Mass Migration or Immigration in Canada’s future?
Seriously! As Canada goes, we don’t rank high on most people’s current affairs concerns in this world. We’re not a big player, at best, we’re a nice country, polite, easy going, laid back, with to much space and not enough people to populate it. We are called stodgy, even backward, a population of hewers of wood and drawers of water. Are they right? Maybe? Maybe not!
As the News Director for Scaledown, I post what I think might be a concern for all us Scaledowners, I filter through a lot of stuff during the week, posting this and not posting whatever (and Chris’s mail box is emptier these days). Long before Scaledown came into my life, I was an avid newsjunkie, reading at least five to six newspapers a day, one reason I became a librarian … free newspapers! Then the internet came into my life and the junkie became addicted to news! For over forty years, I have developed about five or so main subjects that I am interested and have developed a good clipping box of those subjects, Cities (in almost every facet of them), water, resources, economics, science and technology (relating to cities) and geopolitics. What does this have to do with the title of this article …a lot! They are all entwined.
Water and the world financial crisis are entwined into the future of this country. Several weeks ago I wrote Carol Goar of the Toronto Star, formerly of the Windsor Star and asked her if Canada could see an influx of financial refugees from the United States? Her answer was that “no, they wouldn’t as determined by Immigration Canada and the United Nations of refugee status! I have a tendency to think differently because of who we Canadians are and our geographical location and the abundance of our natural and human resources.
Well, three news articles later and a last line from a U.S. blog makes me wonder that maybe my thesis is right.
First off, water wars are already happening in this world, as fresh clean drinking water disappears from many countries, states in the United States and eventually from Alberta and Saskatchewan, for human consumption, agriculture and industry. California, yesterday declared a water emergency after three years of severe drought (California Department of Water Resources)
Australia, Africa, China, South America, Middle East are all experiencing drought conditions or the lack of accessibility to fresh water Global Drought Monitor
If drought isn’t bad enough, water wars between communities, states and nations are now taking place but flying below the radar of most readers. Water Wars of the Near Future.
Can we in Canada conserve and keep what we have now and take advantage of it? Will the demand to share or give our water away through export be to much for us to defend as the world looks to our large lakes and water sheds! Will people and industry start migrating north to the Great Lakes, creating even more a demand on a limited resource! We can live without all that oil but water…never! Migration will begin soon!
Secondly, New York bankers called Canadian banks, bankers, old-fashion, stodgy and risk adversed several years ago but in light of recent events, the world has turned! Three articles below point to just the opposite, as Canada’s banks and banking industry are the best in the world! For Now!
But are our banks and our economy stodgy? The website newgeography.com is reporting: OH CANADA? A Safe-Haven for Banking Investment and Bloomberg.com is reporting: Obama in Canada Finds World’s Best Financial System.
Bloomberg.com Before President Obama made Ottawa his first visit to a foreign capital earlier this month, he couldn’t resist telling theCanadian Broadcasting Corp.: “In the midst of the enormous economic crisis, I think Canada has shown itself to be a pretty good manager of the financial system and the economy in ways that we haven’t always been.”
The comment was something of an understatement, as no country among the so-called industrialized nations is showing as much confidence in its bankers as Canada. Not one government penny has been given to any of the 21 banks from British Columbia to Quebec since credit worldwide seized up in August 2007. Since then, American taxpayers have provided $300 billion to bail out more than 450 companies, led by Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., two of the three largest banks measured by assets.
Money managers from Brazil, China, France, Ireland and Australia scheduled visits to Denison’s Toronto office in the past two weeks to learn how Canada and its banks and pension funds are weathering the financial crisis. The visitors include theAustralianSuper Fund and the French National Reserve Fund, which together have assets of $53 billion, he said.
Worth reading the whole article above. Even the New YorkTimes in an OP-ED piece is singing the old spiritual: Follow the Drinking Gourd - North: The Great Solvent North
HAS the world turned upside down? America, the capital of capitalism, is pondering nationalizing a handful of banks. Meanwhile, Canada, whose banking system had long been notorious for its stodgy practices and government coddling, is now being celebrated for those very qualities.
The Canadian banking system, which proved resilient in the global economic crisis, is finally getting its day in the sun. A recent World Economic Forum report ranked it the soundest in the world, mostly as the result of its conservative practices. (The United States ranked 40th).
When the U.S. economy finally collapses (11 trillion dollars in debt and growing) and the middle class is wiped out and they run out of water, and see our free health care, our stable banking system, our open spaces and civil cities, will they follow the Drinking Gourd north, not just to their Great Lakes side but to Canada as stable but stodgy country? Icelanders are already thinking this!
Financial refugees: Are Icelanders the first to look west? or there goes our Mayor’s fly west program!
The global economic crisis is prompting some people in Iceland to consider a move to Manitoba.
Manitoba Labour Minister Nancy Allen sent a letter to Iceland’s new government last week, offering to arrange a “special labour initiative.” She is willing to help fast-track applications made under Manitoba’s provincial nominee program and Ottawa’s temporary foreign worker program.
Will the Latvians, Spaniards, Romanians, Poles, Greeks et al all do the same, look for relatives in Canada as their economies sink down the tubes, they’re already rioting in the streets over the fall out of this global economic crisis.
Warning for the West as crisis spills onto the Streets, The Herald; a must read for the bigger picture …that isn’t being reported in the North American press or television!
Abundant fresh water in part, natural resources (even though commodity prices have tanked, if you don’t dig them, they’re still there for the future,) a stable civil society and the best of the worst in economies, especially in banking, universal health care, a diverse society, all look pretty good at this time to others around the world. Will they come? Time will tell!
Oh! And the line that got me thinking? From newgeography.com
Canada is the only member of the G-7 to have balanced their budget 11 years in a row. Immigrating to Canada is looking like a better idea all the time.
I don’t believe that I am original in my thinking, like the writer above, who else is thinking the same thing! I think a storm may be brewing on our borders.
Forget Oil! Got Water!
Tags: Banking, Banks, bloomberg.com, Canada, drought, fresh water, Iceland, Icelanders, immigration, Manitoba, Migration, newgeography.com, refugees, Water wars, world economic crisis
Post Feedback
What does that future hold for Windsor then? Perched on a spit of land, surrounded by fresh water and the most powerful war machine on the planet, should we be fortifying or fleeing? Building walls or bridges?
Is there a bunker in your future?
I hope that we can still keep humans on this planet after you hippies environmentalize everything. I know what you’re all up to. You want to kill 90% of humans for your neo-paganistic belief system. I am not kidding you.
I don’t want you all to think I’m anti-environmental. I am against radicalism.
Here is a good book that explains environmentalism in full by a highly respected scientist:
http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-Earth-Politics-Religion-Environmental/dp/080247327X
What the heck are you talking about? Did you listen to anything that came out of your mouth just then?
I suggest you take ten minutes and read some SD articles, because we are anything but hippies!
The future of water has always been a hobby topic for me, and I’m happy to see that others are in on this train of thought. The recent scare about selling off our freshwater at ocean-entry points illustrates that this is a very serious and looming issue.
Responsible stewardship of our water resources is tantamount; efforts to clean up and rehabilitate our local watershed should be a top priority.
In a Global Research article, Michel Chossudovsky reports that the Canadian Government agency CMHC bought/would buy $25 billion of mortgages from Canadian banks to “to maintain the availability of longer-term credit in Canada.” This was just four days before the last federal election.
Less than one month after the election, another $50 billion allocation was announced.
So, in Canada our government may not have given money directly to our banks but, quietly, going in the back way to take out their trash.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12007
I read the same thing James. I don’t believe that our government and banks are as clean as they are made out to be above, maybe Mark can do some more reading!
The credit card, student loan and car loans bubble is about to break onto the seen as is the heavily leverage commerical real estate bubble, when they break the middle class in the US will be basically wiped off the face of the earth.
I read in one News posting that 84% of American cities are ready to tank into bankruptcy, cops are being laid off left and right, along with all other public services, firefighters, ambulance crew, you name it their going. So how long will it be when everything elses goes under and all that printed money can’t buy diddly squat! That there will be anarchy in the streets.
Gangs have already moved into the abandon and empty suburbs making small fiefdoms that the police won’t even go into as the poor or homeless start to squat in a half million dollar homes.
I agree with Mark that eventually the middle class will catch on that there seems or appears a more stable society to the north and sooner rather than later that class will start heading north for the exact reasons I stated above, civil riots over loss services, unemployment benefits run out, not enough food stamps, no housing, a growing crime rate, an underground economy based on barter, theft or whatever will raise its ugly head.
And martial law through out the land.
The World Made by Hand — anyone!
Learn to sing the Star Defangled Banner and love bazeaball! In Windsor because of geography, we have nowhere to run! That was made very clear with all the Fermi II alerts. Ever wonder why it is called Fermi II? And what happen to Fermi I ? Given our location we could be the first to see these new styled refugees coming into our country, seeking asylum.
Theres a pretty decent documentary called “Flow” that goes through the water shortage issue, and the imminent water wars. A few people in the documentary even go as far as to say that fresh potable water will be the “new oil”…
The ramifications of this are staggering for this area…
‘Armageddon’ A tiny town in the Central Valley prepares for
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11803992?nclick_check=1
Also video on link
“The disaster coming this spring and summer is no movie, and nothing menacing is falling from the sky. It’s about what’s not falling from the sky — rain. After three years of below-average rain and snowfall, coupled with new pumping restrictions to protect endangered fish, California’s farmers are running out of water. The devastating impact has trickled down to dozens of small Central Valley farming communities.
The farmers who will be slammed the hardest are those who depend on the Central Valley Project, the massive federal system of dams, reservoirs, pumps and canals that helped spawn California’s $36 billion farming industry — the state’s largest.
Within a couple of years, Coburn says, numerous small towns like Firebaugh could die and hundreds of thousands of once-profitable acres could turn into fields of dust. Beginning today, the federal water spigot in California has been turned off for the first time. And just as in “Armageddon,” the game might be over.
Wells no solution
The huge Westlands Water District, wholly dependent on federal water, predicts up to 400,000 acres of its 611,000 acres of farmland will lie fallow this year. Farmers such as Coburn are spending millions of dollars desperately digging wells. But the water underground contains so much salt and boron it will kill orchards and vineyards in two or three years….”
Thanks to James for the article:
I believe the water issue is a tad bit overhyped. Before there are wars over water or mass northward migration I believe purification technologies will be instituted.
Also, on the banking issue, even though the gov is using some backdoor tactics to buy down bad debt, this policy is much saner than what is being deployed in the US.
The issue with Canada is that from a production of original goods and technologies standpoint its so dependant on other countries. If canada could combine its sound fiscal policies with incentives for entrepeneurship (sp) I think it could become a major player globally.