Canada should be pro-immigration Don Cayo said.
Posted on September 29th, 2010
Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . Canada
September 28, 2010
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The Editor (Letters)
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
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Sir:
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Don Cayo should stop talking nonsense when he says “We should all be pro-immigration”.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ He continues to say, “In my own city of Vancouver, if you were to take away visible minorities and those who speak with unCanadian accents, all our hospitals would be left with frightening small staff.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Ditto the food court where I buy my lunch, the store where I buy electronics, the barber shop I need to visit soon.”
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Cayo, didn’t you realize that you may have been servedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ in the foodcourt by an immigrant Ph.D, and the hospital bedpan was removed by a qualified medical doctor who has had 10 years experience of being a doctor in a developing country?
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Here is a reality check for you Mr. Cayo, which has done inƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ some unfortunateƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ families where marriages have broken up due to shame and stress and they are unable to return to their countries where they left decent andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ respectable jobs, as theirƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ relatives and neighboursƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ might laugh at themƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ knowing that they wereƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ security guards, taxi drivers and floor sweepers in shopping malls in Canada.
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I owned an art gallery in the early 2000s at theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Gloucester Shopping Centre.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ My framer was from El Salvador who had a Maths degree from the University of Mexico and had ended up washing toilets at the Ottawa Teachers College after he arrived.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The cobbler in front of my gallery was an Iranian with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering who one day told me pointing to the sky, “My Dad up there must be laughing at me having spent so much money to educate me to become an engineer andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ now mending shoes in Canada.”
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Down the isle was a hydro-geologist from Syria who was selling ladies nylon stockings and men’s T-shirts.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Further down the isle was a Chinese geologist who was the editor of the Chinese Geological JournalƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ was selling Chinese gifts and other exotic stuff in an island-kiosk. ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Next to my gallery were two professors from the Ukraine University who were trying to make a go at selling clothes in a storeƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ and who didn’t last six months.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ And in the Food Court the lady serving Chinese noodles was a seniorƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ government environmental ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ scientist involvedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ in water quality in China.
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After reading my letter in the Ottawa Citizen, ‘Hire Minorities with Merit’ which appeared on July 17, 2000, several visible minorities tracked me down to share their experience.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ One was a scientist from India with a Ph.D in fibre optics who ended up as a security guard, and so was a Bangladeshi Ph.D who was a senior research scientist in the Government Agriculture Department who ended up as a security guard and admitted that his family uses the Ottawa Food Bank once a month.
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That is the reality check for you Mr. Cayo, where the qualified immigrantsƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ are underutilized and are miserable in Canada with unhappy home lives with increasingƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ stresses and tensions within families and marriages falling apart.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This is an untold story within the new immigrant communities.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Think about it.
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Canada certainly has a problem.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It is not a case of being pro-immigrant but also being pro-honest to the immigrants thatƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ we bring over, especially from the developing countries.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It is a double-whammy in away.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Canada not only depletes the intelligentsia from developing countries by syphoning the cream and the brightest of the countries educatedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ public and then destroy them intellectually by underutilizing them when they are brought over.
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Asoka Weerasinghe