Is immigration out of control?

A 2005 article for your perusal:

http://www.asc-hsa.org/article.php3?id_article=271

Public debate, have you heard any I haven't. Yet we have privately appointed committees meeting and planning the great SPP...Security Prosperity Partnership...I say I am not buying it.

 

You do realize that is a onesided and largely unimformative article. I'll wrtite something out when I have the time later tonite highlighting my position.

 

the world belongs to no one. and that includes the different sections of it people have claimed for themselves. what gives us the right to tell people they are not allowed to walk on certain ground or breath certain air?
we own nothing, the world is everyones habitat. stop being greedy.

 

You're wrong, about NAFTA not being an overall good thing for Canada.

Canada's economy has long been one of staple goods, and each one has had it's moment in the sun and then been replaced. Starting with Cod and Fur in the 16th and 17th centures, timber for the next several, the Wheat Boom of the 1890s, pulp following that. Some of these have stuck around we've been riding them - timber, notably. But prices for these resources are hugely depressed, and they're substitutes (being Minerals and Oil) are not sufficent to continue carrying the economy.

Therefore, Manufacturing is taking over as the dominant theme of our national economy (this trend dates back to roughly post-world war 1 but has come into full swing only recently: our main export now is auto parts).

But we need a market for these, and 75 percent of our exports go to the US. For us, maintaining this market is crucial: we have no other choice that won't take decades to develop.

Is there shit we have to put up with? Yes. Notably arbitration stacked towards the US (see Byrd/Softwood), shitty enviornmental controls, and decreasing sovereignty, but these are traded for the continuation of economic growth. Real Wages in Canada are rising.

As for American's losing jobs, I don't think unemployment rates are chronically higher now than they were pre-NAFTA. And as for 'free trade' taking American Jobs, have you considered that America was producing much of their goods for exports - without free trade, other states would have started putting up tariffs on these exports, and the jobs would have dried up anyway. You were essentially bending over other countries, adn the playing field is now slightly more level.

 

I don't think I mentioned job loss. I was stressing that contrary to what proponents promised, NAFTA has not lead to better lives for Mexican poor or stemmed the flow of illegal immigration. After all isn't that what this thread is all about.

And as for Canada, thanks for taking in our war injured soldiers that no longer want to fight. It has nothing to do with NAFTA. In a sense I am sure it's illegal immigration there.

 

Does your reasoning give corporations the right to determine all of our lives based on their bottomlines? I would rather live in a world community where local communities have some say in the selling of their livelihoods and natural resources than one where all the control is handed over to global corporate cronies in private backrooms.

 

Labour theory of value. In this case, we (collectively as a country) built the infrastructure, we built the society, we own it. It isn't as if first world wilderness is better than third world wilderness. They aren't coming for the nature.

 

eliminate the problem (corporations) and we've got a solution.

jen, ur utopian views are commendable. u've got the right idea! humans, all alike, should be able to roam the planet freely.

 

Blaming "Corporations" is a knee-jerk scape-goat reaction. "Oh no! They have limitied-liability investment! What a bunch of rapists!"

 

I don't eliminating corporations is the solution, but holding them accountable, and no longer allowing them to affect legislation to the point that their viewpoints are the only ones considered, would be a big step forward.

 

i agree that the world is no ones but people that are born and breed in england are losing jobs to people that are immgrating to england surly our jobs shouldnt be taken off us ?

 

No jobs are being lost or ''taken from us'' - stop preaching middle ENGLAND bullshit.

 

Your country picks the president it gets.

 

people are attracted to states like a fly attracted to lamp

 

shit------------

 

what world do YOU live in? utopia 714?

 

if by our country you mean the people, then.....no.

 

People should be able to go wherever they want to go. no one owns the earth, so what right do we have to say where a certain person can or can't go? the way I see it, the earth is everyone's home, and so we should all have the right to go to wherever we want to. unfortunately, there's a lot of people that want to limit who can and can't come through the borders, so what I think is right is just a fantasy.

 

It's a fantasy until they move into your home town and you have to learn spanish.

 

And spanish is almost the second official language in these U.S. states which are near the mexican border (I mean New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California). There were some possibilities for this process of illegal imigration to be stopped about 10-15 years ago. Now it seems to be too late. And building a fortification wall won't help at all.