Federal minister says Canada needs to get tough on immigrants who want citizenship

I'm torn on this. It sounds reasonable but then again, does the government really have to police this? Is there an epidemic of immigrants coming to Canada, and not speaking English or French and being a drain on society? Or is this just a trumped up myth designed to inflame people's passions?

Yes I believe they have to police this, language in a important part of our society and how everything works through communication. If they don't bother to learn english or french and if they manage to get a job. How are they suppose to service Canadians if Canadians cannot understand them?

For instance a year ago I went to get a haircut and there was this foreigner working there, the place was pretty much empty except for one customer and the lady working on him was busy so I told her I needed a haircut and she diddn't understand a word I said. She was speaking to me in some language I think mexican or something and basicly I just walked out of there because the lady that could speak english was already busy with a customer and I guess the other workers were on break or at back so I just walked out of there and went to the haircutters at the mall.

If I waited there somebody else would have probally came out and serviced me but point being is that how is that immigrant suppose to service anybody in her job if she can't even communicate with them? Specificly at that kinda work place where communicate is required.

Official Language is important and must be enforced.

I don't think people that refuse to learn English or French would really care to have citizenship. Lots of immigrants never apply. I don't know how that works, I assume they get their OAP and that anyway. Here and there you meet long time immigrants that didn't learn the language. In Toronto it's few and far between but there are some.

That immigrants weren't getting good jobs and needed accreditation was well reported back about 1980. All politicians say they want to get these skilled and professionals accredited. That's the way they talk. However no funding, no accreditation.

Jason Kenny is maintaining the quota at 250,000 give or take. He's assuming the recession will be over quickly.

I think you're onto something there.

Uh huh. Fire chaff!

Great way to trump up something to draw everyone's attention.

Sounds like their business practises lost a client. That's how business wroks - drop the ball, lose money.

I can't say an inability to speak the language is much worse than an inability to use manners or exercise social etiquette, read with a decent degree of literacy, employ an acceptable work ethic, or live under an acceptable mnoral code - all of which non-immagrints are quite guilty of.

Maybe we should be focusing on the home grown issues of our workforce before berating the immagrints with language issues.

Sounds like their business practises lost a client. That's how business wroks - drop the ball, lose money.

I can't say an inability to speak the language is much worse than an inability to use manners or exercise social etiquette, read with a decent degree of literacy, employ an acceptable work ethic, or live under an acceptable mnoral code - all of which non-immagrints are quite guilty of.

Maybe we should be focusing on the home grown issues of our workforce before berating the immagrints with language issues.

Oh my...that would mean people would have to focus on themselves and their own inadequacies
(like my spelling)

I think you're onto something there.

Agreed. This is the Cons pandering to the more xenophobic elements of their base.

Totally disagree with you on this one Streaker.. We really need to clamp down on immigrants who come here and do not learn either officiaL language. There are many here who have been here in excess of 10 yrs and still dont understand. Now we are having sports broadcast in Punjabi.. common ! If we dont take a stand then it will be a mixed bag of subcultures who live and work in their little piece of Canada. There is a threat to the English language now..it was predicted before. Thats why in Quebec I favoured bill 101 which protects french in the province.. I propose the gov't design a bill 101 for Canada that protects English and French.. This should be the law and apply to anyone wanting to come here and live.. no ifs ands or buts.. I am a liberal but I support M.Kenney on this one and emailed him to say so.

Sounds like their business practises lost a client. That's how business wroks - drop the ball, lose money.

I can't say an inability to speak the language is much worse than an inability to use manners or exercise social etiquette, read with a decent degree of literacy, employ an acceptable work ethic, or live under an acceptable mnoral code - all of which non-immagrints are quite guilty of.

Maybe we should be focusing on the home grown issues of our workforce before berating the immagrints with language issues.


The homegrown workforce picks up the language through-out years of being in a english or french speaking society, Canadian schooling and pick good job skills through further Canadian education.

Work ethic, morals, etc are unavoidable. Happens to immigrants, non-immigrants. Regarding homegrown, they all can communicate with our society and majority have atleast a high-school degree and large percent with a college or university degree. I would say homegrown workers aren't really a problem.

We need people to fill jobs that are currently empty, Canada atm is dependant on immigration to fill the gaps that aren't filled. If you don't push immigrants to be a working part of our society than they won't be filling those gaps at all because most people won't hire people who can't speak the official language. All you have is a bunch of immigrants who have a hard time getting jobs, go on wealth-fare and take from our society rather than giving back. They need to learn english, take classes if needed and get a education if they don't already have a creditable one from there home country and do what they came here for which is get a job and make money. Pay there tax's and commit to society.

So much of everything we do is dependant on the ability to speak english, jobs, shopping, civilian life or military. The list goes on.

As long as the offspring of immigrants learn one of the official languages I see no problem whatsoever.

This is much ado about nothing - enough with the xenophobic hysteria.

In Toronto you can work in construction with Italian, I've meet house wives that stayed home all there life and never learned the language, I even worked in factory with a guy that told me what he wanted done with hand signals. He was appreciated at the factory because he stayed and was a loyal employee. You find a niche and you can survive without the language. I think it's lazy but that's what I've seen in Toronto.

I think you're onto something there.

Agreed. This is the Cons pandering to the more xenophobic elements of their base.





That's BS. People never cared when the Poles or the Ukrainians (or any other European immigrants) never bothered to learn English/French. They just go visit Polish doctors, call a Polish plumber, etc. Everybody's happy. No, the issue is that the non-whites are starting to do it too, and that just won't fly with the immigrant haters in Canada.

Why can't we have sports cast in Punjabi? Or Mandarin? Or Arabic? Or even German for that matter? Like Lily said, it's obvious that there is a market for these services or they would fail. I find it hypocritical that Conservatives bash this kind of stuff, yet turn around and preach for privatization of Crown corporations like the CBC.

All I can say is that anyone who is against Chinatown (or Little Italy, or Greektown or any other ethnic enclave found in Canada) obviously hasn't eaten there...

That's bullshit, people cared about that as they do today. A lot of hard working and good working polish were deported just the same. The difference is that the majority isn't polish and that majority doesn't bother to learn english. While the polish could atleast speak it a little bit and Europe has a majority english speaking percent while places in the middle east have little to none.

Stop playing the race card for your arguement.

We have sportscasts in Punjabi and Mandarin also. We have soccer in Italian, Persian and Farsi. Canada's government and her people welcome this rich cultural mosaic. It's just we want there to be a common basic level understanding of or languages also.

Since we're all about playing fast and lose with the extreams of this topic, I think we all learned the value of basic communication skills from Robert Dziekanski.