THIS IS A REPORT BY A NON RESIDENT INDIAN SETTLED IN CANADA. HE HAS SUFFERED A LOT AFTER HE MIGRATED TO CANADA.HE HAD INTERACTED WITH OTHER SUFFERING INDIANS THERE AT CANADA. AFTER A LONG RESEARCH HE HAS PREPARED THIS VALUABLE DOCUMENT   WHICH WILL HELP MANY FUTURE INDIAN IMMIGRANT TO TAKE A CORRECTIVE DECESION. TO PRESERVE HIS WORK AND TO TO GIVE AN EYE OPENER TO THE PROSPECTIVE CANADIAN IMMIGRANTS THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN CREATED.READERS ARE REQUESTED TO WRITE THEIR EXPERIENCES,COMMENTS AND SUGGESTION TO IMPROVE THIS SITE.      

Friday, October 6, 2006 

THE GREAT CANADIAN IMMIGRATION SCAM

Time and again there are articles written on the plight of  immigrants in Canada. Politicians pay lip service and promise to do something before they get elected; however after the elections these same promises are seen going to the winds. Other political parties are also not much concerned and want to draw political mileage if anything from this issue.

Stephen Harper is to send his immigration critic across Canada

to find out what Canadians think about this issue, Jack Layton is frustrated...does anyone try to find out what the immigrants think? He or she would rather not, as the person would face harshest reactions and criticism.

Moreover politics is a numbers game: New immigrants don’t form a voting bloc as they have no voting rights. So they suffer silently as in the Hollywood movie: Silence of the lambs! However if money means anything to the policy makers of this country they should consider the loss in billions of dollars to this country which is twofold:

[1] By underutilizing skills of qualified immigrants

[2]The ill-will Canada gets abroad by word of mouth and subsequent reduction in revenue due to a fall in the number of aspiring immigrants.

These factors should make policy makers sit back and take note and ensure that immigrants are not treated like second class citizens.

In my country I was last working as plant manager with a very large company manufacturing automobiles. However after coming to Canada I was greatly disillusioned. I personally visited several industries in GTA, faxed and emailed my resume to hundreds of other industries

but drew a blank. I was called for only two interviews in two years but inspite of doing well and being told my job profile, or being asked my salary expectations and being asked to follow up which I meticulously did, nothing materialized. This is the experience of thousands of immigrants landing in this country. The whole job market is hidden. However if you are lucky enough for someone to refer your name then all requirements of a resume vanish into the thin air and

you land your dream job ! This country lets in immigrants based on point rating which depends on technical qualifications, experience

etc. However there are very few jobs available here for qualified people and 99% are pushed into labour jobs. These are survival jobs only and you make no economic progress unless husband and wife both work.

While Ottawa lets in immigrants based on qualifications and experience all applicants are required to sign a statement which says that they will

have to get certified by local bodies to work in their fields. The same qualifications which help them to get immigration are not recognized after they land here.

Then why are these qualifications recognized for immigration? Its because the government is fully aware that only qualified people who are financially strong can come along with funds of $10000 each.

In other words the eye is on strengthening the economy without any tangible benefits to the newcomers. 250,000 people come every year bringing minimum $10,000 each And this appears to be a big business for the government of this country.

After one lands here there is little or virtually no support to settle down. Only qualified immigrants are allowed to come because with qualified people working in factories, there will be fewer mistakes, quality of

the jobs will be better, qualified people will not unionize, so a very congenial atmosphere for the industries for maximizing output.....

The whole system is developed in such a way as to exploit the individual.

The standard pay in all factories ranges between 8$/hour to 12$/hour. Labour agencies have completely cornered all the jobs so no factories employ you directly. There are no benefits in agency jobs;

agencies get 4$-6$ extra per hour you work...so they too extract their pound of flesh and add insult to your injuries. It takes 2 years before a man can settle down in a permanent labour job, that too a job far below his qualifications. The new immigrant lands up in a job which is intellectually demeaning, frustrating, leading to intellectual starvation and with leaner paycheques. Not only that, a refugee coming to Canada barely able to speak English is on par with a qualified professional with years of experience and both get 8-12$ an hour! A qualified immigrant is equated to a refugee who comes to this country putting a burden on its social welfare...devoid of funds, devoid of skills... Is Canada fast becoming a country of refugees, international terrorists and criminals rather than being a land of opportunity for professionals and techies? Is Canada wanting this dubious distinction thus increasing social costs of welfare and security concerns without tangible benefits to this nation ?

While we consider the costs to this nation resulting out of this fall-out we have lost sight of the social costs to the individual. Apart from economic hardships immigrant families are seen to be breaking up and falling apart [and there are innumerable examples of this] as a result of these constant tensions, the responsibility of which entirely lies on this country.

Since a qualified immigrant is not accustomed to doing jobs involving manual labour in his country, he ends up with many physical bodily injuries such as back-pain, rheumatism etc and may be forced to go on welfare.

Does this represent Canada, a modern society of the first world?

Statistics has shown that the harsh ground realities are already raising their ugly head which is reflected in a drop in home buying and a fall in tenancy occupancies to the extent of 5% across GTA.

What makes things even worse is that new immigrants planning to upgrade themselves can do so when they get E.I.      First E.I is after about 900 hours of work. Agency jobs last from a couple of days to a few weeks after which there is a lean period before one can get the next assignment. Completion of 900 hours becomes a tall order, and even more so, completion without a gap between assignments. Frequent gaps between consecutive assignments, though no fault of the individual lead to lesser E.I.

The employment insurance that they offer in case you lose your job is so pathetic that you cannot make both ends meet! Employment insurance was reduced from 90% a few years back to 70% then and  now stands at 55% ! Whatever little the immigrant may try to keep away for the rainy day is promptly consumed by exhorbitant rents so the immigrant is left with nothing at the end of the month.

Some immigrants try to overcome the situation by doing co-op jobs. Here again the immigrant is put to disadvantage as he has to work full time, for not less than three to four months, with no guarantee of placement where he works, without being paid a single penny!

Immigrants are on extremely meagre resources and no immigrant can do an unpaid full time job for three to four months as it would become a question of his survival. Probably with a little political will and redistribution of funds deployment, immigrants could be paid a stipend to cover their maintenance costs, part of which could be shared by industry as well as the government. This would be a win win situation for all parties concerned: The industry gets the right man with low initial costs, the immigrant lands more smoothly into his field of expertise and the government can develop a realistic statistics of the quantum of real skilled labour requirements to be fulfilled by immigration.

The question arises as to why immigrants continue to put up and stay here. Its not out of love of the land. The immigrant is in the most unenviable situation. I have come across highly qualified engineers who come to this country by selling off alltheir assets back home. Even if they may have retained their jobs for a limited period, for them it is akin to starting life afresh like a 25 year old as they have sold everything, before arrival to this land of promises and fortunes.

We had a Tory government in Ontario. This government did yeoman service to immigrants by freezing the minimum wage rates for 9 years! This government decontrolled the rents so rents became unmanageable for middle class and new immigrants. While previously 80% of the apartments had a moderate rent of less than 800$ per month now less than 20% were available in that range. Pressure on the food banks increased, pressure on subsidized housing increased...hardships became unbearable for immigrants.

The message is loud and clear: This country is not interested in the welfare of immigrants. They are interested in strengthening their economy at the expense of the immigrants.

This has been the longtime philosophy of America: Exploit the countries around the world and enjoy the highest standards of living at their expense. In Canada there are two Canada’s: The native Canada and the non-native Canada. It is a divide between the native born and the outsiders. Native Canada enjoys the highest standards of living at the expense of non native Canada.

When U.S was a developing nation they brought labour from Africa to work for them. They exploited Africa of its cheap labour. At one time India and China were the two richest economies. The British exploited India economically and reduced it to penury. In this connection it is worthwhile reading the book “Economic surveys by Karl Marx”. He has clearly outlined giving facts and figures how the British exploited India and the world in general... Today we are in a modern world. So Canada has developed a more refined and sophisticated way of exploiting the intellectual skills of the nations in Asia.

It is worthwhile noting the sequence of exploitation: first exploitation of unskilled African labour, then economy of countries around the world and now exploitation of intellectual skills! This country is committing crimes against humanity! This country is blessed to get the best qualified professionals from around the world.

Policy makers could have applied their skills in making the economy of this country vibrant and competitive with the U.S by properly channelizing and utilizing the skills of immigrants rather than playing second fiddle to the U.S.

This is a mixed reaction which I have by speaking to various immigrants. You may modify its language to remove anything offensive but without loss of meaning. It represents the extreme pain faced by immigrants today.

I shall appreciate if you publish it in the interests of the common good.

Part II

This is the second and last article I write to highlight conditions of immigrants in Canada and at other places in the world. Trust you find it informative. As a sequel to my last article I received various reactions. Some appreciated my genuine efforts and

suggested me to send it to as many newspapers as possible; others called me a downright pessimist and loser!

I have tried to study this problem by discussing with numerous people: People who have stayed here for as long as 35 years ! The information I gathered is very revealing and worth going through. They have given their opinions off the record.

As in other countries here too there are pressure groups and lobby groups which lobby with the party/government to protect their own interests. As is always the case, the common man is the loser.

Consider the following:

[1](One of the probable reasons given to me by people who have stayed here for several years [and many of them are also stuck in labour jobs inspite of qualifications] is that there is a tie-up between industry and the universities and colleges here. Both are privately run and form a mutual interest group. Therefore industries are obliged to give jobs to students passing out from educational institutions here only as students take loans to complete their education here. So even highly qualified immigrants are left out when it comes to giving jobs. If immigrants start getting jobs[and there is no dearth of qualified immigrants..250,000 every year as per one statistics] then the students here would be left out of jobs. This in turn would affect the educational institutions as fewer and fewer would opt to study in these insitutions which would be detrimental to the business of education.

[2]CGA ia a Canadian qualification while CPA an American one. Until recently both were on par but then suddenly one day both the CGA practitioners here as well as the educational institutions realized their incomes getting affected by recognition of CPA. Certified professional accountants[CPA] were then derecognized by the government when educational institutions and CGAs lobbied with the government. So this was a purely political decision based on numbers game of politics; not because CGA is academically different or better than CPA!

[3]The government cries hoarse about the shortage of doctors. Then why is it that the qualifications of highly successful doctors coming from abroad not recognized? I spoke to some of these doctors as well as to old timers here. They told me that doctors lobbied with the government not to recognize overseas qualifications as their incomes would get affected. Incidentally it is worth noting that doctors earn very high incomes here ranging anywhere around 300000$! Just to give an idea of just how many people have that kind of salary...directors of power stations earn around this figure!

[4]As for those working in factories, the salaries are simply pathetic. Salaries start at 8$-11$ an hour and the yearly increments are a pathetic 1$-1.10$.These increments are supposed to be rewarding[?!]as such high[?]increments are present only in unionized environments. I spoke to some friends who are working in non-unionised environments. Their story was even more telling. They said their increments are anywhere between 25cents[I repeat: 25cents] to 35 cents a year! 98% of these immigrants working in factories are qualified professionals with experience ranging from 5-25 years in their fields of expertise! [5]I spoke to some people known to me in the banks : people working in banks in good positions of authority and who are here for a number of years. They told me that I should not think that the pension plans will suffice me after I retire. The plans are extremely meagre; so much so that people who bought houses in their lifetime had to sell them off and stay in old age homes so that the sale would give them enough funds for post retirement living for about 10 years when coupled with their income from pension plans.  One person who is a Canadian citizen and stayed here for 35 years told me that he gets just 350-400$ pm!  This figure was again given to me by another family and a man now studying taxation. He told me that the highest figure of payment last year stood at a measly 430$ pm.!

Now some news from around the world:

Similar conditions exist in NZ.A friend was telling me that there are hardly any jobs available there. Seasonal jobs like fruit picking are there during spring but the rest of the year is difficult to survive. The majority works in food outlets, gas stations etc. Here too the advertisements are tailor made to suit their own white people when it comes to supervisory jobs so that immigrants are left out in cold.

A typical ad would run something like this: “Wanted for a supervisory position: An experienced person around 25/30 with not less than 10 years experience in food outlets”. Immigrants traveling to NZ go on a point rating. To get qualified to go as permanent residents to NZ they must have professional qualifications with a few years of experience. So they can never be there in NZ at the age of 30 with 10 years experience in food joints.

Then who qualifies? The locals obviously, who are school drop-outs by 15 or 17 and start working in these outlets so they already have 10 years experience by the age of 30 to become supervisors! They have qualified professionals from abroad working under them. For the professionals of course this is highly unnerving resulting not only in a leaner paycheque but also a bruised ego!  The vast majority whether in NZ or Canada or other countries calling for immigrants, drive taxis, work in Mcdonalds, KFCs etc...that includes not only those from India and other Asian countries but also those from Easten Europe, Ukraine, China etc!

When the Canadian Prime Minister says this country needs 100000 engineers every year he does not spell out that they are required for labour jobs and not for supervisory positions...Now that’s what I call diplomacy and dirty politics!

This represents a classic case of social subjugation and must be fought tooth and nail . . by word of mouth, by educating people at large in home countries...

Join your hands with me and email this article to as many as possible and let those in turn tell others...let this become a chain reaction 

I don't think it is necessary to counter every argument.Let people listen live from Notcanada.com  the program from Canadian W-5, where their own TV has brought out this problem to limelight.

Our reports may be doubted.Can they doubt a report prepared and which figured on their own TV? [Incidentally this program of W5 is on the first page of Notcanada]

Moreover you can also read thousands of articles on their prestigeous newspaper Toronto Star [http://www.thestar.ca]

which has written on this subject of the plight of immigrants now and then.Can there be any reason for their own Canadian newspapers to be in the business of spamming?

One point needs to be made clear: We have no personal interests involved.The people who launched either Notcanada or this website are already successful themselves in whatever they are doing but all the same who got frustrated with the Canadian system. It is no loser who has tried to launch this website.

The notcanada.com as well as this website has been launched by people who have first hand experience of this country and are currently living and working here.The intention is clear: To educate the people at large about the harsh ground realities one has to face before one can become even marginally successful.Branding them as negative does not hide  the harsh ground realities which exist here and time and again voiced by their own newspapers, TV programs etc.

We do not insist that people must take what we say at face value.Do your research and decide but your research will more or less lead to the same conclusions.Let aspiring immigrants try to get more truthful info from their friends, relatives etc in whom they may have faith and if they get the correct info they will understand the importance of this work and website.

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The article whose authenticity is in doubt was not posted by some
loser.The article does not refer to a single person's experience.It
is the experience of thousands of qualified immigrants who can find
only dead end jobs in this country and are going backwards in their
careers.It was posted by a qualified immigrant after personally
going through all the highs and lows after a careful and painstaking
long study of the situation.People who move to Canada are the ones
with impressive qualifications and background and those already
successful in their home countries and need not be told that they
need to work hard to succeed in a new country.They landed in Canada
because they are the most mobile, hardworking people and their
background was found inpressive by Canadian embassies.They do not
expect to start at the top, but certainly not at the bottom.
If this report is to be doubted, be it so.However W5, a Canadian TV
program has made a program on the plight of highly qualified
immigrants after they land here.Time and again there have been
articles in some of their own prestigeous newspapers like Toronto
Star [http://www.thestar.ca] on the hardships faced by qualified
immigrants and that nothing is being done to utilize the skills they
bring here to the benefit of this nation, properly.
One of thier own kind, Mr Mike Taylor has published a book
"The Truth About Immigration: Exposing the Economic and Humanitarian
Myths. Mike Taylor. Coquitlam, BC: Karma Publishing. 1998.
Paperback. ISBN 0-9683952-0-1. $19.95 (CDN). 250 pp."
What does anyone wish to say to that now?
3rd November,2006 
Canada: From dreams to nightmares 
New Delhi, June 11: Far from being the El Dorado of repute, for many immigrants Canada has 
emerged as a land of unmitigated disaster. From rampant discrimination to hidden booby traps,
 Indians have been forced into an economic quagmire that has generated despair and dejection.
 Wretched tales abound of even highly qualified Indians landing up in Canada, only to find that they
 don't get the job that their college degrees and experience require, having to instead settle for a 
dead-end job, even to the extent of being a sweeper with a PhD! Unfortunately, for those who 
actually manage to land the job they want, are sometimes paid 80% or even 70% of the amount 
a white Canadian will be paid for the same work. This is increasingly happening in recent years, 
signalling that Indians and the rest of Asians are deliberately discriminated against. While many 
say that previously most white Canadians were not really highly educated and that is why 
immigrants from Asia in the 60s, 70s, and 80s were able to bag jobs that were highly lucrative
 and satisfying, turning Canada into the proverbial land of milk and honey for themselves. No 
longer. The International Herald Tribune's Clifford Crauss tells the tale of Gian Sangha who was 
so desperate for a job that he willingly cut his hair and removed his turban to canvass for 
employment, even though he was a Sikh. An environmental scientist, Sangha even had a 
doctorate from Germany and had taught in US. "Here in Canada, there is a hidden discrimination," 
Sangha said. He says Canadian institutions have refused to give him jobs sometimes providing 
excuses that he is over-qualified for the job! He is suing them for discrimination. To scrape by, 
he once cut lawns. Now he does clerical work and shares his house with his extended family. I
t was not supposed to be this way in Canada, which years ago put out a welcome mat to 
professionals from around the developing world. With a declining birth rate, an aging population 
and labor shortages in many areas, Canada, a sparsely populated nation, has for decades 
opened its doors to engineers, health professionals, software designers and electricians. 
But the results of this policy have been mixed, for Canada and for the immigrants. Recent 
census data and academic studies indicate that the incomes and employment prospects
 for immigrants are deteriorating. Specialists say a growing number of immigrants have 
returned to their homelands or migrated to the United States. About 25 percent of recent 
immigrants with university degrees are working at jobs that require only high school diplomas 
or less, government data show. However, writes Crauss, the Canadian public continues to 
support the government's goal of increasing immigration, and relations among ethnic groups 
are good, though neighbourhoods in some cities are becoming more segregated. But some
 fear that if opportunities for immigrants do not expand, social cohesion may suffer. "The 
existing system is broken," said Jeffrey Reitz, a sociologist who studies immigration at the
 University of Toronto. "The deteriorating employment situation might mean that Canada will 
not be able to continue this expansionist immigration program in the positive, politically 
supported environment that we've seen in the past." Reitz estimates that foreign-educated 
immigrants earn a total of $2 billion less than an equivalent number of native-born Canadians
 with comparable skills because they work in jobs below their training levels. What immigrants 
may also be up against is a system that refuses to recognise many of the degrees earned by 
these people back home. It creates the kind of piquant situation where Canada advertises for 
doctors and nurses abroad, yet refuses to give Indian medics a job in a hospital, because their 
degrees are not valid here. Thousands are left jobless. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel,
 but not for immigrants. Crauss says, the children of immigrants, who enter the job market with
 Canadian credentials, typically do better at acquiring high-paying jobs. "We have an arcane 
infrastructure of professional organizations that essentially mitigate against the immediate 
integration of these highly skilled immigrants," Joe Volpe, the minister of citizenship and 
immigration Volpe said he was concerned that news from disappointed job seekers would 
seep back to their native countries and discourage qualified people from immigrating. For 
Sangha it may have become what he says is "a painful life. I'm angry and frustrated. I never
 thought it would be like this in Canada." Immigrants find themselves going cold, wet and hungry 
in a land they had sacrificed everything they owned to reach. Believing they would be treated well,
 that their willingness to work long and hard even in inhospitable conditions of Canada would bring 
them wealth, that jobs would be aplenty, these people are now in a situation that is threatening 
their health and life because of the longstanding nature of their woes. They can't even go back 
to India. Some feel ashamed to go back penniless to their families. It would mean that they were 
not smart enough to do well as the going principle is that, 'In vilayet even monkeys become 
millionaires'. Others simply can't put together enough money to pay for their ticket. This trend 
has increasingly translated into numerous Indian families moving into so-called slum areas of 
Canadian cities as they increasingly get impoverished. For these people ebullience has turned
 into depression and their chance for plenty has transformed into poverty. Many of them have 
been left scrounging on Canada's unemployment benefits even having to rely on unemployment
 insurance and welfare, which is anathema to an Indian. The only thing in all this misery that is 
making them continue to hold body and soul together are their children. They are expected to do
 better and achieve the dreams that have been denied to their parents. Hope, and scant else, is
 all that these Indians have been left with after travelling tens of thousands of kilometres to a 
foreign land. They must be repenting the day they decided to get their passport and jet out of India.
 

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