Should Canada cut back on its immigration targets?

Frankly, I am tired of paying for people from other countries coming here, claiming refugee status (last count there are people from 105 countries claiming refugee status in Canada) and taking advantage of our country ---- but we let them. We are the World's patsies.
Australia has it right. If you cannot read, write, speak and understand English, do not go there.
Communications are so important.
Plus no job, go elsewhere.
We must set up our Border Services in specific points in other countries before they land on our soil and claim to be refugees. Not fair to others who play by the rules.
Many immigrants come here with no intention but living off us. They have no skills, cannot read, write, speak or UNDERSTAND English or French.
We need contributors not LEECHES.

As long as there is 1 unemployed Canadian there should be zero immigration.

I cant tell you how many 3rd world immigrants are working under the table just here in Toronto, they are on assistance and then flooding the market in production jobs working under the table.

Closing this source of illegal and unethical employees will raise the employment level here for naturalized Canadians and take a GREAT strain off of the welfare system.

That is the job of the government - to serve the citizens that are HERE.

Not pander to the whim of special interest groups and allow tens of thousands of 3rd world immigrants to flood our cities, strain our infrastructure and social safety net and terrorize our population.

As long as 1 Canadian is unemployed there should be zero immigration.

Spend all that welfare money on educating one of our own in the stead of putting criminal 3rd world immigrants that will NEVER love this country on welfare for life.

Herbert Grubel ,Jim and Rob should stop complaining and try seeing the whole picture and the direction where the world is headed to - the needed changes to ease on immigration and to optimize the intergration process' with other countries through immigration and migration policies . That, if you consider yourself part of the world economy.Instead , your opinions look like a great support for rasssism, which will never do any good to Canada...... most of our grandfathers immigrated from other countries, and we are enourmosly thankfull and glad that they did. Immigrants bring us diversity , richness of their cultures and an alternative look on life , what in my opinion is priceless . We have to invest in Canada , and the best investment is our people, even if they come from all over the world.Doing anything else to our people is gonna have an imidiate and irreversable negative inpact on our economy, and we won't let that to happen just because of some whiny complainers.

well done CHRIS written like a true immigrant

We don't need diversity, or having to pay for people that have no intention of being Canadian. In fact I have ran in to many situations where new immigrants don't like Canadians. Canada was fine the way it was with the immegrents that came to make Canada the beautifull country it is. You go any where now and no one speeks our Canadian laungages, I'm insulted. They way the rules are now dosn't work, look at France, Denmark the have big immigrant problems.The people that came here from mostly Europe lived and died to make this a great country not the people of today that come for conveniene and to take only.Big difference.

Put on a 5 yr. moratorium on immigration until our economy catches up with paying out of all the benefits that are taxing our infastructure and social programs that have been payed for by people working here for years. Immigrants get more out of our social system that many seniors now on pensions can only dream of ! We have imported crime from 3 rdworld countries by the thousands !! Thank you government agencies for the bleeding heart attitudes.

To Jim, Rob, Dan, Ron and all other idiots thinking like them,

Make the difference between people coming here as refugees and the legal immigrants who have to pay huge amounts to get into your "precious" country. I lived in Canada for 16 years and when I heard ignorant comments like yours, I decided with my family to head back home, where we belong.Not to mention that we were educated people and highly discriminated by your system. I have never received a penny in social assistance, welfare or any other help. Quite the opposite. Many of you on this forum or living in Canada do not even speak or write English correctly. Not to mention other languages. I speak four languages and learning a fifth. I can tell most of you are completely illiterate. Yet, you dare having an opinion. And all Canadians are immigrants. So shut up! Most of the jobs you don't want are done by immigrants. Most of the good ones are taken by you, based on networking, not on competence or knowledge.
What a lot of crap this article is. I advice all people who think about immigrating to Canada not do so.

Perhaps those in the Canadian immigration system who make the final approval to allow one to make Canada their home( and I am going to use this term"home" loosely at the moment") should talk to those who work with them on a daily basis. Here in Alberta we have a large population of immigants from a particular country that I will leave nameless and I work with a large number of them in the Alberta Health system( that is within a hospital setting and no they are not nurses or doctors). What they are telling me of their plans once they retire speaks of the "hogwash" that our Canadian immigration system is pushing - by allowing them to immigrate they will contribute in a number of ways to Canada , most specifically economically through thier employment in the different sectors via the taxes they will pay, economically through their purchasing of homes and hence taxes that will be paid, through the purchasing of goods which promotes the health of the retail sector. Yes- while they do do this the benefits for Canada are very limited. Most "shop" retail ( including food) very economically and spend very little money on this avenue ( the reason behind this is that they tend NOT to have the money to do so because the majority are sending as much of their earnigs back home to help those family left there ( aunts, uncles, parents and yes even their children) lieaving little for anything to be spent here. Secondly most will tell you that once they retire and can draw pension they have EVERY intent of taking that monthly money and going home for as many months as the Canadian system will allow them to be gone without revoking any Canadian benefits such as medical care, any OAP,etc that they are entilted to - as they tell me they can live like kings and queens back home on this versus living here like a pauper. I could go on and on about what I am told but this is jsut a sample. Oh and one other thing- those that have brought their children here to live DO NOT do so because this is what you do as a parent( take care of your kids from birth to whatever age a society says is adulthood) BUT becasuse as they put it - they can get a free so to speak public education to grade 12 which does not exist in their country and then , although they must pay for postsecondary of any nature, the payoff is that because the education is achieved here in Canada their odds of getting better jobs anywhere in the world is increased 100% ( owing to the belief that Canada has a great education system which when compared to certain countries is somewhat true) rather than be subjected to the poor paying jobs available to them in the world when their education has come soley from institutions in their country and is equated with a lower standard of education.

Come to the Toronto area and ask a 100 immigrants if Canada was at war with their country of origin what side would they fight with and the majority would tell you they would fight with their country of origin the reason I know this is because I have done it. The majority are only using this country.

Oh and Cris, Good riddance.

Oh Cris ?? Or Chris ?? You have signed in both ways ?? I was born here and worked internationally for 28 years , so I have a bit of knowledge of what other countries are about . My wife is not Canadian and comes from a country like a lot of other immigrants have. She speaks 7 languages and we have lived in more than 11 countries.Canada has one of the most liberal social systems in the world , and people have taken advantage of this for far too long. It's about time that we cut back for awhile. After 16 years here, you would have thought5 you would have fitted right in , but apparantly you didn't feel the need to . I hope the door didn't hit you in the ass too hard when you left ?? Bye bye !!

Nothing wrong with immigration or refugee's. That said, why not direct where the immigrants are allowed to settle for the first 6 years of their time in Canada. If Northern Alberta or Labrador needs basic workers why allow refugees and unskilled settle first in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver? Seems illogical, but what do I know?

On and by the way "Cris"- yes perhaps ALL Canadians are immigrants if one gets picky- albeit I am a 12th generation , yes that's right ,12th generation North American on my one side-bit difficult to surmise what generation of North American I am on the other since those ancestors walked across when the Bering Strait was a natural land bridge. However the point is you CHOSE to come here for whatever reason from the country you were born in, I did not and since this is the country I was born in therefore it is where I live.

This is all too short term.
What are the stats about the children of immigrants? Are the immigrant's children that are born here likely to have an equal chance at a good job when they start working?
If immigrants come here and become an underclass that, generation after generation, remain in the bottom 50% of the economy (the bottom 50% receive more gov't benefits than they pay in taxes), then we don't need them.

If the children of immigrants are equally or more productive than non-immigrant children, we desperately need them. They would contribute to the wealth of the knowledge economy, and offset a low birthrate.

It all hinges on how successful we integrate them. In that, we are the best on earth. Not perfect, but still the best.

Author missed few this in this article:
1. How much each new family bringing money with them? Maybe few 100K and putting them in hot housing market in here. I will call it free money.

2. Canada need population increase and Canadians can not afford to have babies (ppl working like slave all day). Kids coming with new immigrants will be educated here and it will benefit Canada.

People just need to learn to share a little more and we will all be fine.

Talk to the government or your CEO who is making 30 million a year. Sharing the wealth will make the world a whole lot better. We can blame immigration or blame the people making the laws and lining their pockets while the rest of us become poor.

Would all these people be interested in Canada if there was a caveat attached to citizenship in that they had to work for 10 years before receiving social benefits? If there were no social benefits would they come here? Most Canadians would agree that if people want to come and work here to build a better life for themselves they are welcome. The more the merrier. We need hard working people to build the country. If you are interested in a hand-out and free medical coverage for your family and all your relatives..................don't come to Canada. There just isn't any room for you here. We have more than enough of those types right now.

To the Canadian ( old immigrants) there is a reason why Canada continues to accept new immigrants mostly to benefit Canada. I am sure the system can be improved so both partie can benefit but usually someone gets used and tends to be the new immigrant.

I came to Canada about 6yrs ago, I've been working hard since I came, either me or my wife we never has to use any social assistance or welfare or any other goverment help. We still trying to catch up the language and trying to intregrate as soon as possible. We are proudly Canadian Citizens already and every day we feel thankful to Canada to give us an opportunity to a better future for us and our childrens and the only way that we can help is working hard. In the other hand I felt the pain of my fellow Canadians when you find people on the streets or at work that they don't have a clue about the language, or they are just trying to change the Canadian's Laws to make their own. From inmigrant to inmigrant and without the intentions to hurt anybody feelings, you have to stop that, if you left your country for whichever the reason was that's ok, but please do not try to convert Canada in your country. Just learn the language, integrate and work hard like everybody else.