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| Subject: David Suzuki's immigration comments |
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Historically, walls between nations have never been able to stop the migration of people. Ever since Homo Erectus left Africa in search of more, it’s been a part of human nature to want to experience what the rest of the world has to offer. Recently, David Suzuki made some comments about Canadian immigration policy that stirred controversy. I believe his remarks are flawed due to the following reasons: 1) Immigration and Canada’s environmental degradation have no correlation. 2) The ‘Brain Drain” referred to by Suzuki is not necessarily bad for either country. 3) Canada’s immigration policy isn’t deplorable, in fact it is one of the greatest in the world.
Canada was recently ranked last in the OECD’s environmental protection category.(1), but this is not the fault of our immigration policy. Our parks and oceans are at risk due to government budget cuts, a new report by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) states. Currently, we lag behind China and Russia regarding protection of our ocean state. According to this damning report, the funding that was announced for Parks Canada won’t be used to support conservation activities and the money will not be utilised until 2016. (2) If the rest of the world lived like us, it would take 3 earths to support us. This is because of over consumption of fossil fuels. (3)
So, why isn’t this the fault of immigration? Well, for one thing, a household’s ecological footprint increases concurrently with their income level. Generally speaking, the majority of immigrants aren’t among the highest earners, meaning that their ecological footprint isn’t as big. This is based on analysis by former Statistic Canada Statistician, Hans Messinger.(4) The real cause of our growing carbon footprint is unsustainable production. Our resources are finite and the fate of our environment rests on how we use these resources and not by the number of people who use them. We instead need to look at how immigration is helping Canadian’s to protect our environment. It’s been argued that an effective way to reduce carbon emissions is to curb the birth rate. Immigration does just that. Studies show that immigrants to Canada tend to have fewer children than if they had stayed in their home countries. (5) It is time to stop vilifying immigrants for the damage we are causing. We are the ones who have the power to implement change, both through our political votes and personal choices. Canada is one of the few lucky countries not experiencing the same level of recession as the rest of the world. We should be using our increased tax base to preserve and invest in our beautiful country and make it a desirable choice for long to come.
Canada’s immigration policy isn’t “plundering future leaders” from poorer countries. Instead, it is fostering talent and in many cases these highly skilled immigrants return home with new expertise. The federal skilled workers programme admits only 5000 foreign workers each year to Canada. According to Wendy Cukier of Ryerson Univeristy, 40% of immigrants who entered Canada in the skilled worker or business class left Canada within their first 10 years. Ke Huang who came here as a student is a recent example of this. After working here for a few years she was headhunted by a company in China, a developing economy itself. (6) Those that do stay don’t just forget about their home countries. Global remittances exceed $350 billion annually. Many also develop business ties with their home countries, which helps to nurture growth in developing countries. By encouraging people from developing countries to move here, we are in turn helping these countries develop into first world countries, capable of becoming immigrant destination countries themselves. New immigrants are generally highly motivated to make the best of their new homes. Canada’s economy couldn’t prosper and its spirit and culture would be weaker without them. (7)
“The strongest wall we can have is the one through which the equality of opportunity can pass! Terror thrives in poverty, it dies in wealth” (8) Immigrants that make Canada their home are often eager to make contributions to their new homes. There are countless examples, but I’ve chosen to highlight two for the recent award presented to the 25 Top immigrants to Canada. Alan Diner emigrated from South Africa before the Soweto riots. “My parents wanted to move to a place where the future would hold a better and democratic future for my sister and me” he says. Diner now works as a lawyer in Canada helping other families like his who are seeking a better life in Canada. John Volken who emigrated from Germany to Canada with less than $100.00 in his pocket, is now a philanthropist who runs several non-profit enterprises that aid in addiction recovery and child poverty.(9)
There is a funny image doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment. It shows a Native Canadian with a tagline underneath that reads “So, you’re against immigration? Splendid! When do you leave?” Canada is a nation of immigrants, lest we forget. It is not our job to exclude others. We must instead focus on how we all can work together to keep Canada’s environment beautiful, while maintaining our economy. We are already on the right track with green initiatives like recycling, tax credits for solar energy and electric cars, to name a few. This is not enough however, we need real government commitment and leadership on this to ensure a real change and perhaps a re-evaluation of our priorities. Although Suzuki’s comments were misguided, they did get a lot of people talking about the state of our resources and land use. These ensuing debates are a great platform for change. We owe it to this land’s rightful forefathers and we must heed their words. “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money” (10)
Check out www.myvisasource.com, your source for everything immigration.
References
1) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canada-dead-last-in-oecd-ranking-for-environmental-protection/article15484134/
2) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/national-parks-under-threat-report-says/article19582932/
3) http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wwf-report-criticizes-canada-s-ecological-footprint-1.1263041
4) https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/2008/Size_Matters_Canadas_Ecological_Footprint_By_Income.pdf
5) http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/steve-lafleur/david-suzuki-immigration_b_3583480.html
6) http://canadianimmigrant.ca/community/why-some-immigrants-want-to-leave-canada
7) http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/steve-lafleur/david-suzuki-immigration_b_3583480.html
8) http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=the-honourable-woman-2014&episode=s01e01
9) http://canadianimmigrant.ca/canadas-top-25-immigrants/canadas-top-25-immigrants-2014/alan-diner
10) http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?search=native
[19-07-2014,16:50]
[***.23.74.238]
Emma |
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