Liberals go a fearmongering, again

According to MP Joe Volpe, Minister of Immigration, if the Liberal government falls 100,000 to 200,000 of 'undocumented workers' will lose the opportunity to become legal immigrants and thousands of potential employers will lose out on the skills these 'undocumented workers' offer reports the Toronto Star (registration required).

A plan to legalize thousands of undocumented workers in Canada's underground economy would be in jeopardy if the Liberal minority government falls as a result of a non-confidence vote on Thursday, says Immigration Minister Joe Volpe. The Toronto MP has already signed off on a final draft of the long-anticipated "regularization" plan, which is now "in the queue" for the cabinet's feedback and approval — provided there isn't an election call.

The issue leaves in limbo many of the 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented workers living under the radar in Canada, as well as employers facing shortages of the skills some of them bring. "Here we're now at the 11th hour because the opposition is trying its best to create a controversial environment, and we are faced with a situation where all this hard work may go asunder," Volpe told the Toronto Star from Ottawa. "We're bringing things closer to a point where some decisions could be made."

Juan Sierra, a construction-union outreach worker, said he has fielded calls from hundreds of undocumented construction workers since Conservative leader Stephen Harper vowed publicly to bring down the Liberal government in mid-April.
They're worried the plan to legalize their status in Canada will go down, too.
"They are really freaked out by the prospect," said Sierra, of the Labourers' International Union of North America. "Their hopes were so high because Volpe has promised that this is a priority for the government. If nothing happens, their hopes would be destroyed totally."

According to Vilma Filici, president of the Canadian Hispanic Congress, part of a community coalition that has been negotiating with the government, the two sides had a consensus on the basic plan. "We are very concerned that this (plan) won't happen if there is a vote of non-confidence by the opposition in the parliament," Filici said. "With a new government, we'd be back to the drawing board again and start from scratch."
Filici fears a Conservative government could dump the plan as, he says, the Tories tend to view undocumented workers more as security risks than as potentially valuable contributors to Canadian society.

I first heard the term 'undocumented worker' used on US news broadcasts rather than the more accurate and easily understood term 'illegal alien'. I had not thought this madness had infected mainstream Canadian society. My bad, I should have known that the Liberals would be the first to adopt this doublespeak and flog this term into the mainstream.

I will admit that the term 'undocumented worker' grates on my nerves and I possess very little sympathy towards the plight of illegal aliens. Nor do I view them as the kind of citizens that have much to contribute to Canadian society. Canadians have one of the most generous refugee systems in the world. There are sound reasons why the Department of Immigration has quotas or caps on who can legally immigrate and who cannot. There are many laws on the books in Canada that I fundamentally disagree with, and yet, I conduct my affairs within the parameters of those laws. I fail to see how one can be a desirable immigrant by flaunting the laws of the land when it is in one’s financial interest to do so though I can understand the appeal of this issue for a Liberal MP.

I am very pro-immigration providing that those seeking entrance into this country are willing to follow all the laws of this land in the same way I do so but I draw the line on those who cherry pick which rules they will follow and when. If the ability to cherry pick which laws one will chose to follow is a desirable trait in a potential immigrant; why draw the line on those who refuse to recognize the right of Canada to decide issues of sovereignty? Let’s make convicted drug traffickers or murderers eligible as well.

Read the rest of the Toronto Star article as it becomes more outrageous as one reads on. The Toronto Star profiles the plight of an illegal alien couple who clear approximately $6,000 cash a month and in their favour have to pay for medical care out of their own pocket. Of course, no one makes the case that because they do not pay those cripplingly income taxes the rest of us are subjected to which allows for the operation and very existence of those hospitals, roads, schools and municipal services that they should not benefit from those services in the first place.

Furthermore, I do not become more sympathic to their plight because their lack of status makes them ineligible for EI; the ability to collect EI should not be considered a selling point to have legal status granted on illegal aliens. However, it does makes this documented tax payer want to burn my passport and SIN card so I can go work as a "undocumented' chambermaid.