Which leads to one of my personal bug bears: that Canada should accept dramatically more immigration if it wants to maintain an independent presence in North America. I think this would go a long way to improving the business, economic and cultural climate in Canada as well as making us less of a push-over in dealing with the United States. Again, an opinion that is not shared. Most Canadians want the current immigration levels to be maintained or reduced.
>that Canada should accept dramatically more immigration if it wants to maintain an independent presence in North America.
I fully agree with you, but you have to see the irony in that statement: the more immigrants you take in the less independent you are.
Canada already have 20% of its population being forign-born[0]. Dramatically more immigration would mean that percentage rising to 30 or even 40%.
I'm a panhumanist and an immigrant myself, so I have zero problem with this, but I can understand why some native-born Canadians might be worried when that percentage rises too high.
"[T]he more immigrants you take in the less independent you are". I don't see how this follows. The way I see it, you can be more independent because your size allows you to develop large internal markets, make it easier to develop cultural products that cater to your populace, and (as the poster above pointed out) make it easier to put together the scratch to defend your borders etc.
I think people are worried about immigration not because of independence, but because they worry that:
* The cultural makeup of the country is changing
* Immigrants will be a drain on public finances (particularly healthcare and welfare)
* Cities will become more crowded (really, people who speak of Toronto as crowded should visit Asian countries...)
This is interesting because it's easily proven wrong. Usually immigrants are a net contributor to public finances, and moreso than “non-immigrants”. I believe that's because immigration policy is very selective so you mostly get able-bodied younger workers coming in, whereas the general population contains proportionally more children, elderly, sick people, etc.
Though I believe this also holds even for non-selective immigration (e.g. intra-EU, undocumented immigration from Mexico to the US) within certain parameters (probably not true for, say, refugees).
Provided you have a mix of immigration from a variety of cultures, and be careful of arising dominance.
I am of the opinion that the west coast of Canada will effectively be a Chinese colony "soon", and the rest of Canada will follow (not officially, of course), simply due to their growing economic dominance, in Canada and in general.
On the bright side, I suppose there are many far worse countries to be colonized by.
That theory seems plausible for when the theory was written (In the summer of 1998, based on classified data about the state of the U.S. economy and society[18] supplied to him by fellow analysts at FAPSI,[2] Panarin forecast the probable disintegration of the US into six parts in 2010) but I think he underestimates the ability for those in power to control the masses and the economic system on a truly massive scale.
Personally, I just think the west coast of North America is a particularly beautiful part of the world, add in all the advantages that come with being part of North America and it is a natural place for the elites from China to want to own a piece, which is precisely what they are doing. Couple that with the current fashion of "anti-racism" and anyone who happens to notice what's happening and comment on whether there may be some inherent risks (long term sovereignty, etc) is vigorously attacked as being a "racist".
I've always believed a well run ~dictatorship is the superior (well, most powerful) form of government, and it seems to me that is more or less what China has, so barring any missteps I think they will naturally take over the world relatively soon, perhaps with not a single shot being fired, it will be purely by immigration coupled with natural allegiance to the motherland, the notion of which in today's intellectual fashion in the west is laughed off as a racist conspiracy theory, but I suspect in most any Asian culture would be considered simple common sense.
You can see this to a degree in Vancouver Canada today, go to any family event and not only will it be majority Chinese, but more telling is baby strollers and children - non-Chinese will typically have zero or one child, while Chinese will typically have multiple. 75% of strollers are pushed by Chinese parents. Another interesting thing is, usually it will only be the mother in attendance, as the father is probably back home working in China (not paying Canadian taxes in the process, weakening the economy further). I doubt all of this is some grand conspiracy, but it is incredibly effective.
That said, I would never underestimate the capabilities of the various intelligence agencies in the west to take China down by some unseen nefarious means, however: a) I would think if this was ever going to happen, it would have started by now b) who do these people answer to, and do they particularly care whether China colonizes the west coast of North America?
They probably wouldn't worry if the new waves of immigration were coming from cultures similar to their ancestors. Doubt you'd hear a peep if a new wave of, say, Dutch, came over.
Though that's not a given in general. I live in Guatemala and of course everyone knows folks live in the US legally and illegally. The older ones that went illegally decades ago seem very negative on the current folks coming in.
