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This is my second response to this post. There's no "one size fits all" on door opening and closing. It really depends on the culture and quality of people that want to come in.
I understand your point and I think it is a valid argument that's worth more discussion. What I'm curious about is how do we measure the "culture and quality of the people"?
Canada's Skilled-Immigrant program is one of the most transparent and merit-based programs out there - it is based on a points-based assessment that qualifies immigrants purely based on merit - 10 points for speaking English fluently, 10 points for French, 5 points for 5 years of professional work experience, 10 points for bachelor degree, 10 points for master/PhD degree. You need about 70 - 100 points total to meet the basic prerequisites to apply.
With that said, do we have enough data at this point to assess the overall "quality" of Syrian refugees that have come to Canada or the United States? While some can claim that the majority of refugees are uneducated and unskilled conservative religious fanatics bent on living off the welfare state, we can equally make the claim that a good portion of the refugees that have come to Canada are quite well-educated (basic university education with English language fluency). In the past year, I volunteered at a Toronto-based refugee integration program and worked specifically on career counselling - of the dozen newcomers I met all of them possessed some level of bachelor of master's education (two of them even have advanced degrees in English and French literature), and all of the program participants have various years of professional work experience in nursing, engineering, medicine, computer science, and financial services. What I'm trying to say is we should all avoid the temptation of making sweeping generalizations - especially when we have very little data points at present to gauge their overall "quality" or "cultural" abilities.
I understand your point and I think it is a valid argument that's worth more discussion. What I'm curious about is how do we measure the "culture and quality of the people"?
Canada's Skilled-Immigrant program is one of the most transparent and merit-based programs out there - it is based on a points-based assessment that qualifies immigrants purely based on merit - 10 points for speaking English fluently, 10 points for French, 5 points for 5 years of professional work experience, 10 points for bachelor degree, 10 points for master/PhD degree. You need about 70 - 100 points total to meet the basic prerequisites to apply.
With that said, do we have enough data at this point to assess the overall "quality" of Syrian refugees that have come to Canada or the United States? While some can claim that the majority of refugees are uneducated and unskilled conservative religious fanatics bent on living off the welfare state, we can equally make the claim that a good portion of the refugees that have come to Canada are quite well-educated (basic university education with English language fluency). In the past year, I volunteered at a Toronto-based refugee integration program and worked specifically on career counselling - of the dozen newcomers I met all of them possessed some level of bachelor of master's education (two of them even have advanced degrees in English and French literature), and all of the program participants have various years of professional work experience in nursing, engineering, medicine, computer science, and financial services. What I'm trying to say is we should all avoid the temptation of making sweeping generalizations - especially when we have very little data points at present to gauge their overall "quality" or "cultural" abilities.
Various cases of cultural clash and kids playground bullying means the entire refugee program is not working well? What about the thousands of immigrants who have participated in career fairs and career coaching programs in the GTA that have landed various forms of employment? What about the fact that many of these refugees came to Canada under the private sponsorship program where they were entirely self-financed or financed via friends and family and not by the tax payer?
Again I'm not sure why people have to make instant sweeping generalizations about the well-being of 35,000+ refugees based on self-reported incidents at two Calgary based elementary schools? Are you saying that it's reflective of the failure of entire Syrian refugee program or our country's immigration system as a whole?
Furthermore, since we are not here to mince words, let's call what the Daily Caller by its name: a conservative right wing pro-Trump news spin mill. The above link you posted was a also a repost from the Rebel, a far-right affiliate of the Daily Caller in Canada that regularly produces anti-immigrant, anti-refugee rants on Youtube.
I have read the original document posted via the Annie Foote Elementary and Terry Fox Elementary in Calgary (can be found here: https://www.scribd.com/document/3262...ems#from_embed), and I think their allegations are worth investigating. At the same time, I also question the ulterior motives behind an openly alt-right social media news group that aims the paint another negative sweeping stereotype on another ethnic minority group. Both are outstanding questions worth further discussion.
- Espouses thinly veiled homophobic commentary by questioning Canada's same-sex marriage laws, justifying their position by saying that "gay men are generally not interested in marriage therefore same-sex marriage shouldn't be legal":
Various cases of cultural clash and kids playground bullying means the entire refugee program is not working well? What about the thousands of immigrants who have participated in career fairs and career coaching programs in the GTA that have landed various forms of employment?
“Every kid in Toronto does this,” Ms. McLorg had told Bayan’s parents when they had asked. “Academically, it’s not important. But socially, it is very important.”
Mr. Mohammad told Bayan again: No trip. He was not an immigrant who set out to adapt to a new world; he was a refugee trying to hold on to what had been ripped from him. “We’re forced to be here,” Mr. Mohammad said later. “We’re happy, but we’re forced to be here.”
Moderator, this is about 1% of the text of the article.
Moderator, this is about 1% of the text of the article.
That was a very interesting article. Thank you for sharing.
The New York Times actually hits my driveway every morning and I was waiting for the right time to post it. Or if that didn't come up I would have started a thread. I figured it was far more believable than a right-wing website, especially since the Times was looking for a heartwarming story, throw in the warm puppy kind of thing. I was quite sad when I read that. I was hoping that the combination of Canada's distance and its relatively less generous benefits would bring in people who'd kiss Canada's streets on landing.
I am less naïve than most when it comes to these things, but I must say I haven't heard any credible info that this is a serious issue.
That was why I followed it up with the Times article. The Times article indirectly gives the DailyCaller article credibility since there were obviously people who didn't fit in perfectly.
Various cases of cultural clash and kids playground bullying means the entire refugee program is not working well? What about the thousands of immigrants who have participated in career fairs and career coaching programs in the GTA that have landed various forms of employment? What about the fact that many of these refugees came to Canada under the private sponsorship program where they were entirely self-financed or financed via friends and family and not by the tax payer?
Again I'm not sure why people have to make instant sweeping generalizations about the well-being of 35,000+ refugees based on self-reported incidents at two Calgary based elementary schools? Are you saying that it's reflective of the failure of entire Syrian refugee program or our country's immigration system as a whole?
I think it's pretty safe to give Canada a "so far so good" rating on this one, but as I just mentioned in response to fusion, things aren't quite the same these days and we can't make the same assumptions that were valid for previous waves.
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