I'd say French is the biggest impediment to anyone trying to get his/her foot in the door to one of those cradle to grave government positions.