Canada's overpopulation problem

Nobel Peace Prize winning economist Milton Friedman once said that you can have mass immigration or you can have the welfare state. But you can't have both.

Hallway medicine is a reality in many Canadian hospitals

Aged hospitals, atrocious wait times, fewer cutting edge treatments, fewer new drugs, a shortage of doctors, a paucity of acute care hospital beds, unfunded liabilities that constitute 46% of the national economy, a middling performance about among countries with universal medical access----yes, the truth is out about Canada’s acclaimed health care system.

You know, the one that American progressives love so much from afar. The one that Canadians ardently loved too---until the 1990s. Then two things happened.

One was a dramatic shift in immigration policy taken by the then Brian Mulroney government at the end of the 1991, when it was announced that annual immigration intakes would virtually double. The second thing to happen was that wait times for necessary surgical procedures grew longer. And longer---until today, the median wait time today of over 21 weeks is twice as long as it was then.

Coincidence? It would stretch credulity to the extreme to deny a connection. The greater the number of patients, the greater demand that is placed on the system, and immigration-driven population growth has added more than 7 million medical consumers to the queue since the departure of “Lyin’ Brian”.

Last year, Canadian taxpayers spent roughly $250 billion on health care, an expenditure equivalent to ll.5% of Canada’s GDP. That works out to over $6,600 per person. Now, one would think that that would be enough to provide us with the comprehensive care we crave. But it’s not. Ours is not an integrated system. Unlike the British National Health Service for example, physiotherapy, dental care and vision care are not covered. Neither are ambulance rides, plus a host of other out-of-pocket expenditures, including, for most of us, the crippling cost of drugs. If the Trudeau government delivers on the promise of a national pharmacare program, you can add another thousand bucks to the $6,600. A figure that’s been growing 4% a year of late.

That $6,600, however, is just an average. What of elderly parents sponsored by adult children under the rubric of ‘family reunification”? What of the unskilled migrants from “non-traditional” sources who don’t earn enough income to offset the cost of the social services provided to them? Migrants who impose a net fiscal burden of approximately $35 billion a year on Canadian taxpayers? And what about the many tens of thousands of refugee claimants whose settlement costs anywhere from $12,000 to $20,000 a pop? It would be reasonable to assume migrants from Less Developed Countries come with a backlog of unattended medical problems.

Already the big ticket item in every Provincial budget---accounting almost half of all program expenditures----health care spending in this country is on an unsustainable trajectory. The reasons are many. Rising drug costs, the price of new medical technology, over-centralization, the lack of community health clinics, a failure to shift toward preventive and holistic medicine, a failure to implement economies, the under-funding of home care and the refusal of many Canadians to take responsibility for their own health---all factor into the conversation. But the elephant in the hospital room, immigration policy, is a no go zone.

This is not just an issue of financial impositions. There is a human cost as well. The cost born by Canadians who must endure acute pain while waiting in a long line up to get a CT scan or see a specialist, only to join another long line up to have the actual operation. If you want to gauge their suffering think not in terms of faceless millions, but of individuals you may know who suffer in silence or turn to pain killers to get them through the night, and the many months ahead. When I do that, I think of my late mother and the hardship she endured in her final years. I think of the evening when, at age 86, had a medical event in a Vancouver suburb.

Mom was rushed to hospital only to have to spend the night lying in a gurney in the hallway. All beds were taken. According to protocol, the paramedics who carried her in from the ambulance had to stand around until she was admitted to the emergency ward. They had a long evening. So did I. When morning broke when all knew each other's life stories.

There was a lot of talking done that night, and at least half of it was in languages other than English. The signs posted near the waiting room and receptions were multilingual. English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and another from the Indian subcontinent. Our other official language---French---was not on the menu. Quite telling that. At times the scene was chaotic because staff were running around trying to make themselves understood.

That's a common problem in Lower Mainland hospitals. Hallway medicine, stressed out nurses, and very long surgery waits---that's the reality of our much vaunted health care system, a system that was not designed to cope with the crushing demands now made upon it, never mind the demands which the immigration and refugee lobby would further add. It is confounding that many of the people who grumble about having to wait 6 months to see a specialist or 8 months to get a hip replacement are the same people who favour open borders policies. They don't connect the dots.

Thankfully, my mother survived the night, but her lifelong socialist convictions did not.

My parents were among the founding members of Canada's democratic socialist party in 1933, the CCF, re-branded as the NDP in 1961. They fought for the establishment of a welfare state -- a 40 hour week, unemployment insurance, government auto insurance...and of course socialized medicine. When the NDP finally formed the government in British Columbia in 1972, they were elated, like most working class people of their generation. Having met the brutal challenges of the Depression and the War, it seemed then that their sacrifices would be rewarded with a worry free future. They would never have to worry about getting the kind of care they would require in their golden years.

But like the loyal working class supporters of labour and social democratic parties in Britain, Europe and Australia, they were betrayed by the politicians who claimed to be their advocates. They worked hard and paid their taxes, only to see people who had never put a nickel into the system bumped to the head of the queue. It was sad to see their bodies fail, but it was heartbreaking to witness their disillusionment. Their God had failed them.

Mom and Dad never left the NDP. The NDP left them.

Nobel Peace Prize winning economist Milton Friedman once said that you can have mass immigration or you can have the welfare state. But you can't have both. The NDP chose mass immigration.

Tim Murray

July 30, 2018

A picture tells a thousand words

In case you haven’t heard, Canada has a border crisis on its hands. To all but the wilfully blind, the deceitful deniers and the dangerously delusional, it is blatantly evident that growing numbers of migrants are deliberately and flagrantly in contravention of Canadian border law and international treaties.

It is clear that where Roxham Road in Champlain, NY meets Quebec, our laws are not being enforced, our generosity is being abused and our border is wide open to anyone who wants to walk in and avail themselves of the friendly assistance of the Royal Canadian Mounted Bellhop Police. It is also obvious that the offending migrants knew the drill coming in.. They knew that if they crossed the border in defiance of explicit do-not-enter signs, they would be arrested and detained, but by mere virtue of declaring refugee status on Canadian soil, they would also be given a hearing, something that under the terms of the Safe Third Country agreement, they wouldn’t get had they chosen an official port of entry. #FFFF00">Last year, most Roxham Road refugee claimants were Haitian residents who feared deportation after the protected status they enjoyed in the United States following the 2010 earthquake expired. But this year, most were Nigerians who had been granted a visa to enter the United States with the dishonest intention of using it to travel to an unguarded section of the Canadian border. For them, the United States was just a transit point, a stepping stone to the hospitable welfare state to the north.

Numbers and facts can tell the story concisely. Consider this:

• More asylum claims were made last year than at any time in modern Canadian history. #FFFF00"> The total number of RCMP-intercepted asylum claimants (i.e., “irregulars”) in 2017 was 20,593, and the total number through air, land, and marine ports of entry and inland offices was 22,185, so that total of irregular and “regular” entries was 42,778. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/asylum-claims-2017.html
• The RCMP intercepted 1,890 illegal border crossers in the first three months of 2017. In the same period this year (2018), that number soared to 5,052, compared to the 4,475 people who filed claims at legal ports of entry.
• Since the beginning of 2017, more asylum-seekers have crossed the border than the 25,000 Syrian refugees who were accepted in 2016. There were 18,644 refugee claimants in the queue at the start of 2017, but as of the end of March this year, there some 48,974---#FFFF00">more than a doubling in 15 months.
• Understandably, this has placed an unsustainable strain on the refugee system. When Canada rejects an immigrant, the decision is final. For refugee claimants in Canada, however, rejections are subject to lengthy appeals, removal orders, and in some cases, Canada-wide-arrest warrants. Since the Immigration and Refugee Board can only process 1,000 to 2,000 claims per month, they can’t keep pace with the flood. In March, the board was able to complete a record 2,587 claims, but 4,078 new refugee claims came through in the same month. The backlog is out of control.
• As the backlog grows, it is taking longer and longer to process claims. Last October the wait time was 16 months. If border crossings continue at the current rate, the wait time could be 11 years by 2021. Thus, a 19 year old illegal border crosser could be a 30 year old father with three kids in Canada by the time his case was heard. Time enough to put down roots that would be very hard to pull up. These delays will amount to de-facto amnesty, and serve as incentive for more potential claimants to make an illegal crossing. Not to worry. The Trudeau government has injected an extra $173 million on processing illegal immigration. But speeding up “processing” does not add up to border security.
• 96% of asylum-seekers have come via Quebec, which operates only four shelters for asylum-seekers, 1,850 spots in total. #FFFF00">In Toronto in 2016, asylum-seekers accounted for 11.2% of the people using shelters. Today that number stands at 37%. The Mayor estimates that at current arrival rates the city will be housing 4,485 asylum seekers by November, occupying 53% of shelter beds when the system is already in an emergency state. Quebec and the City of Toronto are crying “uncle”. Quebec is demanding that federal government fork over $146 million, while Toronto is calling for $64.5 million.
• Each asylum seeker costs federal taxpayers between $10,000 and 20,000 per year in entitlements. #FFFF00">In addition to the housing, social welfare, education and health care which they gain access to, under the Interim Federal Health Program asylum seekers are covered by dental and pharmaceutical care that provincial health care plans do not provide for Canadians. This in a country where “hallway medicine” and long surgery wait times are a fact of life in all jurisdictions.
• Both RCMP and Canadian Border Security Agency officials have been muzzled by the Trudeau government, and explicitly told not to #FFFF00">speak to the media about the shocking surge in illegal migration. Oddly, Trudeau supporters who reacted with righteous rage against Conservative Prime Minister Harper’s muzzling of scientists are strangely silent about this gag order.

These facts and stats are by no means exhaustive, but I think you get the picture. We have a massive problem, and the Trudeau government shows no signs of solving it. Some cynics would argue that they have no intention of doing so. But that is not the case. Liberals are getting nervous, and even Trudeau has been moved to back pedal. There is now an understanding that the government risks alienating Liberal voters who couple their naivety about welcoming migrants with a sincere belief that there have to be rules and these rules must be preserved and respected. It’s all about optics and partisan positioning. Liberal strategists are playing catch-up, as they try to shift to the right to adjust to the changing public mood and thwart the Conservative surge #FFFF00">registered by recent polls.

The outrageous spectacle of brazen law-breaking at the border is highly combustible fuel for a popular rebellion, which so far only manifests itself in relatively modest demonstrations at Roxham Road and the angry, bitter comments that follow pro-immigration online newspaper articles. One senses that there is a subterranean rage out there in search of a leader. Therein lies the danger for nationalists. So desperate is our need for a parliamentary voice that we are prone to vest unwarranted hope in the proven liars and opportunists of establishment parties, determined to ignore their past betrayals and globalist inclinations.

We don't seem to understand that astute #FFFF00">conservative politicians like Australia's Malcolm Turnbull or John Howard before him, or our very own (Immigration critic) Michelle Rempel--- take a hard line position against lax border control precisely because they are rabidly pro-immigration. They rightly fear that the violation of borders undermines public support for their sky high immigration agenda. They realize that angry people often conflate refugees with immigrants. They notice that for some reason, voters are more exercised by a few hundred migrants who arrive by boat than the tens of thousands who arrive from camps. They observe that voters develop an intense hostility to "queue jumpers" (and “border jumpers”) and that this hostility often boils over to include animus toward migrant applicants who jump through all the proper hoops. That is exactly what they want to prevent. They want to appear "tough" on asylum seekers and illegal border crosses to appease public anger and lead it. By manipulating and exploiting popular anti-refugee sentiments, they can not only win elections, but out-flank opponents in their own parties. As noted in the Sydney Morning Herald (April 24/2018)

"Turnbull understands the necessity of tough border protection…. a firm and controlled process of entry selection acts as a declaration that the nation state is in charge of its destiny. Tough border protection boosts public confidence in a non-discriminatory migration program, which includes an orderly, humanitarian refugee intake. It benefits immigrants and asylum seekers who go to a nation fairly and legally. It helps avoid the kind of chaos that lax border controls deliver. And it helps dampen down anti-immigrant prejudice."

Smart Conservatives like Howard, Turnbull and Rempel make a clever calculation. If they fan the flames of public outrage against asylum-seekers---whose numbers are but a fraction of our total migrant intake---they can turn the illegal border crossings into a lightening rod, and thereby decoy the angry mob away from what is most important: continual hyper immigration. Refugee-bashing is a small price to pay to ensure that the real invasion continues on an epic scale. Burka bans and references to “barbaric practices” and unwillingness to “integrate” serve the same purpose: Make mass immigration palatable by pretending that everything will be hunky-dory if only migrants check their tribal values at the door and embrace ours. Population overshoot is fine if everyone is “assimilated” and English signage can co-exist with Chinese.

As is the case with Australia, the number of refugee claimants who enter Canada is peanuts compared to our annual immigration intake. So far, in 2018, the number of asylum-seekers who walk across our southern borders each day is but 10% of the number who stream through our airports. If, as informed sources fear, 400 illegals will be coming across the border every day during the summer, this would still constitute less than half the number of migrants than come through legally at official ports of entry. If reporter Faith Goldy’s worst case scenario of 219,000 illegal border crossers came to pass, it would still constitute only half of the #FFFF00">roughly 400,000 immigrants and ‘temporary’ visa holders who arrive here legally. Perspective people. Put things into perspective.

We are running out of time. Our window of opportunity is closing. Changing demographics promise to erode our cultural and natural heritage beyond recovery if we don’t soon mount strong political opposition. Unabated mass immigration will bury us.

If we are to see an abrupt uprising against the government's bipartisan immigration agenda, we should hope that Canadians see the images of not 400 but 4000 Nigerians and Somalis streaming through Roxham Road each day. We should hope that TV viewers will be seized by panic, not by relative complacency--- as is the case now---- notwithstanding the still token number of brave, patriotic demonstrators that make their way to the border.

The very worst thing that could happen, at this point, would be for the Liberal government to yield to Rempel's crusade and do as she demands. Declare the entire border as an official port of entry. We shouldn't want the Liberal government to get a handle on things. We should pray that they completely loose the handle, as they show signs of doing.

According to Rempel, our refugee/immigration system is "broken", and that she wants to "fix it." We don't want to "fix" it, we want to demolish it. Notice as well that Rempel is positioning herself as a "Compassionate Conservative", so as to undercut the Trudeau Liberals self-depiction as 'caring', 'welcoming' governors. As she has clearly stated, it is not about volume but "processing". She does not want to cut back in-migration. On the contrary. She just wants to properly “manage” it. Managed national suicide. That pretty well sums up the Conservative project. A project fully embraced by Rempel, as evidenced by this bold confession:

“Most Canadians are like me. We want immigration. I want high levels of immigration. Our previous Conservative government had high levels of immigration. What we are seeing today is just a complete breakdown of immigration such that legal immigration is…. 7 ½ years to come to Canada as a privately sponsored refugee from Djiboute. That’s unconscionable. I want to go back to having a debate about how we process people. How we support them when they come to Canada. Plans for that. We shouldn’t be talking about whether we have a border along the Quebec-US side.” Michelle Rempel CTV News clip May 24/2018

In our desperation to look for champions, I fear that many of us are following her banner with the same enthusiasm that we rallied behind Conservative Party leadership candidate Kellie Leitch. We don't want to face the fact that these people have a different end game than ours. They want to re-capture office. That's it. And to do that, they will even throw some of their own under the bus just to get the liberal media hounds off their tail. Lynn Belak a case in point.
To Canadian nationalists I say this. Beware of the Pied Pipers of Fake Populism. Beware of tough talking Conservatives who mask their globalist goals with the rhetoric of patriotism. Take in the big picture. And make them understand that we don’t really have a border crisis as much as we have an immigration crisis. Tell them that ‘fixing’ illegal immigration doesn’t cut it. Tell them that if they won’t commit to substantial immigration reduction, we will not commit to them.
Don’t be played.
Tim Murray
June 7, 2018

David Suzuki says Australia and Canada are ‘full’ and calls country’s immigration policy ‘crazy’. "We plunder southern countries by depriving them of future leaders, and we want to increase our population to support economic growth. It’s crazy!” This translated excerpt situates Suzuki's remarks on numbers in context and is a response to an email recently doing the rounds. Candobetter.net Canadian writer, Tim Murray, has frequently criticised Suzuki for failing to criticise Canada's mass immigration which drives urbanisation and destroys natural habitat. Perhaps, in fact, Suzuki would not speak up like this in a Canadian interview, so savage is the Canadian mass media in its support of the commercial population growth lobby. Apparently hearing about this French interview, Canadian immigration Minister Jason Kenney attempted typical damage-control of his own party's indefensible immigration ideology, by slandering the famous environmentalist Suzuki, as “toxic and irresponsible” on Twitter. He also made remarks that indicated that he expected the mass media to similarly label anyone who disapproved of mass invited economic immigration. Which explains why Canadians fear to speak out about overpopulation. This interview, currently being cycled on email, was conducted by Jean-Michel Demetz and published on 01/07/2013. (Translation by Sheila Newman)

JEAN-MICHEL DEMETZ: In your autobiography, you evoke 'a happy childhood in a racist British-Columbia'. Seven decades later, is Canada right to call itself the most harmonious multicultural society in the world?

SUZUKI: It is a remarkable experiment. The presence of Asiatics is impressive: on the campus of the University of British Columbia one might think one was in Hong Kong! My parents' generation, although born in Canada, continued to intermarry among Japanese. Today 90% of Canadians of Japanese origin marry non-Japanese. In pushing for recognition of the diversity of the multicultural mosaic over the American-style melting pot, Trudeau helped integration.

Whatever their origins, Canadians recognise their common values: respect for differences and preference for peaceful and democratic solutions. This said, the First Nations remain the worst treated. Now the fate of these populations touches me, not only because of what they have suffered, but also becasme they have conserved an authentic relationship with nature. And that link is the greatest gift that they can bestow on us.

JEAN-MICHEL DEMETZ: In Australia environmentalists oppose population growth and immigration on the grounds that natural resources will not sustain them. What do you think of this?

SUZUKI: Oh, I believe that Canada is full too! Even though it's the second largest country in the world, our useful area is small. Our immigration policy is sickening: we pillage countries of the South and deprive them of their future leaders and we want to increase our population in order to increase growth of our economy. It's nuts.

JEAN-MICHEL DEMETZ: It's still a bit selfish to want to close the door behind yourself...

SUZUKI: That doesn't mean that we have no responsibility towards those who have difficulty surviving elsewhere. But there is no more room. All the same, Canada should alway s open its doors to those who suffer from oppression or crisis. During the 1970s, when we took in 50,000 boat people from Vietnam, I was particularly proud of being a Canadian.

"Harper gutted environmental regulations!" my NDP neighbour shouted. That was his parting shot in what turned out to be an acrimonious exchange.

So what? NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, like NDP Premier Rachel Notley, says that he favours the expansion and development of the oil sands project, and is "committed to getting it (the oil) to market". So what then is the benefit of restoring environmental regulations?

Lets assume that thanks to the NDP or the Liberals, tar sands oil will somehow be 'responsibly' extracted and 'delivered to market'. What then? What do buyers eventually do with the oil once they have bought it? Duh. No one will buy this oil unless they intend to burn it. It's the burning of the stuff that is most critical, isn't it? Isn't burning oil the major problem? I am sorry for ‘Harper-ing ‘on this point but no one seems to call out Mulcair (or Trudeau) for their ridiculous position on this issue. Mulcair and Trudeau are like the aspiring manager of a cigarette company who promises that, under his management, the company's cigarettes will be manufactured and delivered to cigarette smokers according to the toughest environmental standards.

"Harper muzzled scientists!". But would it make a difference to Mulcair or Trudeau if they were "un-muzzled"? The very fact that they are both prepared to 'develop and expand' the oil sands project is proof that they are not really listening to scientists anyway. What would un-muzzled scientists say that the global scientific community has not already said? Oh, but Trudeau promises to go to the next climate conference and make Canada "a leader in fighting climate change". So he is going to expand and develop the oil sands and assert Canada's leadership in fighting climate change at the same time? Now that is the very definition of a Liberal, isn't it? Someone whose feet are firmly planted on both sides of every issue.

Both Mulcair and Trudeau argue that they can better "grow the economy" than Harper. That's a selling point? Forgive me, but isn't economic growth killing biodiversity and rapidly depleting non-renewables? Oh, I forgot. "We can have economic growth and protect the environment too."

That, my friends, is THE BIG LIE that all of these parties peddle. Continuing conomic growth is neither desirable, necessary, nor physically possible going forward. "Sustainable growth" is the ultimate oxymoron. Infinite growth on a finite planet is IMPOSSIBLE.

It has never apparently occurred to the Harper-haters that making Harper the lightening rod for all is that is wrong with this country is chasing a decoy. When he is shown the door on Monday night, or soon after the new Parliament convenes, the fundamental policies that form the basis of our ruination will remain in place. Oils sands development and continuing economic growth----fuelled of course by unending population growth. The rest is all window dressing.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Tim Murray
October 17, 2015

PS My nominee for the most absurd speech of this campaign? Thomas Mulcair bragging about the fact that he came from a family of 10 children. That is like someone bragging that he came from a family that owned 10 Hummers. Many of us in retrospect feel morally culpable for having too many children. We love them but the planet doesn't. None of us are perfect. We all have environmental skeletons in the closet. But we don't have to trot them out and brag about them, do we? Especially if we are in a leadership position. If it is important to ring the alarm bells about climate change, it is also important to ring the alarm bells about the increasing number of climate-changers.

Does Mulcair know that there are over 7.3 billion people living on this planet right now? Hello? Has he ever taken a look at the World Population Clock? Does he care what time it is? Has he, or any of his "researchers", read the Murtagh/Schlax study out of the University of Oregon? Conclusion: Just in terms of carbon footprints, by having two children, a couple wipes out the environmental benefits of six major "green lifestyle changes" like driving a Prius, recycling your garbage, replacing light bulbs with CFLs, not taking a plane flight etc. BY A FACTOR OF FORTY! The authors pointed out that this could apply to other environmental impacts as well.

Population matters. Even Canada is, contrary to myth, OVERPOPULATED (cf. Science Council of Canada report number 25 and "Big, Cold and Full" by Dr. David Schindler and Dr. Madeline Weld). It is sad commentary on the pathetic state of environmental awareness that Green Party leader Elizabeth May is the ONLY politician in this election who has at least raised the subject. She didn't say much, but she said something.

A Social Democratic Party that Lost Its Way: Once-upon-a-time Canada’s New Democrats knew that there were Limits to Growth. They knew about the Club of Rome, about Silent Spring and about the Population Bomb. They knew that resources were finite and that their unrestricted extraction would cause irreparable damage. They knew that “growth” was the ideology of the cancer cell. Yes, in the 1970’s the environment was very much on the agenda. Party academic and scholar Charles Taylor spoke of “the politics of the steady-state” and John Harney ran his federal leadership campaign on those kinds of issues.

Here’s what the British Columbia NDP stated in 1972:
a. “An NDP government will undertake a study of the effects of continued exponential growth in the Province of B. C.
b. “Such a study of the exponential growth in B. C. would investigate the possibility of taking all steps deemed necessary to deal adequately with the situation.
c. “The Environmental Control Committee of the provincial NDP will study the adoption of a steady-state economic policy, the concept of progress and limited growth, and the party’s stand on this matter.”
d. “It is recommended that a federally-sponsored permanent research group be established to investigate all aspects of growth and to submit recommendations for action. Such a research group would be required to submit reports within two years of its establishment, and at subsequent two year intervals.”
e. “An NDP government will give top priority to environmental problems with particular emphasis on population control.”
f. “An NDP government will encourage all means which will bring about voluntary limitation of population.”
g. “Immediate steps will be taken to educate the public in the urgent necessity of halting population growth.”
(From Policies for People, Policies of the B.C. NDP 1961-78, p.30)

So what happened to all of this? Somehow the NDP lost its vision. Its prescient grasp of the impending ecological crisis slipped away into the hands of those who would have us believe that we can “have our cake and grow it too”. That we can have Economic Growth—“development”—and environmental integrity at the same time. They reconcile these contradictory goals with self-delusional, trendy oxymorons like “sustainable development” and---my personal favourite—“smart growth”. The NDP has become a party not just about dividing up the economic pie more equitably—but about “growing” the pie too. “Grow the pie to grow the revenues, and increased revenues will allow us to fund and maintain an endless laundry list of social services. Growth is not the problem you see. The problem is that the poorer among us are not in on the action. Apparently the NDP has not heard the terrible news: We’re living on a finite planet.

As I wrote in 2008, when the NDP was led by Jack Layton and the federal Liberals by Stephane Dion,

“In this they are not to be distinguished from any other party. Even the Greens, beneath their rhetoric, are committed to Economic Growth, because their leader Elizabeth May shares Layton, Harper and Dion’s goal of boosting Canada’s population to 40 million plus via immigration (http://www.greenparty.ca/index.php?module=article&view=85). That's right folks. Greens and so-called 'environmentalists' somehow believe that you can add another Metro Toronto to Canada's population every decade without negative ecological impacts! Yeah, and you can eat a liter of ice cream every day and lose weight too. Immigration accounts for two-thirds of the country’s population growth, and it is that, coupled with per capita consumption rates, which drives economic growth. And economic growth is eclipsing wildlife habitat and spurring greenhouse emissions.

No Jack, it’s not about driving Green cars, or building windmills, or retro-fitting houses. It’s about stabilizing our population level, limiting economic growth, and finally establishing what we talked about 35 years ago—a steady-state economy.”

Well that was then and this is now, September of 2015, when the country is in the midst of a federal election campaign. A campaign where, once again, contending leaders employ histrionics and fake outrage to give the impression that each offers the voters a radically different choice than their rivals. And once again, many voters are buying it. Harper is the devil incarnate or he is the one man who can be trusted to guide us through tough economic times. The fate of the world hinges on stopping Stephen Harper or re-electing him. That is what rhetoric can do to peoples’ brains.

But if there is indeed a difference, it is, as Freud would have put it, “the narcissism of small differences”. The differences are so petty that each leader feels obliged to inflate them to stake out a distinctive position. All parties support continued hyper-immigration-driven rapid population and economic growth, but some are careful to couch it those aforementioned oxymoronic euphemisms like "sustainable growth", "sustainable development", and drumbeats, "smart growth" (smart extinctions? smart clear cuts? smart carbon emissions?).
The only difference between the Opposition Parties and Harper's Conservatives is that the former are more adept at Greenwash. Nothing better illustrates this point than the absurd contention of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair that he is committed to getting the oil sands oil to market, but will ensure that it will be extracted and delivered safely and responsibly in accordance with tougher environmental regulations. What Mulcair doesn’t get is that it is not how the oil is procured and shipped to market that is of crucial importance, but the fact that once “marketed” and received, customers are going to actually BURN it. How is Mulcair and his party going to “green” that? And this is the party that accused Stephen Harper of not being serious about tackling climate change.

No doubt Mr. Mulcair took his cue from the newly elected NDP Premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, who shortly after assuming office this summer, declared that the oil sands project was a “tremendous asset” and an “international showpiece”. That’s quite an abrupt transition for a party that once regarded it as the planet’s most conspicuous environmental blight, and insisted that the oil sands was in reality the “tar” sands. Funny how that works.

Funny, except that Mother Nature is not laughing.

Tim Murray
September 8, 2015

Two thousand “Temporary” Foreign Workers ---Chinese miners---are coming to extract coal from northeastern British Columbia, Canada, close to three First Nations reserves who suffer unemployment rates over 70% !

'Diversity' drives down wages in Canada

Two thousand “Temporary” Foreign Workers ---Chinese miners---are coming to extract coal from northeastern BC, close to three First Nations reserves who suffer unemployment rates over 70% !

Government and industry tell us that we don’t have enough trained workers of our own. But maybe the real problem is that our workers are not trained to accept substandard wages for hard, dangerous work, that neither government nor industry has taken a serious inventory of our labour needs or resources, and that they are gripped by a quick-fix mentality that looks overseas rather than investing in the training of our own people, particularly of native youth.

Development: What's the big hurry?

And there is another elephant in the room. The primary question. Why the mad rush to “develop”, mine, drill and transport every resource in sight? Whose agenda are we following? The long term needs of Canadians, or the shareholders of foreign corporations and revenue-hungry debt-addicted governments? What becomes of the extra millions we import in a generation, when the ‘gold rush’ is over?

Nothing so permanent as a "temporary" worker

These miners are being brought in as “Temporary” Foreign Workers. A labour category whose numbers have tripled in just six years. But as the saying goes, there is nothing so permanent in Canada as a “Temporary Foreign Worker”. The trade union establishment, in fact, wants to smooth their transition into formal immigrant status. This reflects the ambition to “bring them into the union”, rather than to protect Canadian workers by demanding their expulsion. One often gets the impression that unions care more growing their dues-paying membership base and about exploited temporary workers than about the jobs of Canadians that those workers have displaced. Whatever happened to the ancient understanding that the best friend of the working man (or woman) is a tight labour market?

Canadian Political parties addicted to ethnic votes

Until recently, it was the cross-party consensus that Canada should have a ‘tap on, tap off’ immigration policy. That is, Canada would open the gates wider when times were good and foreign workers were needed, but close them when times were tough, as they are now. That consensus was blown apart two decades ago when the Mulroney government dramatically jacked up immigration quotas to unprecedented levels, motivated not by economic considerations but by political ones. Namely, the desire of the Conservative government to woo ethnic voters away from the Liberal Party by expanding immigration. Since then, successive governments have kept up that unwarranted intake for fear of chasing ethnic voters away into the embrace of the opposition parties eager to capture their loyalty.

Canada needs stability, not boom and bust

The truth is, we don’t need to dig up and ship out our resources at breakneck speed. We don’t need to follow the classic boom-and-bust cycle that has cursed our resource economy for a century. And we don’t need to recklessly import millions of foreign workers to pursue that kind of roller-coaster economic model.

The aim of public policy should not be to get rich quick, but secure economic stability over the long haul. The word “sustainable” has been abused beyond meaning. But nonetheless, it applies here. It should be clear that a sustainable economy is better than one that rises like rocket, and then crashes. A sustainable economy for a sustainable population level.

Tim Murray,

October 27, 2012