I'm no expert, but I am a Canadian citizen, born here, of European ancestry. I will try to tell you a few more things about immigrants in Canada. Those of youwho have discussed it with Perry and each other gave good advice and comments. As I'm actually here, maybe I can let you see through my eyes.
Most of the Chinese people who came from Hong Kong when they were afraid of how things would go there came to live on the West coast, in and around Vancouver. Many of them were wealthy. They bought fine big houses. Some of them returned, no doubt, after they no longer had to fear. Also, emigration from Hong Kong to Canada dropped off. Chinese people, as most immigrants, tend to gravitate to our large cities. Therefore, you will probably find a very international Canadian population in other big cities like Toronto, Montreal, and so on, as well as in Vancouver and area.
People who speak French and want to go to Quebec may do well.
You may, or may not, get a job in Canada that accords with your training. For instance, physicians who immigrate may not be able to get jobs as physicians. I have noticed that Chinese tend to do better than many people from other countries. Somehow to me they seem to fit in well, as many are prudent, assured, and somehow more like the description of Canadians in front of the luggage carousel that I gave in my other reply under the post by Perry about the interview.
Probably it would be possible for a Chinese physician who knows acupuncture and herbal remedies to become qualified and set up his own business here. There is quite a lot of interest in those things here from many people, Chinese ancestry and otherwise. There are three in my city. One is run by a man who seems to be of Norwegian ancestry and has trained in the field.
We have an aging population in Canada, and need young immigrants. As the "Baby-boomer" generation reaches 65, (the youngest are now around 50), many will probably retire and more positions will open up. So far that hasn't happenedyet, of course. We have youth who are born in Canada waiting for that to happen, too.
There is controversy here about difficulties for immigrants to transfer their degrees and too often being under-employed. Changes are occuring slowly to make it possible for people with qualifications from abroad to practise here. There seems to be some concern by employers that the standards wouldn't be the same as they expect. Sometimes, you know, people are more comfortable with what they know. They find it hard to try new things, and new people. However, that is changing and must change more. I know plenty of children of immigrants, who grew uphere, who have managed to find good jobs. Some have excelled in university here and qualified for the best places in grad schools.
There are well educated immigrants here who are working at driving taxicabs in Vancouver and cleaning offices and homes here and in the bigger cities. Recently there was a news report of a woman immigrant and her husband who want to sue the Canadian government for supposedly misleading them about the availability of jobs here for them. She has not been able to get any job that accords with her excellent training and former standing at home. The same is true of her husband. She was a top company bookkeeper where she came from.
There is some racial violence here. Not a lot, but there is some. There are some racially constituted gangs in Vancouver. There are all the bad things there are everywhere, but less of them. This week there was a 17 year old Filipino boy beaten to death by Sikh students in Vancouver. Everyone was in shock and the Sikh community is very concerned and trying to help the family in any way they can think of. In areas where there are people from a number of countries and various income levels, too, there can be pecking orders established in schools, andbullying can happen. This is an international problem -- school bullies. However, this week's case has upset everyone. No one thought it could happen here in Canada. There is some racism here. I know, because one of my friends who isan immigrant from a visual minority gave his daughter a weighted small club to carry if she is out at night or in danger, then she should use it. That is against the law, of course, to carry such a weapon. I think he gave it to her because she had been harrassed or threatened downtown on the street. This was long before 9-11, and in my city of about 100,000, which is not big.
This young woman is now married to a man from a similar background, and as they were both very young when they came here they both could almost be considered second generation Canadians. He has a very good professional position he was trained for here. She has a good eye for property and has bought a couple of rentalhouses.
I know another family, the wife of which opened a factory for some kind of cosmetic. It is doing very well. Their daughters both married here, to men of theirown culture, and went on the university and professional training afterwards. I also know people who have married outside of their own culture. They have married Japanese, Scots, "standard variety Canadians" like David and I, and people from many other places.
Canada is said to be the first "post modern" country in the world. That is because we basically all get along. It isn't usual to hate and fight. It is usual to be able to get along with different kinds of neighbours. It is best not to bring politics from the old country into Canada. People from elsewhere are not encouraged to become like everybody else and melt into the melting pot, as they are in the USA, they are encouraged to keep their cultures and traditions, and also to be good Canadians who love this country, too. We have a "cultural mosaic".It is something many Canadians who understand things are becoming happier and happier about.
It is really wonderful that many younger children no longer see racial differences. They just don't notice them at all and they get along together without thinking about that.
On the other hand, of course, we have ignorant people, too. Mostly, I think not, though. People of many races visit Ben and I, and our neighbours have never said anything about it, and we haven't felt any coolness from them. On one side they are from Germany. On the other side they are from South Africa -- whites who left when they saw trouble coming. Across the lane used to be Australians,but the Dot-com troubles dried up the husband's contracts as a computer expert. He used to travel the world. So they sold and moved to Calgary Alberta, where it is much colder and sunnier, and the economy is doing very well because that province has lots of oil.
After you come here as a landed immigrant you may eventually apply for citizenship.
My son-in-law did that. He studied hard, and passed. I looked at what he was studying. It was a lot of facts about Canada. The way the government is set up.The names of past Prime Ministers, and so on. You won't have to know these things until you want citizenship, if you do. I didn't know all the answers, myself, and many people born in Canada don't know them, but as we are already established and know how to find out what we need or want to know, I suppose we think it doesn't matter.
If I can answer any of your questions, Perry, I will be glad to try. Do you have friends or relatives here? It is not easy to come to visit because they think many visitors just intend to disappear into the population and disappear into the underground economy. It happens both here and in the USA and since 9-11 there is more concern about it.
Right now there is a man who has been caught and is having trouble. He had a car accident and when the police discovered he wasn't a citizen and had been here too long, he found himself in danger of deportation. In the meantime, he had married and had a child here. The child, of course, is a citizen. He is a good person himself, and I hope he will be able to stay. He didn't have enough education to qualify so he decided to get in, anyway. He was working in construction,where someone made room for him and helped him.
Canada is much more open to people who are being persecuted or whose lives are in danger in their own countries. We give shelter to such people.
Right now, a lot of rethinking of our immigration system is going on, so it would be as well to go ahead with your interview in case things become more difficult. You don't have to come to stay, even if you get it, do you? But if you don't get it, you can't come to find out. Don't cut all your ties in China if you come. Lots of times people come here. They stay a few years. Then they decide their memories of things where they came from were better, so they go home again. They sell everything they accumulated here. Their furniture, maybe a house. They stay a year or two, and the next thing you know, here they come back to Canada again. They found out for themselves that not only had things changed where they used to live, but they also had only remembered certain kinds of things and forgotten the lack of other things that they had grown to like about Canada. When they come back for the second time, they stay.
I have a woman who helps me clean the house once a month. She was studying to be a legal assistant. Here she is cleaning houses, partly because her English isstill poor. Her husband has a very good job in a lumber-mill, but he hurt his back badly. The mill is independently and family owned, and is known for how decently it treats employees, so he still has a job. She is afraid that some of the things that happened where she formerly lived are beginning to happen around her here where she wanted to feel safe. Her fellow country-people think she is wrong that someone got the key to her house and sneaks in, rearranges a few things or damages some of her clothes and sneaks out again. This happened where she came from. I can believe it of there. It would certainly be mental harrassment. She seems very sad until I cheer her up, but quite sane. Her husband has said he wants to get a divorce as he wants his freedom and also no stess. It was right after his mother visited. The lady who helps me is the second wife. He has grown children over there and she has also. I think the mother talked against her to her husband. So, you see the kinds of things people have to put up with?
Another of my friends: she and her husband are from another area of the world. She graduated from university and received a medal from the monarch for excellent scholarship. He had a degree in business and worked for an international company with branches in Canada. His brother had a social work degree, and the wife of that man was a teacher. Here, the first woman works for the government as a Workers Compensation worker. She was offered a job working with people on social assistance, but the training course she took for it showed her that she doesn't have the nature for it. She is very kind, and it would have broken her heart. People need social assistance for many reasons, and some try to cheat. She would have had to find those out, too. The husband has tried various things. He hasn't gotten a job although he felt very self-assured when he came. He opened an import store which didn't make it, and he closed it again. They bought a little restaurant and it didn't make it, and they resold it. His brother managed to get the contract for a post office in a shopping mall. For that he needs an employee who speaks both of our official languages, English and French. Now he has moved and greatly enlarged the place because he got the postal contract again for the same mall. His teacher wife helps him in the postal outlet/store, and takes care of home and child. This family also has another brother here, and mothers from both sides of the family. They came because they were in great danger where they lived as the father of one of them had disappeared after arrest for their religious convictions. He has never been heard of since. This family has at least two brilliant girl students who will go far here. They all pull together and help each other, financially and otherwise.
Chinese often seem to have a better chance of success and easier acceptance here than many others. It wasn't always so, but seems to be now. Many Chinese people open restaurants or businesses in the Chinese areas of the cities. They don't need to live in those areas, but choose to because it is very easy andconvenient to have signs and talk in your own language.
Canada needs people to go to the hinterlands to the small places, not to the cities where immigrants seem to congregate. It is possible that there are jobs there that aren't available in larger places. I can't be sure, though. I know there is a great shortage of physicians in such places, and in the north. I think the requalifying of physicians here is going to open up more. It was a sort of "closed shop" for many years.
I hope this will give all of you who are interested in Canada some insights.
Warm greetings to you all, and good wishes, Mary
