Kumarp said:
Oh yeah and as if becoming a Canadian was their lifetime ambition (to be honest some here wouldn't even have thought about Canada until few months ago). I don't understand how one can leave a country you have lived for past 20 - 30 years and call a completely different land your "home" and what makes them think they are soooo Canadian (when they have not even spent a day here or in some cases when they have just moved here?
Some of us have spent years and years and years making it happen. Some of us didn't qualify because of the lives we already led; we needed to work to earn the privilege of coming here.
I am not a citizen of the country I was born in. My parents moved me to a country I have no loyalty to. Canada is more home than anywhere else on the planet. I cherish it, do what I can to protect it, and want the government to do the same.
One thing I don't agree with @RegularGuy is what you do for a living doesn't paint your success
What you do for a living is often
how you achieve your success. No matter how smart and capable you are, significant change comes through standing on the shoulders of giants and is implemented through other people.
success is what you perceive it to be
Not entirely. Some people have a goal to get really fat. They achieve it, and die of health conditions. By any rational measure, that's stupidity, not success.
To a great degree, we pick our own path. We choose what we wish to accomplish, but accomplishment is still necessary for success. If your goal is to lie around all day and do nothing, you may achieve it, but you will never be a success.
My dad always said: It doesn't matter which field you work in or what job you do, no job is bad job as long as you don't cheat (or kill) anyone. When I worked as a Janitor / Cashier at some store or some labour I took pride in what I did, and I loved doing that.
An honest job is nothing to be ashamed of, but wasting potential is.
But what I fail to understand is that how can someone take so much pride in something that is so trivial.
What I fail to understand is how someone can consider something so important to be trivial. To truly immigrate is a significant commitment, requiring a commitment of time, of energy. More importantly, it should be done as an act of fealty - loyalty to the State, in exchange for loyalty
from the State.
If it's just a place to park some offshore money, or to take a few classes to file the paperwork so you can come back and use the welfare system later in life, yeah, it won't mean a bunch.
Getting a PR is just like getting your birth certificate or passport, where you fill in forms, get some paper work done and wait for a loooong time to get the paper stamped.
Passports are shall-issue (generally). They are ministerial, and don't really mean much.
Earning PR, however, can make a lot of difference in how people perceive things. For those who don't have sufficient points, it can often require spending a bunch of money to come out as a visitor, and trying to hunt down a job that can get a LMIA. It can mean developing the skills necessary to be permitted to immigrate. It might require improving one's language skills, or getting more education.
When I landed, I finally felt safe for the first time in my adult life. I lived under an oppressive government, waiting for the hammer to fall. The police are corrupt, and I've had them threaten to kill me. My marriage was legally null, and I had no way of knowing what would happen to my spouse (or future kids) if anything happened to us. The courts are a joke; anything you have can be taken at any time. Medical expenses and legal expenses wiped out everything my parents managed to save in a lifetime.
Coming here before PR didn't have the same meaning. When we landed, this place became
home, because home is where my real family is. It's where I'm safe, where I can count on the law being applied justly. Canada is a country where the criminal code is consistent, and the law is applied uniformly across the country. It's possible to save money without worrying about it being taken, and I don't have reason to fear the police anymore. That means a lot.
I was married in Canada because I legally couldn't get married where I lived. When my prior country of residence went "you're not worthy", Canada said "welcome".