mordant wit

Every year 250,000 eager foreigners arrive in cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. After they do so, their careers, finances and lives are destroyed.

Dr. Khalid Rafiq, is one of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants in Canada forced to survive on the worst labour jobs the country has to offer. A Ph.D. graduate from Pakistan, he now earns minimum wage driving a taxi in Toronto for a living.


A related article:

Canada, like many other wealthy countries, wants to attract the best and brightest from developing nations.

The promise? Bring your education and skills and the jobs are waiting. In particular, the Canadian government has been encouraging highly skilled and highly educated immigrants.

In a major speech in September, Prime Minister Paul Martin put heavy emphasis on the need to increase immigration levels to combat an aging population, low birth rate and a shortage of skills.

"We need immigrants," said Martin. "Quite frankly we need more and we need them to succeed."

But can we really accommodate more? What about the tens of thousands already here?