$400,000 dollars to attract immigrants. How many apprentiships could be assisted with this money?

We should always look after our own first, then worry about bringing immigrants in. The cuts the liberals did to the apprentiship program 6-7 yrs ago is showing and now instead of helping out Canadians they want to bring in foreigners.

Are people from the lower mainland now considered immigrants? Something is wrong when our tax dollars are being spent on displacing or training local labour forces. Are the fillipinos that are contracted by timmys also considered skilled workers? Seems it has gone beyond skilled labour and simply is foreign labour who are probably more maliable than local workers.

Anyhow, they got rid of the chinese for the mines so now they gotta make it look good to other countries.. I totally agree this money could be better spent on our own over here that would help people get better paying jobs to maintain a standard of living.

“We should always look after our own first, then worry about bringing immigrants in”

What exactly is “our own”? The article is talking about immigrants who are living in the Lower Mainland, so I would presume that they already are citizens. I could care less if you were born in PG or came to Canada 3 years ago. Once you are here and part of our country, you have the same rights as every other Canadian. Case closed.

To me this project is not about immigrants or people born in Canada, it’s about trying to attract people to Northern BC in order to preserve the sustainability of cities and communities that sit outside of the Lower Mainland. Population growth in the north is virtually nil and in fact, it’s in a state of decline. Northern BC better hope that they can find immigrants who are willing to move there or in 30-40 years you may be asking the last person left to turn the lights off when they head for Vancouver . . .

Our tax dollars at work. Why isnt the Chamber of Commers and the Logging Associaton fundingm these programs. Why are these associations always downloading off those that are working? I guess its friends in high places.
Cheers

my definition of “our own” is someone who was born in Canada or arrived here as an infant, spent their life contributing to the country’s economical and social wellbeing, retiring and dying here.
most of the immigrant workers that I have worked with don’t do that. they arrive here, get assistance, use our systems, send a lot of their money home and eventually retire in their country of origin.
to look after our own would be to help our young citizens find and develop their skills
my take on it, just sayin

“most of the immigrant workers that I have worked with don’t do that. they arrive here, get assistance, use our systems, send a lot of their money home and eventually retire in their country of origin”

I think you are either making this up or you don’t get out enough . . .

“…to experience Prince George without the expense of traveling here.” I believe if that happens, no one in their right mind would want to move here let alone hope to find work here. Does that “experience” include the crappiest air quality two years in a row, highest gas prices in the north, perpetual raising of taxes beyond the inflation rate, poor road quality, limited shopping,and last but not least a dysfuctional city hall? Lastly paying for this stupid idea with our tax dollars. Alas! Please rid us of IPG then lower my taxes accordingly. Every nickel will make a difference.

“I think you are either making this up or you don’t get out enough . . .”

Bang on!!!!!!!!!

That is one of the problems of small towns.

“to experience Prince George without the expense of traveling here”

Hey, that would be advantageous for those who are considering moving to other places, but are hesitating to do os because they will miss the attributes they have come to enjoy about PG.

The best of both worlds…..

Could I get one of those APPS for Paris and Ascona please.

What BS, again whats wrong with helping local people advance, or younger people wanting to move into these jobs.Election coming soon, what a shame they will start another website for $200,000

My list of PGs shortcomings BS? Well, er, uh, humm, haw ahh, er, OK. What should I omit to lessen the “BS”?

I wonder how much money leaves the country to oversea location supporting family? How much of an effect that is to our economy? I have been looking but seems elusive.

I wonder if people realize how important immigration is and will be to Canada’s economy. Like other developed countries Canada has a very low birth rate, and as our aging population starts to die off, we won’t be reproducing at a high enough rate to see population growth without immigration. It makes me sad to see so many negative stereotypes about immigrants still persist to this day, but I guess I’m not surprised. Like it or not, we need immigrants, many of whom are hard-working, skilled individuals. To the people who question “where the money goes”, do you forget that they are paying taxes and the cost of living here as everyone else is? Who cares if they send money home to help their families?

On a side note, I’m fairly certain this is much different than the Temporary Foreign Workers situation, as But mentioned. That is a different thing altogether, and you would be surprised by the amount of businesses and restaurants (not just fast food restaurants) that rely on TFWs…this is a different situation altogether than immigrants, as these are temporary workers. So no, I don’t think they would be considered “skilled workers”, as they are filling the low-wage jobs, low-skill jobs.

Seamutt, every dollar spent on purchasing some foreign currency to help out the immigrant’s family over there, wherever he or she came from, is a dollar less in profit for a Canadian business who borrowed the money to pay the wages the immigrant made here and is then sending part of ‘home’.

Since business loans are amortised from business profit, the diversion of this money abroad will mean someone here will have to borrow an additional sum of money to make up for what has left the country, or that business will not be able to fully amortise its loans. It IS a problem, and will become more so the more we invite ‘guest workers’ into Canada whose main reason for being here is to get ahead ‘over there’.

Since when have immigrants become “guest workers”???

Socredible … you have a tendency to tell part of the story to feed your narrow perspective of attributing costs and benefits.

That immigrant or guest worker that comes over here with a skill, which is often not recognized for a long time due to protectionism of domestic professional /technical /vocational associations, has attained that schooling from grade school through to high school and then trade school and even university, typically with an applied degree such as engineering or medicine at the cost of the state that person has emigrated from. Places such as South Africa, India, etc. are feeding us doctors who should have stayed home to support medicine in their countries. Instead, because we do not educate enough of our doctors, or we educate doctors who move to the USA, we have to import doctors.

If some of the money those skilled individuals earn here goes back to their country of birth, and the country which has often paid for their upbringing and their education and then does not benefit from the labour input, then I think we still have the better deal. The true cost of that immigrant or guest worker labour will still be cheaper in the long run than the home grown skilled person.

Socredible wrote: “someone here will have to borrow an additional sum of money to make up for what has left the country”

All those Canadians who travel outside the country should think about that when they spend money in their seasonal homes and annual vacations in the USA, Mexico, Spain, etc.

At one time the balance of trade was favourable for Canada, until the money spent outside the country by snowbirds and vacationers was put into the mix. I do not know where that sits today.

I remember when there was serious thought given by some prominent people to ask the Cayman Islands to join Canada to give Canadians their own spot in the sun.

According to a Government of Canada web site:

“Canadians are the 3rd largest component of the foreign work force in Cayman Islands. Many are accountants or lawyers, while others are in the tourism and construction industries.

“Canadian interests in the Cayman Islands are considerable. Canadian controlled banks dominate the financial services sector and operate off-shore mutual funds out of the Cayman Islands. Other Canadian investments are in utilities and hotel properties.”

So, do these Canadian “guest workers” in the Caymans send money home? And that is just a small microcosm of Canuck “foreign workers”.

What does the net benefit of the “guest workers” look like for Canada? ;-)

Good posts, gus and izzyd.

I think someone got it right earlier. There’s a lot of people who don’t get out much.

This is about lobbying and the access to government grants with little or no oversight or tabled results.

Just more pigs who know their way around the trough.

Most definitely little or no oversight.

Look at some of the posts on here. Lots of people, including myself, lack the immediate overview of the total effort of getting people who are needed and may be needed in the future to move here. I could research it, but it is a waste of time.

Amongst other things, the government has the duty to inform the public, not only about individual packages such as the above, but about a total integrated program with expectation, money to support the deliverables to achieve those expectations, the time frame, and the assessment of the success of individual projects as well as the full program. And each time individual projects are announced, a visual presentation of just where the project fits in with the program should be provided. On an annual state of the union report to the public the status of each program needs to be reported out.

As some have said, for example, why are we not working with current citizens who need a chance to get started with an apprenticeship. Well, we might be. Do we know for sure we are not. Remember , there might be projects, but they may not have been effective.

This announcement, as is most often the case, is made without context. How about something like this:

1.Here is the current shortfall in the interior – south, central, and north – in these jobs with a further shortfall projected to be ### in 2014 and annual shortfalls projected to 2020.

2.Here is the excess number of workers located in the GVRD for those jobs who could be lured north because they have the skills but no jobs.

3.Here are local people who have transferable skills which would require no more than a year of adjustment training.

4.Here are similar past projects which have been tried and have not gotten the expected results.

5.Here are similar past projects in BC, in Canada, in other similar remote regions in other parts of the world which have been tried and have been successful.

These are proposals which must have been in writing to the funders. How about posting the non-confidential components on the internet.

There are jobs available all over the world these days. Why would people come to Prince George when they can work in other areas and make the same or better money.???

People and immigrants actually leave Pr George to go to the lower mainland to work. I personally know of a number of families that have left here for Surrey.

The future lies in India, China, and other parts of the world. There are millions of dual citizen Canadians living in other parts of the world.

Pr George has some serious problems attracting people, not the least of which is because of the high taxes, high cost of fuel, heat, groceries, and of course the pollution, and the 6 month winters,. We used to be able to get away with it years ago, however nowadays we cant. We have this **stupid** idea that people will come here because they can get a cheaper house. Don’t bet on it. Some people might, most wont.

Canada does not get very many immigrants from Europe like it used to. These people now stay in their own Countries, because they have a future. They only came here after the 2nd World War because things were really bad. That’s not the case anymore. (other than debt)

So lets quit the bull, we can spend all the money we want to attract people, but if they have choices, like the USA, China, India, etc; and the opportunity to get world class jobs, and make a good life, they are not going to come to Prince George.

Prince George has not grown in the past 20 years. In fact if anything we have lost something like 15000 good high paying jobs. We are now down to the short strokes, when it comes to skilled labour.

The only thing that keeps this City going is the huge number of Government, College, UNBC, Hospital, and other Government workers, and a huge number of people on welfare, these jobs all cost tax dollars to keep them going. So we are in essence a Government funded welfare City, pure and simple.

In actual fact what we have to offer can be found anywhere in Canada, in any Province, at any time.

Don’t expect any big influx of immigrants anytime soon.

As an immigrant to PG myself- who came for UNBC and never really left I have helped at least 8 young, hard working people to move to PG.
What this town really lacks is folks who are positive, willing to work, and excited about life.
What this creates by this lack of optimism is a wonderful lifestyle for those who posses these traits.
As for looking after our own, I believe the population of PG grew from 15,000 to 80,000 in a few short years, so this town is truly a place where anyone can succeed.
Stop blaming city hall, the “fiberals”, Pierre Trudeau, or Stephen Harper for your problems. Get off your butt, put some clothes on, grab some cross country skis and save the health care system some money.
Quit whining and enjoy this place as it is the best place on earth.

Cupricity said – What this town really lacks is folks who are positive, willing to work, and excited about life.

There are actually a lot of people like that here, just very few of them post on opinion250 ;)
And judging from some of the comments a lot of them didn’t even read the story. Just saw the word “immigrant” and “worker” in the headline and started their rants :)

Good posts NMG, izzy, Gus, JB…

Positive? Yup! Willing to work? Not so much, being retired. Excited about life? Sure am! Especially every morning when I wake up! I didn’t even let the Cougars loss Friday night make me want to leave. So there!

Gus, my point isn’t to discourage immigrants from coming here, or even ‘guest workers’ under appropriate circumstances, nor from sending money back to their families wherever they came from.

It is simply to point out that this DOES have an effect on the economy here that we should try to understand, and correct.

For uncorrected it adds to the overall financial indebtedness of this country. And more and more of everyone’s income is going to be tapped to try to pay for that.

Correcting it need not be a discouragement of immigration, which I personally believe is generally beneficial to the growth of the country, nor of imposing some form of currency control over overseas payments by immigrants, or ‘guest workers’.

But if we want our businesses here to be able to service our own market, something which makes far more sense from any physical standpoint than importing a lot of products we now do, those businesses have to be enabled to make a profit. And each dollar effectively sent out of Canada this way is a dollar less profit Canadian firms are going to be able use to repay their bank borrowings, while at the same time, is a dollar’s worth of ‘debt-free’ money to add to the profits of businesses in the country receiving money from here.

Immigrants work harder and respect thier employer more than any of these drugged up idiots I talk to looking for work. The young people now, once they are hired, show up when they want, if they want, and expect top wages for knowing nothing. They don’t even bother to phone in. My opinion (I’m speaking skilled trades here) — useless, lazy, demanding, self centered little kids. I have seen my share of them and I would hire a mexican who wants to learn rather than a Canadian who “says” he wants to learn. Another thing is, the goverment expects an employer to pay some rehab if the employee happens to be drug dependent and expresses a desire to quit. I wouldn’t take that chance — I’d rather hire a young import and start him at 20/Hr.

I agree with harbinger who really wants to be here and he did forget crime capital of canada. The quality of service in some company’s that I have gone to is just pathetic but when you know when someone that acually wants to work doesn’t matter were they work and were they were from they will show more gratitude then someone that already has the easy life. So in my opinion bring on anyone to fill those positions because obviously our well far system pays way to good.

NMG I get out as much as anyone else and I am not making it up. Worked with immigrants for over 20 years so that is what I based my observation on. A lot didn’t leave but most did. Im not saying it is bad but I am saying we should give the young Canadian born people a chance first is all.