Tories scrap Liberals' goal of 300,000 immigrants

[CHIMO]

OTTAWA—The federal Conservatives have scrapped the Liberals' long vaunted goal of accepting more than 300,000 newcomers to Canada each year, saying serious backlogs in the immigration system have to be fixed first.

Immigration Minister Monte Solberg yesterday dismissed the Liberal target of accepting 1 per cent of Canada's population — long touted but never reached — as a meaningless figure.

"It's a nice round number," Solberg said yesterday.

"If all of sudden tomorrow we went to 1 per cent it clearly would be difficult for particular provinces to deal with the influx. ... I think we want to be a bit more methodical about this.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1147297812973&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

[CHIMO]

1. Venezuelan workers in Alberta's oil patch

http://www.cbc.ca/biznet/

[MrPrax]

2. Russians in the Fish Plants

Russians very happy working in Souris plant

SOURIS — After their first week on the job, Russian immigrant workers met the press Tuesday at Ocean Choice fish processing plant in Souris.

In an open and interesting press conference, members of the local media got to question both the Russian workers and Ocean Choice president Blaine Sullivan about the uncommon situation.

One which sees an Island fish processing operation shell out the cash to fly 18 workers all the way from Russia to Prince Edward Island to fill its rosters, and one which is attractive enough to entice the workers to do it.

The Russians will work for near minimum wage at $7.25 per hour. Their plane fares have been paid by the company and each worker is paying $250 per month for housing. Starting rates for unionized workers are in the $9 per hour range.

Guardian PEI

The capitalists apparantly need to fly in Russian fish plant workers into the Maritimes to work for 2 bucks less than the UNION wage of 9 bucks...

It's too bad we don't have social democrats in this country, they could have a field day with this one...

[Canuck55]

3. Friggin' bottomfeeders

Harper can't even come up with his own f'in wedge issues, just leech whatever seems to feed the base down south. It isn't even 'illegal immigrants', just wants the nationalist headline.

[Spazito]

4. Good point! He does seem to be following bush's lead

It is beyond pathetic, imo.

[daleo]

5. We know he has American (GOP) advisers

So I guess this isn't a surprise.