Canada Immigration

Members Area Off Topic Posts/Discussions
1

A friend of mine considered moving (from Germany) to Canada - if possible - but doing some resaerch found the following website.

What do the Canadians on this forum think about this site? Thx for your thoughts.

http://notcanada.com/

What’s the purpose of the site? To reduce immigration? What’s true about it?

Does that only apply to immigrants from so called “undeveloped” countries with “Univiersity” degrees which simply do not value anything in the “Western World” (I know and somehow understand it from the situation in my country)?

Some stuff from the site:

--------------snip----------------
8. Discriminatory and Dishonest Immigration System.
Immigration to Canada is based on a point system, obtained with your education, qualifications and job experience. Points are good enough for immigration, but in Canada, they are not good enough to get a job in your field. Amazing, how the credentials that qualify you to come to Canada are the same credentials that don’t qualify you for your profession in Canada. The reason is, Canada only wants immigrants to do the labor jobs - pizza delivery, driving taxis, factory work etc.

  1. Out Of Control Cost Of Living.
    From rent, to utility bills, to shopping, to phone, internet and cable bills, to gas, to car insurance, to eating out, to basically anything you have to pay for or buy, the cost of living in Canada has become astronomical. Recent immigrants are astonished as to how expensive everything is. It is estimated that compared to most countries around the world, the cost of living in Canada is on average five times greater.

  2. Health Care Crisis.
    Practicing physicians in Canada are in a shortage, 1 in 4 Canadians cannot get a family doctor. Canadian doctors are leaving to move permanently to the United States. Statistics Canada and the Canadian Medical Association both have identified that for every 1 American doctor that moves to Canada, 19 (nineteen) Canadian doctors move to the United States! Doctors in Canada are overworked and underpaid, and there is a cap on their salaries.

  3. Very High Taxes.
    Yes, you have the GST, the PST, totaling 15%, on practically everything you purchase and many other taxes taken out of our weekly paycheck. You have to pay a whopping amount to the government, out of your hard earned salary, so that the government can turn around and give it to beer drinking, hockey watching welfare bums. Fair? It does not matter, it’s Canada.

  4. Money Hungry Government.
    Canadian Embassies around the world lie to foreigners, painting this picture that Canada is Utopia, because they want them to come to Canada. Why? Because foreigners bring money! So after being deceived, these foreigners come. They must bring with them at least $10,000. Canada has an immigration quota of 250,000 per year. So please do the math, 250,000 multiplied by $10,000 each equals a whopping 2.5 Billion dollars that Canada gains from immigrants every year.

  5. No Culture.
    Unlike almost every other country in the world, Canada has no culture. Actually American culture is what dominates Canada. When was the last time you had some ‘Canadian’ food? There are no Canadian traditions and there is no national identity. What does it even mean to call yourself a ‘Canadian’. . .nothing really. People living in Canada, still identify themselves with the country they ‘originally’ came from.

  6. Worst Weather.
    Yes, Canada has the worst weather conditions of any country in the world. Freezing cold temperatures, snow, ice, hail, winds, storms etc. From the Prairie provinces to the Maritimes, from the Territories to southern Ontario, the weather is so horrific and disgusting that many Canadians leave Canada simply because of this reason alone.

  7. No Jobs.
    Yes, coast to coast, there are no jobs. Immigrants are highly qualified (MD’s, PhD’s, Lawyers, Engineers etc.) but they are driving taxi cabs, delivering pizza’s or working in factories. Even people with bachelors degrees from Canadian Universities cannot find jobs after graduation. This is the tragedy associated with immigration to Canada. I feel sorry for those immigrants who are stuck in Canada for the rest of their lives. It is indeed a very sad and hopeless future.

written by
Asad Raza, M.D.
www.NotCanada.com

This list was published in the Ottawa Citizen:

Please do not believe the fancy websites made by the Government of Canada or by the Canadian immigration laywers. They are not telling you the truth. Do your own research!
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2

ALOT of what is posted isn’t even true. :mad:

No culture? Cost of living five times greater? Worst weather?

Bullshit, more bullshit and even more bullshit.

This website was created by Asad Raza “a former Toronto resident who did his undergrad degree in Canada (at York) , but went to the Caribbean to get a medical degree because of problems finding a spot in a university closer to home.” Sounds to me like he didn’t think is education through and it came back to bite him in the ass - and now he has an axe to grind.

The site is biased and one sided - and written by someone who should know better considering he immgrated when he was two years old - hardly a new immgrant with a foreign PHD who ended up driving a cab.

Yes, there are issues right now and some valid points are raised: The agencies and bodies that regulate the fields of medicine, engineering, teaching and nursing are slow at assessing and licensing foreign-trained immigrants - however this hardly applies in all situations - which is what the site leads you to believe.

And, Asad Raza was a Canadian citizen who decided to educate himself in another country and wrote the Medical Council of Canada’s evaluation exams - the same qualification exams that he wrote in the United States before becoming a doctor there. It’s pretty sad that he couldn’t find a job, but you don’t go setting up websites spreading ludicrous propeganda.

I would not base any immigration decisions or create any opinions on Canada or the people of this country based on that website. I mean seriously, one of the 8 reasons, ‘no culture’, is based around an argument on the lack of “Canadian food”. This guy sure didn’t get out much did he?

And another boasts that Canada has "the worst weather conditions of any country in the world.", and “the weather is so horrific and disgusting that many Canadians leave Canada simply because of this reason alone.” I’m not even sure how to address this. Most Canadian cities are within 300 km of the southern border, where mild springs, hot summers and pleasantly crisp autumns are common during the majority of the year. We’re not talking Siberia or the Sahara desert here.

Cost of living? According to the 2005 Cost of Living Survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting, the Canadian city with the highest cost of living (Toronto) was only 82nd in the world, while Ottawa was the cheapest city in North America to live in. Five times, my ass! :mad: From the looks of his complaints about paying for “rent, to utility bills, to shopping, eating out, phone, internet and cable bills”, he has a less-than-mature outlook on life, and might have finally just moved out of his parents basement to discover the gasp you actually have to pay for this sort of stuff.

And this guy couldn’t get into med school in Canada? Why am I not surprised?

And this website gets tens of thousands of hits daily - so thousands of people who have never set foot into Canada think it’s a hellish frozen wasteland with a bunch of beer drinking welfare bums who make foreigners drive cabs and deliver pizza.

No, Canada is not perfect. Yes, sometimes we complain about taxes. But get real.

I guess a peaceful, multi-cultural country with a high standard of living, cleanest cities, highest quality of life in North America, cheap education, free medical care, and the safety of a Canadian passport wasn’t enough for him.

He should move to Texas, and dress up as a cowboy. That will satisfy most of his complaints. :smiley:

3

Thx for your (emotional :wink: ) reply. First I thought Mr. Raza was probably an invention by a xenophobic group who put up the site to scare possible immigrants.

Of course some arguments are not even worth dicussing like “worst weather” and “no food”, “no culture”. LOL
In fact the weather in NY or continental Euope north of Italy seems to be pretty much the same like in the areas of Canada where > 90% of the people live.
I only choose my holiday destination according to the weather :wink:

On the other hand people might get a wrong view with all the studies of Canadian Cities having highest Living Standards in the World.
In fact from a distance (e.g. for me here in Europe) Canada seems to combine the advantages of the US and Europe.

And tax? Most European Nations with a working wellfare system have higher taxes!

But how is the job situation really? How high is unemployment? Is it true that (truly qualified) people have to make a poor living doing unqualified jobs? Does it apply for Canadians, too, or mainly for immigrants?

I read an article on CBC (the mentioned site links to it) about a poor, poor woman with a degree in Athropology who can’t find a qualified job. But guess what - I don’t know one single country where a degee in Anthopology guarantees you a good job nowadays.

It’s hard to find out “the truth” about a County from an outside view.

4

Unemployment for December 2005 was at 6.4% - the lowest in 30 years.

Assessment and licensing of foreign-trained immigrants is slow, but that doesn’t mean they have to take low-skilled, low paying jobs. It’s one of the key issues the new government will have to tackle when they’re elected in a few weeks.

There are always going be sensationalized stories about extreme cases, but for every disgruntled doctor who contends that they’re qualified to practice medicine in Canada, but aren’t allowed, there are many others who have jobs or own businesses and fit in as part of a functional society.

And it depends alot on where you are from - if you’re a doctor trained in South Africa for example, there are no such problems finding a job in Canada. For others though, the provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons, which grant doctors their licences, require that after medical school, doctors complete a residency: at least two years of hands-on training, usually in a hospital. An American residency is treated on a par with a Canadian one, but residencies in other countries are not. Therefore, the majority of immigrant doctors have to complete a residency here. And, foreign doctors will only be considered after Canadian-trained graduates have found residency positions.

As another note, some of the foreign doctors’ Ontario International Medical Graduate Program clinical scores are not high enough to be accepted into the program.

So while they’re studying to pass these exams or be accepted to residency, they do what students do the world over - work at jobs at restuarants, taxis, etc. AKA - student jobs.

Each province in Canada has different rules too - so the province you decide to move to will also affect how long it takes before you can start practicing.

It’s a bit of a mess, but it does not mean there are no jobs - it’s just that there are no automatic guaranteed ones the second they arrive. The process will have to change because Canada is in short supply - and it will get better.

5

I agree with most of what you have said, but in regards to immigration, I must say I have heard some horror stories. We have all heard the rumours about professionals from other countries not being allowed to practice in Canada and various articles on the subject have been published in major newspapers. If you are a professional coming to Canada it is certainly worth investigating further.

6

Without a doubt - it might even be wise to have prospective job opportunities lined up before arriving.