Issue 53 Vol III, December 15, 2007

T H I S  O U R  N O R T H  A M E R I C A

A Nation of Newcomers
Gobind Thukral

Travel anywhere in Canada, particularly in large cities like Toronto, Vancouver or Ottawa, the face and colour has changed dramatically over the past one decade.  Any trip on Toronto's subway or a visit to a school anywhere in the Greater Toronto Area or Vancouver confirms this. Indeed, one in five people living in Canada are foreign-born. According to the latest 2006 census figures, an estimated 1.1 million immigrants came to Canada between 2001 and 2006, the majority of them from Asia and the Middle East. It is the country of their dreams, howsoever unwelcome they may be.

And, if we look more closely, Canada for the past one and a half century has been the land of immigrants and the first rush of Europeans marginalised the aborigines, the real inhabitants of the country. They continue to struggle for the basic property and other rights.

The arrival of 1.1 million migrants gives Canada a population dynamic not seen since 1931. Most settle in or close to major cities and have mother tongues other than French or English. Canada is now home to its highest proportion of immigrants since 1931 - the year it ceased to be a British colony and declared its independence. Never mind the anachronism as the British Crown in whose name an elected government functions.

People from Asia and the Middle East accounted for the largest number of newcomers counted in 2006, at 58.3 per cent, followed by Europe with16.1 per cent, Central and South America and the Caribbean 10.8 per cent and Africa 10.6 per cent.

The immigrants not only create more wealth, but also make more investments and thus pay more taxes. All this boosts the economy. In Toronto alone, this year 88,695 houses exchanged hands against 88,000 last year. In November alone 7313 houses were sold. Increased demand has pushed the prices of houses this year by 11 per cent over the last year. According to Toronto Real Estate Board this spurt in the construction and sale of new homes began in 1996, the time when immigrants from Indian, Pakistan, China and other Middle East countries started like a wave. It boosted the economy in a variety of ways. The industry that supplies large variety of items that go into the making of houses and the taxes which the government get, employment it generates and the incomes that accrue to attorneys  and the law societies, all add to the boom. The very skyline has changed.

These newcomers between 2001 and 2006, during which the national population grew by just 1.6 million, are a clear sign that the country's growth is increasingly dependent on immigration. Growing four times faster than the Canadian-born population, the 19.8-per-cent proportion of immigrants places Canada second to and gaining on Australia, which has a 22.2-per-cent foreign-born proportion that has not changed in a decade.

This is happening despite many checks, controls and the unwelcome signs for immigrants visible all around the country.  Canada, nevertheless, is comparably more tolerant and desperately needs new comers. As Premier of British Columbia (BC) Gordon Campbell during his visit to India said that BC alone needs 3.5 lakh people for jobs that are vacant due to shortage of manpower over the next 10 to 12 years. He disclosed that over the next 15 years the population of people in Canada aged over 65 would double, making the need for younger working people more acute. Since India has the world’s largest population of young people, it could be a great opportunity for the people willing to move there.

The economy of British Columbia in Canada has ceased to grow for want of skilled manpower and the province is now looking towards Punjab and Haryana for human resource. Given the projections over one million jobs will be created in the province over the next decade, but on its own the province can fill no more than two-thirds.

Campbell and his 32-member delegation explored the possibilities of cooperation in education, agriculture, technology, digital media, agri-processing and environment as part of his Asia Pacific initiative launched. He met Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to discuss the issue and areas of mutual interest.

British Columbia launched its Asia Pacific Initiative in April, setting out a long-term strategy to increase and diversify the province's economic and cultural ties with the Asia-Pacific.

Statistics Canada released last fortnight 2006 census figures, dealing with immigration, citizenship and language, also showed a continuing slight decline in the proportion of English and French speakers, as an unprecedented one-fifth of census respondents reported other languages as their mother tongues. In all, more than 200 languages were recorded on census forms, with those from Asia and the Middle East, Chinese languages; Punjabi, Arabic, Urdu, Tagalog and Tamil make the largest gains. In 2006, 70.2 per cent of the country's foreign-born population were allophones, up from 67.5 per cent in 2001. Cantonese, Mandarin and other dialects made Chinese the most prevalent language among them, with 18.6 per cent of allophones reporting it as their mother tongue.

The newcomers are settling in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver remain the destinations of choice, though their suburbs are gaining in popularity at the expense of the cities themselves. Smaller centres such as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and London are also taking an increased share of immigration.

New face of Canada is more evident than in the Greater Toronto Area. Over the five-year period ending in 2006, nearly 450,000 immigrants, or 40 per cent of the total Canadian newcomers, settled in this region, drawn by family, friends and job prospects. Many are settling in established immigrant communities in Toronto and the surrounding 905 area, especially Brampton, Markham, Mississauga, Ajax, Aurora and Vaughan.

Immigration has always shaped this country, but the makeup of these newcomers has changed dramatically. The wave of post-World War I and World War II arrivals from Europe has given way to migrants from China, India, the Philippines, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Together, Canadians report speaking more than 200 languages.

Canada became the first country in the world to embrace multiculturalism as an official policy 36 years ago. And while it has long had a reputation for tolerance, the ideal of multiculturalism has recently been under severe strain.  Nevertheless, the Canadians can be proud of diversity and are willing to embrace a wide variety of cultural and religious differences.

This multicultural, multilingual and multi-talented mix means Canada can compete economically much better.  It needs to welcome immigrants and celebrate multiculturalism and enjoy this sometimes uneasy mosaic.

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Canada Cornered At UN Climate Meeting In Bali
Khushwant Toor writes from Toronto

Representatives from about 190 countries were in Bali, Indonesia, from December 3 to 14 struggling to frame new international climate change agreement and trying to lay down a roadmap for a future international agreement on global action to fight climate change. Hosted by the Government of Indonesia at the Bali International Convention Centre, the two-week period, had to be extended by one additional day, included sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol.

Finally, after lots of resistance from the developed nations, particularly America U.N. delegates managed to get an agreement signed on a plan to negotiate a new anti-global warming treaty by 2009. The success of the conference was put in jeopardy by the developed nations, in particular the U.S., the only country in the world that had signed the Kyoto accord and was adamant not to be bound by any binding agreements. U.S. was accompanied in majority by Canada, who earlier did sign the Kyoto accord but did not do enough to implement it. The new agreement in Bali was signed after a personal appeal by U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon. Yet the developed countries were bale to buy time to agree to final draft and its implementation.

At the conference, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) backed by delegates from European Union demanded for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. This received a strong opposition from the U.S.  Eventually, United States caved in under pressure from the European Union and the developing world and agreed to a compromise only after getting the text amended in the preamble of agreement to read as "Deep cuts in global emissions will be required" to avoid dangerous climate change, in stead of the originally proposed “rich countries should cut emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels”. The guideline, that rich countries should cut emissions by 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 as recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was moved to a footnote at the US delegation's insistence.

U.S. delegation nearly rejected the pact because of a demand for rich nations to do more to provide clean technologies to poor and developing nations. The U.S.’s voice was, echoed by their so-called close allies the Canadian counterparts under the leadership of the Canadian Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper, who is seen as an anti-environmentalist by many Canadians. After facing lots of criticism, the U.S. reversed course and pledged to support the plan.

The plan termed as "the roadmap" is a framework for negotiating a new climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Kyoto Protocol required the rich countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by five percent compared to 1990 levels.

Before the conference began, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki-Moon said, “The scientists have done their job. Now it's up to the politicians. Bali is a test of their leadership.” and indeed it was a test of leadership at Bali. Where as the Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was praised for his stand on ratifying Kyoto accord at the same time Canadian Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper and the Canadian stand on environmental laws were criticized not only in Bali but through out the world.

Canada had been facing criticism on its implementation of measures to honor Kyoto accord, even before the conference in Bali began. Earlier, the UN Development Program criticized Canada for its failure to address climate change. It described Canada as an “extreme case” of ‘all talk’ and ‘no action’ and noted that Canadians leave the second largest ‘carbon footprint’ per capita in the world after the United States. According to the UN report, it would require nine planets if everyone on Earth had the same footprint.

Canada maintained a position at the conference that it wanted all countries to be part of a constructive agreement, including developing countries such as China and India. Canadian Environment Minister John Baird held firm to his view that any successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol must set binding conditions on countries like the United States, China and India. During the earlier days of the conference with none of those countries agreeing to accept targets, environmentalists and opposition parties accused Canada's federal Conservatives of poisoning the talks in Bali.

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, questioned Canada's call for developing nations like China and India to accept binding emissions. "I personally find it interesting to hear Canada just a little while ago indicating it would not meet its commitments under the Kyoto protocol," said de Boer. "Now (it's) calling on developing countries to take binding reduction targets."

At the conference Canada had been receiving Fossil of the Day awards from youth groups attending Bali. The award is given by a network of NGOs to countries 'doing their best to stop the environmental negotiations in Bali". Saudi Arabia won the same award for refusing to endorse any emissions target; the U.S. for “blocking the international effort to fight climate change”; and Canada for “telling a committee in Bali that emission-reduction obligations were not necessary for all largest emitting countries.”

A recent report released by two European environmental groups ranked Canada 53rd out of 56 countries when it comes to taking action on global warming. That puts Canada ahead of only Australia, the United States and Saudi Arabia and well behind China, which was listed at number 40.

Canada has 0.4 per cent of the world's population yet produces two per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. It's one of the world's biggest per capita emitters, along with the U.S. and Australia. Canada and the U.S. emitted about 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per capita in 2004. In comparison, China emitted 3.8 tonnes and India 1.2 tonnes.

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