Immigrating Criminals into Canada
a symptom of national ineptitude?
A spontaneous response to an article by Bill Loeppky, Editor of the Inditer,
remarking upon the alarming number of foreign criminals infiltrating, and performing illegal acts in
Canada - many becoming citizens - and the clever subterfuges they use to do so.
.... by D. Grant DeMan
You're sure cooking with gas, Bill. Good for you, and what a story you tell, though most is not
surprising to me. For decades we laid back Canadians have been letting our guard down, so it's practically a tradition to have constructed a world-class crime magnet. At our age we don't need statistics to have watched our nation as it writhes with inaction and mind-numbing village idiot ineptitude. Hockey, beer and ice fishing, anyone?
Your article serves to reinforce my conviction that most of the better educated risk-takers
have been fleeing our Canadian coop for generations, and what's left is in no condition to guard the hens.
Our social programs, while appealing in the abstract, form a paper wall of sorts making it nigh impossible for
most so-so's like this old brush-and-pen-pusher to leave - "Where am I going to get a
health...welfare...pension...out there?" We have a plethora of governmental departments, but they're all
wind and no moxie. In this respect Immigration and Citizenship certainly do not stand alone. With a coast that is
eighty percent ice-bound during eighty percent of the year, we just bought a fleet of used submarines that
can't operate around or under ice. Hope those Chinese snakeheads don't catch on or we'll have to ask the US to do
more of our patrolling.
As a farm boy you knew that when you pumped a drink of water, it was morally incumbent
upon you to leave some water in the dipper to enable the next thirsty person to prime the pump. Well for
the last decades we Canadians have been draining the well while failing to prime the educational-
sociological pump. We got what we earned, didn't we? Until the cows come home we can muster reams
of bureaus, committees, and departments, but few have any knowhow. If they can't accelerate their work
and learning curves, we'll experience an increasing
maze of confusion amid cacophony and denial. Just read
the newspapers! Many want a socialist-communist system even yet. Heaven forbid!
In law enforcement, there is a deep forensic infection eating the meat of our lives. Cops must be
twice as smart and swift as the quarry that runs for its very survival and will easily outpace a lazy
hunter. On that note, qualifications for the RCMP, Immigration and Customs et al
include an eleventh grade pass, good body and smile, the ability to march in line and take orders. On the
other hand most US federal recruits require a valid degree, usually law, science or finance, plus a measure of
persistent excellence that would fry the brains and body of an ordinary citizen, though we're aware, even
then, they remain professionally far from perfect. With US salaries double ours, where is a young bright
person going to go? I ask you. It's a problem at least 70 years old.
Ninety percent of both sides of my family reside outside Canada -- generations born in the
United States. These are the smartest of the smart -- while my poor old daddy stayed here and made do.
Among them we find famed lawyers, doctors, business executives and such, while the Canadians remained
farmers, ranchers, teachers and small store merchants. I suspect we're typical in that -- a cumulative
handicap indeed.
And don't get me started on medicine -- citizens who die patiently in our "free" emergency
wards. Nor the criminal way our blood supply was handled, rendering my very best friend to suffer along with thousands, while governments, and nearly everyone else, diddles. Watching: the
walking dead in the streets waiting years for procedures that too often arrive late; our desperate
shortage of medical facility because for decades we've neglected our infrastructure, depending instead on
attracting - read "stealing" - the resources of other countries. Remember how we seduced most of our
brighter university professors and doctors from England and the US during those good old days, plunging
into debt while raising salaries to the moon? Now the purse is empty, we are unable to do that, and we're
crying and dying with our choices.
A microcosmic example appears in the pages of Canada's premier Webzine, The Inditer. What percentage of
contributors are actually Canadians? And of the Canadians, sadly, how many are sustaining writers engaging your talents
and promoting our site? Thank God for "foreigners!" Exit them and what have we left?
As a teacher I'm aware of a learning curve thumb-rule -- applying exponential math. We take
two kids and start them in the first grade with identical material, but one barely passes while the other
masters each subject. By the time they reach college, though appearances deceive, the first person grasps
less than ten percent of his colleague's knowledge and efficiency. There is no way that person can catch
the other -- short of a miracle.
That's what's happened to Canada -- so wasted are our educational, financial, and
particularly, research opportunities we're unlikely to catch up. I recall looking at the figures some time ago, and particularly in
research we accomplish less than even the smallest nations. The achievements of the US, Japan, and Germany - even England
and France - are many hundreds times that of Canada -- and subsiquently we have grown dependent
upon them for most of our ideas, perhaps because we have sent to their shores most of our top "idea"
families. What's left, alas, is a papier mache mockup of a modern nation.
During the early sixties I was shocked by the difference between New York executives and those
of Toronto, who are said to be the best we have. New Yorkers seemed at least twice as educated, worked
much much harder, and really enjoyed their work, unlike the sobersides gray Torontonians. Of course that's
precisely why desperate Canadian firms -- those now owned by Americans -- hired them.
It's no wonder we can't tell a bad immigrant from a good one, nor a prosperous business from a
loser. We no longer have resourses to hire excellence, nor run the equipment to do any job well. All one
has to do is search for some commonly distributed data on the Canadian Government Web Site to reach this
alarming conclusion. I've had to consult the US to find much of my Canadian information, usually it's just a
matter of About Com. Clueless, you bet! Notice how MacLeans, our National Magazine, rates our colleges
and universities, never ever comparing them to those of any other nation? Head in the sand? You betcha!
We saturate our culture with denial.
In past years, while we pretentiously aped Americans, Germans, and some of the English and Japanese, our
inner core remained empty to growth. Governments then were even worse off, but because they
did little, their ineptitude rarely showed. Now bureaucrats are into everything and stupidity abounds like
apes at Harvard, rhinos in a jeweler's' workshop. It's a marvel that Immigration and Citizenship could tell
a Vietnamese from Chinese, or a Hungarian for that matter. Let alone pick a culpirt from among them. And don't get me going on Church groups
who get taken regularly...duh!
One of my once-bright friends followed a civil service career, which turned him into a golf-
playing potato, making the usual monkey-motions to gain a golden pension and connections -- even as he
falls into mental obsolescence. But if you or I took a government job, we'd be fired the first day for
asking embarrassing questions, so there's little hope. When the boss is a dullard, he's not about to tolerate
some smart-ass consensus builder who will eventually do him out of a job.
Returning to the immigration problem: Those oriental criminals of whom you speak probably
think themselves normal, just taking advantage of an opportunity. With an understanding of how they
were raised, who can blame them? Hell, I learned how to escape my Air Base, party, and return
surreptitiously, the guards too numb to notice, and I didn't think it wrong. Pushing that idea further: the
ease in which these snake-headed cartels manipulate the Canadian situation is our problem, not theirs.
What to do about it? I have no idea. The die seems cast, doesn't it? Winter has arrived for the
Canadian grasshopper, particularly here in BC. There seems little of which the citizenry or Government is
unaware, but it's just as evident that few, if any, have the expertise or will to deal with the problem. Could
any of us even recognize a viable solution should one miraculously arrive?
In order to address the Immigration and Citizenship issue, and all the other peculiarly Canadian
sink holes, we must first stop whining and confess our failings. Are we capable of facing the truth?
If we admit to having become a nation of also-ran lazies in a world that, if you stop for lunch
you become lunch, are we willing to strive and survive? Do we have that brand of strength and tenacity?
Perhaps we don't. Maybe we should learn to get used to a trail of bandits using our grand
country to enrich their fortunes both as parasitic neighbors and predatory travelers to the United States.
What's the harm of a few more bloody gang-warring druggies, anyway? Let's look on the bright side! Maybe there's two-thirds of a
buck to be made there, allowing us to don our toques for ice fishing and skating as usual. Beeer? Bring on
the brew!
If we stay healthy - and that's a big "if" under the circumstances - who says the village idiot can't enjoy a fine Canadian lifestyle?
'Vox Populi', get started! Send in your comments and critique on 