By the way, that last of comment of yours was personal, not political. You get in plenty of personal jibes in your so-called "political free speech". What merits? What arguments? Canada has a bad economy right now? We all get that. Is stopping immigration the only way to revive it? That's your claim, but I don't agree. Creation of jobs is more important, and a better way to revive the economy. Jobs have fled Canada? Some changes in restrictive business laws and trade laws have to be implemented. The moment the economy recovers, a large number of baby-boomers are going to retire, because they can afford to retire and enjoy the much-vaunted Canadian lifestyle (that number is projected to be in the millions). When that happens, there are not going to be enough people to fill the old jobs as well as the newly created ones (which is the only long-term solution to reviving the economy). It's a big world out there, with opportunities all over the place. Not every place is easy to get into or easy to stay and work in. It requires people of a certain type of mind-set to go to those places and do those jobs. Immigrants, for example, who are willing to move half way across the world, away from everything familiar, in search of a good life. Canadian businesses can spread their wings and enter markets heretofore closed off to them, closed simply because they can't find people in Canada, who'll go to those places and do those jobs (and here, I am talking about technical, skilled jobs, not McDonalds or sweeping the floors). People like some David, sitting in the USA and whining, who doesn't even want to jeopardise his nice secure job in the US in order to spend enough time on the ground in Canada (his "dream country", by the way) so that he may get a job there; would people like him actually go to other countries (developing countries, third world countries, whatever) to do those kinds of jobs? It is a global economy, people, and if you try to limit it to a local one, you are going to get shut out of the system. You need to get out there and play.
Yes, the government need to create a conducive environment for Canadian businesses to think global (and not just the tech firms either). But with the same old politicians voted into the same old posts by the same old citizens with the same old mind-set is not going to change anything. Canadian born citizens, and even older immigrants who went to Canada in its heyday, are too entrenched in the old ways and the old attitudes. It's only with new ideas, and a more global perspective that Canadian businesses can go truly global, and only then can the economy revive. I have seen my country go from being a licence Raj, bowed down and cowed down by unions go on to become a global economy. We have a billion strong people, at least 60% of whom are employed and manage to get three squares a day. And that 60% amounts to more than twice the entire Canadian population. Banana republic?? I think not.