Moncton is not multi-cultural


Couple of points on the Times & Transcript ‘We Say’ segment about immigration:

1. I fully agree we need more immigration. No debate. Kudos to Enterprise Greater Moncton for leading on this file.

2. The T&T states “We should also be looking to refugee communities and among those who have little but are seeking a better life. These are the type of immigrants that built Canada and they are people who not only need what Moncton and Canada can offer, but who have every incentive to work tremendously hard to succeed. History shows a positive record and one often of innovation among such immigrants. “

What the T&T fails to state (as usual they leave out the meat of the thing) is that Canada was booming with opportunity when those refugees came. There were jobs here in mines, the forestry, fishing, farming, etc. Hard work doesn’t matter much when there are no jobs. That’s why I fully agree with EGM primarily targeting skilled immigrants and investor immigrants. If we flood the community with refugees and no jobs, we are setting ourselves up for economic and social problems. Now, if the province starts to see real economic growth (a la Arizona, Alberta, Nevada, etc.) then we will need a flood of worker level immigrants and we can dust off the T&T’s simplistic We Say. But until then, EGM keep your focus.

3. Al Hogan throws in the trite line at the end of the We Say- “Our city already has a solid multicultural base.” This comment is just plain silly. We have a ‘bi-cultural’ base – not a multicultural one.

According to the Census, 98% of Greater Monctonians are ‘White’ and only 98.8% of us have either English or French as our Mother Tongue.