Americans seeking immigration data jam Canadian website

[dr. what]

link

Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website had its busiest day ever yesterday, as thousands of angry Americans, who do not support the election of George W. Bush, logged on to see how they can move north of the border.

Ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi confirmed the new record of 179,000 hits, of which 115,016 were from the U.S. On an average day the ministry's website receives 20,000 hits.

"The most visited page was the skilled worker online self-assessment page, which tells you whether you would meet immigration requirements," said Ms. Iadinardi, before warning potential immigrants from the U.S. that it could take as long as a year to get the necessary approvals needed to move to Canada from the U.S.

Immigration lawyers are also seeing an increase in interest from American's upset with the results of Tuesday's election.

Shirin Mukherjee, a legal consultant in Windsor, said American clients who had been waiting to make a decision until after the Nov. 2 vote, are now calling and telling her to proceed with immigration paperwork.

"They're telling me, 'now is the best time,' and definitely one of the reasons is Mr. Bush," she said.

[aten_vs_ra]

The United Canadian States will be seeing a large influx of disaffected Jesusland immingrants soon, hmm?

[Perinquus]

Babies.

You know, if they want to leave, that's their right, and I'll be the last to deny it. But I just can't help feel contempt for spoiled brats in adult bodies who'll go away and pout and sulk because their candidate lost. It is not like Hitler is in power, some people are being forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and laws to appropriate the property of certain groups of citizens are being seriously discussed. The storm clouds of fascist oppression are not gathering overhead. This is not like Germany in the 1930s, and we'd better get out while the getting is good.

This ought to be an entry in the dictionary under "overreaction".

[Julhelm]

Wow, talk about over-reacting.

[dr. what]

Of course, if they bother to read that website, they'll realize that it's a very long process to get citizenship.

How long? It could take up to 5 years.....

[Darth Wong]

Babies.

You know, if they want to leave, that's their right, and I'll be the last to deny it. But I just can't help feel contempt for spoiled brats in adult bodies who'll go away and pout and sulk because their candidate lost.

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because they don't want to raise their kids in an environment of widespread intolerance.

It is not like Hitler is in power, some people are being forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and laws to appropriate the property of certain groups of citizens are being seriously discussed.

And as we all know, anything short of Nazism must be A-OK so anybody who wants to remove himself from it must be an idiot

[Durandal]

Babies.

You know, if they want to leave, that's their right, and I'll be the last to deny it. But I just can't help feel contempt for spoiled brats in adult bodies who'll go away and pout and sulk because their candidate lost. It is not like Hitler is in power, some people are being forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and laws to appropriate the property of certain groups of citizens are being seriously discussed. The storm clouds of fascist oppression are not gathering overhead. This is not like Germany in the 1930s, and we'd better get out while the getting is good.

This ought to be an entry in the dictionary under "overreaction".

Have you ever considered that they might be leaving for other reasons? Like Bush's obstinant refusal to allow the import of cheaper drugs from Canada? Or maybe they want socialized healthcare, which doesn't stand a chance of being implemented in the US. Or maybe they want to get a job that they know won't be outsourced to India.

[Col. Crackpot]

Have you ever considered that they might be leaving for other reasons? Like Bush's obstinant refusal to allow the import of cheaper drugs from Canada? Or maybe they want socialized healthcare, which doesn't stand a chance of being implemented in the US. Or maybe they want to get a job that they know won't be outsourced to India.

You had good points until the last one. The Canadians are just as vulnerable to outsourcing as we are.... as every western country is. But if you sincerely belive that the grass is greener on the other side, who am i to dispel that notion.

[Darth Wong]

Have you ever considered that they might be leaving for other reasons? Like Bush's obstinant refusal to allow the import of cheaper drugs from Canada? Or maybe they want socialized healthcare, which doesn't stand a chance of being implemented in the US. Or maybe they want to get a job that they know won't be outsourced to India.

You had good points until the last one. The Canadians are just as vulnerable to outsourcing as we are.... as every western country is. But if you sincerely belive that the grass is greener on the other side, who am i to dispel that notion.

Canada's economy is heavily resource-based. You can export a call-centre job to India, but it's a lot harder to export a nickel mine to India. Or a softwood lumber operation.

[Beowulf]

Canada's economy is heavily resource-based. You can export a call-centre job to India, but it's a lot harder to export a nickel mine to India. Or a softwood lumber operation.

I wasn't aware that people doing manual labor needed a college degree or the like. Some training yes, but how many people who've never done a day of manual labor would want to start?

[Trytostaydead]

Babies.

You know, if they want to leave, that's their right, and I'll be the last to deny it. But I just can't help feel contempt for spoiled brats in adult bodies who'll go away and pout and sulk because their candidate lost. It is not like Hitler is in power, some people are being forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and laws to appropriate the property of certain groups of citizens are being seriously discussed. The storm clouds of fascist oppression are not gathering overhead. This is not like Germany in the 1930s, and we'd better get out while the getting is good.

This ought to be an entry in the dictionary under "overreaction".

Well, I wouldn't have put it that way. But then, these people probably do not deserve democracy. Democracy is the right for the people to choose what they want.. and we get to do it every four years. What they're doing is essentially, "we didn't get what we wanted" and deciding the best course of action was instead of implementing democracy again and fighting hard the next round, they run off in discontent.

Sure, there might be other mitigating circumstances. Maybe cheaper pills, socialized medicine, Canadian women, etc. To those people, good luck and bon voyage and hope you come back and visit. But it's like building a house, finding you don't like the furniture, and moving to another house.

[Darth Wong]

Canada's economy is heavily resource-based. You can export a call-centre job to India, but it's a lot harder to export a nickel mine to India. Or a softwood lumber operation.

I wasn't aware that people doing manual labor needed a college degree or the like. Some training yes, but how many people who've never done a day of manual labor would want to start?

Resource-based industries are not all manual labour. A lot of chemical engineers go to work for the oil companies out west, geologists also work for them, mechanical engineers routinely work with companies that do mineral extraction and refining, etc. It's not a Bronze Age mine with a bunch of labourers and pick-axes.

[Darth Wong]

But it's like building a house, finding you don't like the furniture, and moving to another house.

It's more like living in a house with roommates, finding out that your roommates are assholes and won't compromise on their asshole behaviour, giving up on trying to change them, and moving to a new house.

[Stravo]

But it's like building a house, finding you don't like the furniture, and moving to another house.

It's more like living in a house with roommates, finding out that your roommates are assholes and won't compromise on their asshole behaviour, giving up on trying to change them, and moving to a new house.

Better analogy is buying the house and realizing your neighborhood is full of bigots, evangelicals and general assholes and deciding this is not where I or the family I raise want to be. But then again, freedom means staying where you don't want to be over the principle of the thing.

If your country or region of the country does not offer you what you want, or creates an environment that ios negative and bigoted to you and your children why the FUCK should you stay? I thought one of those wonderful things about this country was that you could go wherever you wanted for whatever reason you wished whenever you wanted. If not please let me fucking know when the coup happened.

These same fuckers complaining about having to stay no matter what probably defend the white flight from the cities to the suburbs because you know...those minorities are a real scary bunch and offer an abundant reason to have to leave.

[Darth Raptor]

I just love the quaint notion that the accidental geographic coordinates of my birth makes me obligated to put up with a nigh-unlimited amount of shit.

America was founded on getting the fuck out of nasty countries. And what was so bad about Great Britain? It's not like it was Nazi Germany or anything.

[Perinquus]

Babies.

You know, if they want to leave, that's their right, and I'll be the last to deny it. But I just can't help feel contempt for spoiled brats in adult bodies who'll go away and pout and sulk because their candidate lost.

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be because they don't want to raise their kids in an environment of widespread intolerance.

No it couldn't. Not really. Because this terrible intolerance is greatly exaggerrated. I live here Mike, and I don't see it. We are supposed to be so intolerant of homosexuals, but one of the most popular shows on TV is called "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", and other primetime shows like "Will & Grace" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" feature openly gay characters. Two of the corporals on my department are not only openly gay, they are a couple, and everyone knows it. You know what else? Nobody cares. Before I came over to the detective bureau, I worked for one of them (he's actually from Canada and used to be in the RCMP). He's a damn good supervisor, and everybody thinks so. In a year of working for him, I never heard anyone say anything negative about him, even behind his back. Both he and his partner on on the promotion list for sergeant, and I think they'll both make it too. In addition to these two men, we have at least four openly gay female officers on the department as well, and not only has it not hurt their careers any, it hasn't appeared to cost them friends, and no one says nasty things about them either. What makes all this more remarkable Mike is that we are talking about cops here - one of the most overwhelmingly conservative groups of people you will ever see. I don't know a single cop in the NPD who voted for Kerry (I know one whom I suspect might have, but I don't know, and I haven't asked him). Yet we bigoted, intolerant conservative cops have openly gay officers who are not only well liked, but fast tracked to promotion, a black police chief, two black assistant chiefs, numerous black and hispanic sergeants, and an almost 50% black police force. Since I've been on the department I've worked for a female captain, a black male captain, female sergeant, a black female sergeant, a female corporal, and a gay corporal, in addition to the white male heterosexual supervisors I've worked for.

Moreover, all this is in Virginia Mike, a southern state, and a city on the eastern edge of the Bible belt, and right next door to where Pat Roberson has his base of operations. You will excuse me if it doesn't appear to me as though we are on the verge of an intolerant, Bible based theocracy.

I will admit, occasionally in the break room, or at a crime scene, I will hear a racist or anti-gay remark from this or that officer. But as often as not, said remark is made only after the officer making it has looked around to be sure he cannot be overheard by someone who may take offense to that remark. When what intolerance there is has to be so furtive and subdued, I see precious little evidence for a level of intolerance so bad that it necessitates removing to another country.

So no, it couldn't possibly be because they don't want to raise their kids in an environment of widespread intolerance Mike, or perhaps I should say: it couldn't reasonably be because they don't want to raise their kids in an environment of widespread intolerance - because that level of intolerance is simply not in evidence here. And if it were, the better course would be to stay here and try to change it, not run away.

No, I remain firmly convinced that these people who are emigrating because Bush won the election appear to be largely a bunch of spoiled fucking crybabies who are going away to pout because they didn't get their way.

It is not like Hitler is in power, some people are being forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and laws to appropriate the property of certain groups of citizens are being seriously discussed.

And as we all know, anything short of Nazism must be A-OK so anybody who wants to remove himself from it must be an idiot

No, that's not what I meant. Though at least if things were that bad, it would be understandable to leave in order to escape the Bush administration. But what do these people really have to fear? And moreover, when you hear the excuses these people give for leaving, it often sounds as if Bush being a new Hitler is exactly the reason they are going. So I maintain this is a ridiculous overreaction.

[Admiral Valdemar]

America was founded on getting the fuck out of nasty countries. And what was so bad about Great Britain? It's not like it was Nazi Germany or anything.

People wanted to see the "New World" and kill Injuns and set up big homes wherever they liked. Besides, you wouldn't want to have lived as a working class person in Victorian England after that great exodus.

[Darth Wong]

No it couldn't. Not really. Because this terrible intolerance is greatly exaggerrated. I live here Mike, and I don't see it. We are supposed to be so intolerant of homosexuals, but one of the most popular shows on TV is called "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", and other primetime shows like "Will & Grace" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" feature openly gay characters. Two of the corporals on my department are not only openly gay, they are a couple, and everyone knows it. You know what else? Nobody cares.

That's great. I'm sure you can find specific examples of whites and blacks getting along really well together in Alabama too, but that doesn't change the fact that just as New York is less racist than rural Alabama, Canada is less homophobic and religious than the United States. The fact that A < B is not refuted by saying "B isn't as bad as you think!"

[Perinquus]

No it couldn't. Not really. Because this terrible intolerance is greatly exaggerrated. I live here Mike, and I don't see it. We are supposed to be so intolerant of homosexuals, but one of the most popular shows on TV is called "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", and other primetime shows like "Will & Grace" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" feature openly gay characters. Two of the corporals on my department are not only openly gay, they are a couple, and everyone knows it. You know what else? Nobody cares.

That's great. I'm sure you can find specific examples of whites and blacks getting along really well together in Alabama too, but that doesn't change the fact that just as New York is less racist than rural Alabama, Canada is less homophobic and religious than the United States. The fact that A < B is not refuted by saying "B isn't as bad as you think!"

Which is a nice way of avoiding the fact that United States isn't yet the irredeemable, intolerant, bigoted, racist, anti-gay police state that you apparently would like to think it is.

And aside from that, I also don't buy for a minute that New York is less racist than Alabama. My Dad's best friend is a Jew from Queens (they served together in the Air Force). Some of the most outrageous racial slurs I've ever heard come from him and his sons. Blacks who strayed into his neighborhood (before he moved into Arizon that is) would generally get sent home with a beating, and the reverse would happen if anyone from his neighborhood wandered into a black neighborhood. Around where he lived, Jews were still outraged if their daughters dated Goyim. Italian fathers would disown their daughters if they brought a black guy home. Neither Blacks nor Whites nor Jews want their daughters dating Puerto Ricans. What's the big difference between those attitudes and those of rural Alabama? I sure don't see any. New York City isn't one jot less racist than Alabama. Rural New York may be less racist than Alabama. But if so, I rather suspect the fact that there aren't that many Blacks or other minorities living there may have something to do with it as well. (Another interesting thing though, is that if you look at a map of the recent election results by county, that less racist part of the state also appears mostly red, rather than blue.)

The point is that the United States is very, very far from being such a terrible bigoted shithole that leaving because of Bush's re-election looks like anything but a 14 carat, diamond studded case of sour grapes.

[SirNitram]

WAHAHAHAHAHA! I love 'There's no intolerance here, you're all overreacting..' bullshit. Cause even on this fucking board it's seen as okay to dismiss or insult an immigrant, a nice, legal resident, because he's 'not born here'. Oh yea; we're not supposed to admit that's intolerance. It has to be racial. Or it doesn't count or some equal bullshit.

Let's not forget the other things that are so fucking widespread they come even to this relatively mature board. 'YOU SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT CHRISTIANITY, YOU MUST BE AN IRRATIONAL HATEMONGER!'. Yep. No intolernace towards Deists, Agnostics, and Atheists. Uh-huh. And there are no Americans in Baghdad.

'But I live here!' And so do I, Perin. And as an immigrant Deist who doesn't slovenly shit on logic and reason, I tend to get alot of intolerance if I let those facts be known. After all, all us Brits and Leftists are in league with the Terrorists.

'No intolerance'? Maybe if you're a WASP.

[White Haven]

Also, I note by your location, that you're in Norfolk. Cities are historically more tolerant than their surrounding areas, and certainly less heavily religious. Same reason I see more tolerant behavior on the whole, I'm in Richmond. Sure, it's a shit-hole of a city, and a sad excuse for a state capitol, but it's better than someplace out in BFE.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Babies.

You know, if they want to leave, that's their right, and I'll be the last to deny it. But I just can't help feel contempt for spoiled brats in adult bodies who'll go away and pout and sulk because their candidate lost. It is not like Hitler is in power, some people are being forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, and laws to appropriate the property of certain groups of citizens are being seriously discussed. The storm clouds of fascist oppression are not gathering overhead. This is not like Germany in the 1930s, and we'd better get out while the getting is good.

This ought to be an entry in the dictionary under "overreaction".

What a deeply ignorant and baseless strawman predicated on nothing but hollow, kneejerk nationalism.

Maybe some people just decided that Canada is more in line with their values, beliefs, and way of life (especially to pot smokers and gays here) and would prefer to live in such a place.

But nah, its got to be people fearing a fascist coup.

[Illuminatus Primus]

And somehow I do not see how all that anecdotal bullshit changed the fact that abstinence is over contraception here, you're required to take oaths to your country that awknowledge a God you may not have chosen to believe in, absurd laws prevents the ill from getting something which may alleviate their suffering and still more that clog our already shitty prisons with harmless inmates, and the now, in eleven states, it is that much harder for homosexuals to get genuine protection before the law equal to that of everyone else.

[Stark]

Y'know, this is democracy in action. If you're not a part of the majority that elected Bush, of course you're going to consider leaving. Thats how its SUPPOSED to work; everyone decides, and people aren't forced to stay if they don't agree. I've got no problem that the US seems to be full of ignorant short-sighted bigots, but not being one myself I'd probably leave too. I've considered leaving my country because of its fucking retarded government, and may do so once my course is finished.

[Perinquus]

WAHAHAHAHAHA! I love 'There's no intolerance here, you're all overreacting..' bullshit. Cause even on this fucking board it's seen as okay to dismiss or insult an immigrant, a nice, legal resident, because he's 'not born here'. Oh yea; we're not supposed to admit that's intolerance. It has to be racial. Or it doesn't count or some equal bullshit.

Let's not forget the other things that are so fucking widespread they come even to this relatively mature board. 'YOU SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT CHRISTIANITY, YOU MUST BE AN IRRATIONAL HATEMONGER!'. Yep. No intolernace towards Deists, Agnostics, and Atheists. Uh-huh. And there are no Americans in Baghdad.

'But I live here!' And so do I, Perin. And as an immigrant Deist who doesn't slovenly shit on logic and reason, I tend to get alot of intolerance if I let those facts be known. After all, all us Brits and Leftists are in league with the Terrorists.

'No intolerance'? Maybe if you're a WASP.

Oh cry me a fucking river. I'm an atheist with fundie relatives. You think I haven't felt any backlash from that? Yes there is some intolerance. Guess what? Anywhere you go on earth you are going to encounter some. That's the nature of things. The question is whether or not intolerance has risen to such levels that you genuinely have to fear that if you don't want your kids to be indoctrinated into bigots themselves (as Mike suggested was a realistic fear), you'd better move to another country.

I'd like someone to show me some evidence of this. I really would, because in a country where openly gay characters and interracial relationships and minority leading men and leading women regularly feature in popular entertainment, and where I personally know openly gay men and women who are simply not suffering any overt discrimination or career obstructions, I see precious little evidence that things are that bad.

For blacks in the south in the pre-civil rights era, I can certainly understand why they'd think things were so bad they'd be better off somewhere else. Ditto for gays anywhere in the U.S. in that era. Though the U.S was hardly alone in that during those days - Alan Turing, remember, killed himself because it was illegal to be homosexual in Britain back then, and he was about to be prosecuted for it. This, however, is not the same time, and there simply isn't much evidence things are that bad. We don't enforce laws like that against gays anymore, and I see no evidence we are about to start enforcing any. I see a lot of people sneering at me for suggesting that things really aren't that bad and Bush isn't a reasonable cause for fleeing the country out of fear your kids will be overexposed to intolerant attitudes. What I don't see is anyone backing up these assertions with any kind of evidence.