Now immigrant and expat to me means overlapping national and ethnic and national backgrounds. It is an issue of the intended period of their residency.
I think govt policy was hoping for the later in institutions like the one I worked at, and it made me sad.
My guess is that Canada is careful about selecting those allowed to migrate for education which helps a lot here.
That said, the opposite is true for refugees. The only thing you need is to somehow get inside the country. If you can convince some judge that you have a moderately believable story about why you will be in danger if you go back to your country you can get refugee status.
So there's basically two classes of immigrants. Those that are selected with very high standards, and those who just get in with almost no standards.
I'm guessing the latter group does not even send their kids to Universities.
Immigrants also have to restart from scratch. Everything in Canada is completely different from what we're used to in our countries of origin. Often, parents who were engineers in their home countries have to work blue collar jobs to make ends meet.
I think the actual difference is in average IQ and other desirable traits like industriousness.
Immigrants tend to be at the higher end while refugees tend to be at the lower end.
Why would people fleeing war zones be on average less industrious or less intelligent? That doesn't make any sense.
However, being a refugee means going through a much more traumatic process than being an immigrant. You are literally thrown from your home with little left and have gone through a difficult process to get out and resettled in a new country. So drug abuse, gang activity, crime, not doing well in school, depression, etc...were problems for that community even though given normal circumstances they would have been similar to other Chinese immigrants.
I'm not sure about your explanation though. Chinese people are not magical people. IQ is still distributed on a bell curve in China as well. If a chunk of people from a country exhibit characteristics that indicate they might be on the lower end of the bell curve, they might just be on the lower end.
The Boat People had traumatic experiences, so why wouldn't you expect them to have issues when arriving in their new host country? War, rape, murder, starvation, that shit will screw with your head for maybe the rest of your life. There is no point in comparing refugee and non-refugee immigrant experiences.
Ethnic Chinese were successful in Vietnam, just like the rest of southeast asia, many of them were rich, college educated and so on, and still got messed up for a generation upon being kicked out during the Sino Vietnam war. We aren't talking about soso people who weren't successful in their previous countries. Heck, today, many of the refugees that make it to the west were relatively successful, or they simply wouldn't have had the resources to make it to the west.
People are not all equally intelligent or hard working.
This is very different from US where you have a green card lottery and your typical immigrant is just an average population because everyone has the same chance of winning lottery, it doesn't matter if you are a farmer or aircraft engineer.
The refugee system in Canada is frequently abused. I hear anecdotes from my friends about kids from rich families in safe Easter European countries, that pay thousands to immigration lawyers and apply for refugee status simply because the partied too much and didn't manage to get enough points to go through the point based system. Such "refugees" can be safely compared with immigrants.
"These immigrants, coming over here, getting better grades than the rest of us"?
That just becomes an admission of stupidity.
Common is sense is not common.
Edit: Just to be clear, my first comment was really a compliment. No sarcasm intended.
Speaking from the perspective of an immigrant with tons of immigrant friends and whose friends around the world tend to be travelers by nature, I have noticed a lot of commonality in migrants and travelers that locals would do well to mirror if they want to succeed:
More often than not, if the immigrants didn't use the facilities, they would go unused and close and people would lose jobs, hurting the economy. Nobody would benefit from this. Indeed, frequently immigrants don't even use the facilities that you as locals are afforded. We're not allowed to claim welfare, we work hard, we pay taxes, we create jobs, we make friends, we integrate, we are neighbours, we laugh, we joke, we add richness to your lives just as you do with ours.
There is a pervasive mentality that we come over and hog your resources and take your jobs. Immigrants don't come and take anything, they come and do whatever it takes to succeed. They do the shit jobs that nobody else wants while they endlessly scour the economy for opportunities to succeed. If locals had that same hunger, they wouldn't be blaming their lot in life on external forces and they too would be successful.
Immigrants by and large are immigrants because they took charge of their situation and moved to where they can get a better life. Residents who relocate for work have the same take charge attitude, going where they can make a difference and leveraging opportunity.
People that complain about "people coming and doing or using what we deserve to use" by and large want opportunities handed to them, and when they're not blame the world around them for that.
People with a strong external locus of control tend to blame others for their problems in life. People with a strong internal locus of control tend to just get on with leveraging the opportunities they find. They are in charge of their own destiny instead of allowing their destiny to be controlled by others.
If I were to make a broad sweeping statement, which we all know are flawed for many reasons, but I will make it anyway:
Immigrants tend to have a strong internal locus of control.
People complaining about immigrants tend to have a strong external locus of control.
If you change your locus of control and be in charge of your own destiny, you'll care far less about immigrants. Indeed, you will become much more like us, you will identify with us and you too will succeed.
Lack of prejudice is and should be the norm. Having prejudice should be detestable, you shouldn't get a pat on the back for not being prejudice no more than you should for being a polite normal person who treats people with common decency and respect.
Residential segregation rates might not have changed much since the 1960s in the US (when there was a political push to reduce it) but I'm not convinced that's purely the result of prejudice rather than a natural human instinct to congregate in culturally homogenous groups. That doesn't mean various groups can't peacefully coexist and thrive together. Culture can still transfer across neighbourhoods and there will always be public/private places where each group mixes.
Canada is known for our multi-culturalism but cities such as Toronto are highly segregated into various ethnic enclaves. And it's a great feature of the city that I've never heard people complain about. I've only heard people say how much it contributes to a great and varied restaurant scene and plenty of unique festivals (for ex: Taste of Little Italy street fair, Chinese new year parade, etc).
The poster is "speaking from personal experience", so it's not really surprising.
Mind you, I also know high school graduates who never bothered to learn English. They find a way to make their living in Chinatown (which is slowly expanding across the city).
But isn't that the point?
Does it actually matter where one person is born? Should it?
If your country has a system that "people from outside" want to exploit, then the error lies in your system, not whether the exploiter is internal or external.
If you were born in the US or Canada or a citizen by birth, you aren't an immigrant.
Many of our ancestors were immigrants for sure. But not all of our ancestors were immigrants.
Many of our ancestors were invaders, colonizers and settlers. Those aren't immigrants.
Saying we are all immigrants is a political statement. It tries to make us identify with the immigrants and pro-immigrant policies and has the benefit of masking/absolving our invader/colonizer/settler ancestors.
If you were born in the US and you think you are an immigrant, ask yourself "where did I immigrate from"? And that assertion becomes silly. "I was born in ohio". Does that mean I immigrated to the US from Ohio? It doesn't make sense.
Yes, may be this should be the ideal definition of a non immigrant US / Canadian, but most of the time people judge you only by color/race in those area
> Many of our ancestors were immigrants for sure. But not all of our ancestors were immigrants.
Yes, true for aboriginals
> Many of our ancestors were invaders, colonizers and settlers. Those aren't immigrants.
Yes, they did all those "cool" things by coming from Europe and "Those aren't immigrants." ?
>Saying we are all immigrants is a political statement. It tries to make us identify with the immigrants and pro-immigrant policies and has the benefit of masking/absolving our invader/colonizer/settler ancestors.
I don't have any of those intentions, in fact i dont care about them at all
> If you were born in the US and you think you are an immigrant, ask yourself "where did I immigrate from"? And that assertion becomes silly. "I was born in ohio". Does that mean I immigrated to the US from Ohio? It doesn't make sense.
This is so stupid
Really? What's your point? We are talking about the meaning of the word immigrants. Not racism.
> Yes, true for aboriginals
Not according to people like you. We are all immigrants. Right? Natives came from asia so they are immigrants too. Using your definition.
>Yes, they did all those "cool" things by coming from Europe and "Those aren't immigrants." ?
Did I say "cool" things? My point is that it is the opposite of "cool". My point is that there is a difference between immigrating and invading. Invading/colonizing/settling = bad. It is not immigrating.
> I don't have any of those intentions, in fact i dont care about them at all
Really. Your comment just reeks of agenda.
>This is so stupid
Is it? So lets say john was born in ohio and lived his entire life in ohio. He didn't even visit another state. You are claiming he is an immigrant. Right? So where did he immigrate from?
Yes, it is. I was just adding not everyone knows this definition
> Not according to people like you. We are all immigrants. Right? Natives came from asia so they are immigrants too. Using your definition.
Nope, They were the first settlers in those area just like first settlers in Europe, Africa or Asia some 30-40k years ago before they were invaded recently in 15th century and the migration wave started and guys came in 500 years back calling the current bunch immigrants
> Did I say "cool" things? My point is that it is the opposite of "cool". My point is that there is a difference between immigrating and invading. Invading/colonizing/settling = bad. It is not immigrating.
So for example, if now Germany attack Ethiopia, kill those people there are. After 500 years if the native Ethiopeans become 2% who according to you is Ethiopean?
Your comment is a bit confused. So are you saying the europeans who invaded 500 years ago are immigrants or not? Because in your previous comment, you claimed they were.
> So for example, if now Germany attack Ethiopia, kill those people there are. After 500 years if the native Ethiopeans become 2% who according to you is Ethiopean?
The ethiopians are ethiopians. And if the germans created a new state called "Germania", then the colonizers/invaders would be "GERMANIANS". Or something like that.
Just like we have native americans and people of other ethnicities in the US. What's your confusion?
You haven't answered a single question of mine and now you are taking us on a nonsensical tangent.
I asked you, someone is born in ohio. Lives his entire life in ohio. You claim he is an immigrant. Where did he immigrate from.
The fact that you refuse to answer this basic question just means that you aren't interested in discourse but to push your agenda.
That many?
> More than 45 per cent of Metro Vancouver residents are foreign born, according to the 2011 census. There are only three major cities on the globe that have a higher percentage of foreign-born residents.
> They are Dubai, Brussels and Toronto.
http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/vancouver-fourth-fo...
Canada draws strength from diversity.
I could see an American conservative looking at this list and shudder in fear from the "loss of white culture", and how immigrants couldn't possibly love their second country as much as native-borns.
Yet we do. And Vancouver is proof. Source: Am Immigrant Vancouverite (presently living in Europe)
* Obligatory footnote acknowledging our dark past with Japanese internment, and dark past and present with dealing with social problems that affect first nations communities disproportionately.
Research shows that as diversity increases, so do political difficulties. Homogeneity is credited for a lot of policy successes in Scandinavia. Canada is simply another example of this, plus it is one of the earth's biggest petro-states.
It is less a cosmopolitain melting pot and more like Minnesota with the oil wealth of Texas. Vancouver and Toronto are admirable exceptions.
I now live in the most diverse part of Toronto. My building probably has speakers of a least a dozen languages. I love it here.
> plus it is one of the earth's biggest petro-states.
This is killing us economically. Ten years of Harper's policies pushing us harder into economic reliance on oil, now oil is way down in price and our economy is going with it.
This is why we need immigration and education: to build a stronger economy that isn't reliant on natural resources.
You're vision of "a stronger economy that isn't reliant on natural resources" is one of the main points of the Alberta Heritage Fund [0]. Even Albertans recognize that you can't rely on natural resources forever. However, it is naive to think you can't use them to help you change the future. In terms of education, the article states that Alberta as a sovereign state would be in the top 5 in science education on the PISA international test.
Also, "now oil is way down in price and our economy is going with it" is completely fallacious as the only reason why our economy could fall is because our oil industry was propping it up. Here is a nice graphic to show the parity between the two [1].
At the end of the day, it takes time to convert your entire country to clean energy sources. Even in Canada where we have 2/3 already renewable, the amount of time it would take to make that 100% is going to take decades. Until then, my main argument for the oilsands is that I'd rather have people earning honest wages in a country where the companies are held liable to environmental destruction instead of the Middle East.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Heritage_Savings_Trust... [1] - http://news.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/diagram770.jpg
Heh. It used to be sold as the 'melting pot'.
Because I'm an immigrant living in Toronto. The diversity here, while "nice", seems to be a significant weakness if anything - a highly fractured, multi-cultural society simply tolerating one another's existence with no real united identity, goals or vision for Canada's future.
Transitioning from a bi-cultural society to a multi-cultural society is actually an improvement, because it reduces the power of English and French cultures to simply strong minorities among many. It's resulted in a balance-of-power arrangement, where neither has any hope any longer of dominating the whole of Canada.
It means it's unlikely that either English Canada or French Canada will try to go to civil war with the other, because they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. That's a remarkable achievement all on its own.
NYC and Toronto are success stories in multiculturalism, where people come, become educated, and integrate into the local culture, but ethnic/cultural enclaves that have been forming in cities overseas are not (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9r6ZCwQxZk).
How's that different from your average major metro area in the USA? Or, for that matter, anywhere else in the First World right now?
I think they're more worried that immigrants won't love whites as much as other whites do.
I'm not saying non-whites hate the whites or anything. I'm suggesting that's not the primary motivation for immigrants. For refugees... they literally just want to escape their hometown to escape death, so I think survival comes before anything else really.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Vancouver [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto
> Prof Jerrim says these families have an immigrant "hunger" to succeed, and their high expectations are likely to boost school results for their children.
Speaking from personal experience as a native Canadian, this can also motivate non-immigrant children to work harder. When half of your peers have an immigrant's work ethic it can be a real positive influence.
Disclaimer: this is an anecdote, my personal experience may not generalize, etc.