🚀 go-pugleaf

An interesting piece of information on the CTV news today.  "An additional 
5000 immigrants will be allowed into Canada next year for a total of 
220,000."  Yawn, and continue reading my Scientific American.  "Quebec 
will be taking 27,000 of these".  A sudden feeling that there's something 
wrong with these numbers.  Lets see, the population of Canada in 1993 is 
around 28.6 million and of Quebec 7.2 million - thus 25.2% of Canada's 
population lives in Quebec.  If Quebec takes their share of immigrants, 
then .252 x 220,000 = 55,440 - they are taking less than half their share!

Now we all know that Quebec is special - they keep telling us this, and 
that not just any immigrant can fit into Quebec culture.  It helps that 
they are French speaking - it is mere coincidence that the costs of 
teaching the new immigrants one of the official languages of Canada is 
thus suddenly dispensed with.  One wonders why BC can't demand that only 
English speaking immigrants be allowed into this province, but I keep 
forgetting, if we did that it would be racist, if Quebec does it, it is 
merely a perogative of their special status in this country.  How silly 
of me.

I don't intend to get into an argument about immigration - in the long 
term it is beneficial to Canada, but in the short term there are 
considerable costs associated with assimilating large numbers of 
non-English speaking immigrants into Canadian society.  One would expect 
this cost to be shared equally by all Canadians, thus Quebec should take 
in 55,440 immigrants, not the 27,000 that it deems acceptable.  This is 
with the current control of immigration Quebec has - they're not happy 
with the miniscule powers they currently have.

The solution is simple.  Write to the minister of immigration and tell 
him that either Quebec is to accept its share of immigrants, or that 
total immigration to Canada should be limited to 191,560 instead of 
220,000.  When liberal politicians come to you asking for yet more powers 
for Quebec, ask them to explain this anomaly.

Boris Gimbarzevsky