Economic Crisis Dept: Construction of the Sydney steel plant started in 1899. Among the waves of immigrants was a contingent of Poles, leaving a country under foreign occupation and rural regions plagued by economic crisis, according to The Chronicle Herald. Indeed, in 1909, the St. Michael s Polish Benefit Society was established to provide a semblance of a social safety net and a cultural gathering place and the proposal to close Sydney s vibrant, historic St. Mary s Polish Parish, just months before its 100th anniversary, puts at risk an entire cultural community, a community that has helped to shape Nova Scotia s identity. Despite appalling, unsafe conditions in the steel plant and the coal mines, the Poles stayed and settled throughout industrial Cape Breton. They somehow found ways to survive. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Guangzhou Dept: Prime Minister Stephen Harper s four-day trade mission to China has had a taste of it all, bouncing from Beijing, to Guangzhou, and on Saturday to the southwestern inland city of Chongqing, according to The Star. Moments later, Harper tried to practice a little foreign influencing of his own and gUANGZHOU, CHINA Ping pong, pipelines and pandas. Harper used a keynote speech here Friday to slam the foreign money and influence behind critics of Canada s oil sands even as he welcomed Chinese investment in Canada s energy sector. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Working Poor Dept: Between 2000 and 2005, the area s working poor grew by 42 per cent, to 113,000 people, according to a groundbreaking report based on Statistics Canada labour and income data, according to The Star. Working many hours and holding full-time, year-round employment is no longer a guarantee of escaping poverty, says the report, entitled: The Working Poor in the Toronto Region; Who they are, where they live, and how trends are changing and the legions of Toronto area workers pouring coffee, cleaning toilets and otherwise toiling for low wages in office towers and factories is growing dramatically. Across the region, they accounted for 6.4 per cent of the working-age population. But inside the city of Toronto, they surged to 8.2 per cent of the workforce, or 70,700 people, says the study by the Metcalf Foundation , released on Saturday. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Citizenship And Immigration Canada Dept: Unlike immigrants, temporary foreign workers come to Canada on restrictive visas and do not have the rights of permanent residents. Their admission to the country and employment are contingent on not taking opportunities and jobs away from Canadians, according to The Chronicle Herald. When most Canadians think of temporary foreign workers, they likely think of field workers in Canada s agricultural belt or caregivers. A 2007 parliamentary report, however, shows that this is far from the case. In fact, "elemental workers and labourers" accounted for just over two per cent of temporary foreign workers. By contrast, about a quarter were "intermediate and clerical workers," another quarter were "professionals," and about a fifth did not state their skill level and during the fall of 2011, the Conservative government implemented a number of dramatic changes to the Canadian immigration system. Pundits and critics filled much newsprint weighing-in on many of the changes, but few commented on the rapid increase in the number of temporary foreign workers coming to the country. Statistics on temporary foreign workers vary widely, depending on how they are compiled. According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in 2000 there were 177,781 temporary foreign workers in the country. By 2010, the number was 432,682 a 140 per cent increase. According to Immigrant and Settlement and Integration Services, based in Halifax, the number of foreign workers entering Nova Scotia has almost doubled in the last five years, from 1,495 to 2,795. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

China Dept: The House : I was on the trip to China with you in 2009 and the message, it seemed to be then from the Chinese was why did it take you so long to get here? It seems to me the message this time is so much warmer. And I'm wondering what you learned about China between 2009 and this visit in 2012?, according to CBC. The House : In terms of that approach, can you describe a little bit about how I know earlier this week you had said it took them some time to get used to your approach. What is it about your approach that is different, do you think, and how has their response changed over the last couple of years and the 's Susan Lunn sat down with Prime Minister Stephen Harper Friday as he neared the end of his trip to China, for an interview for Radio's The House . Here is a transcript of their discussion. Harper: I actually thought we had a pretty good visit in 2009. We concluded the approved destination status on tourism, which was something the government has been trying to achieve for decades and had not got. We managed to open Chinese markets to a number of Canadian agricultural products that had been blocked. Obviously on this trip we've had some more advances in terms of the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement. Some of the talks we're going to have on deepening our relations. Look, we've taken a very different approach to relations with China, which is that we will not refuse to talk about our democratic values, human rights issues, particular difficult consular cases. I think it took the Chinese a little bit of time to adapt to that but my view has always been that this is a relationship that we have with the Chinese because it is in their interest as much as ours. And there's no reason why we should be shy about bringing to the table all the issues we want to talk about. It took a little bit of time to adjust to that but I think you'll see it's actually an approach that is paying some dividends in terms of actually bringing things forward. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Cultural Differences Dept: Thirty-four per cent of the respondents said their employers do not have the resources to adequately address the cultural differences workers encounter when entering the Canadian job market, according to Globe and Mail. The counselling service also conducted a survey of 24 companies, which found that 71 per cent said they have diversity programs that they rate as successful or very successful and the survey questioned 560 professionals who earned their degrees in another country and have been in Canada for between six and 15 years. Of the total, 238 were currently employed and 322 were unemployed. They said employer orientation should include more advice about Canadian workplace culture and orientation in the specific job that they are hired to do. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Buy North American Dept: The U.S. perception of its neighbours didn t change, and the Buy American idea spread into a huge movement. A Harris poll found that 61 per cent of Americans preferred products made in America. In his new book, Bill Clinton recommends the website, How Americans Can Buy American, and Mr. Obama s State of the Union address was a rallying cry for the same theme, according to Globe and Mail. Buy North American could be the mantra for helping the U.S. recognize the importance of both neighbours. Few Americans know that the two key markets for their exports and source of energy imports are Canada and Mexico. Our trade with each other enhances our collective competitiveness because many of those goods are jointly produced with parts from all three countries. Thus, the best way to multiply our exports and accelerate growth would be to create a seamless market and construct a North American transportation and infrastructure grid and consider this case. During the recession, all three governments decided to stimulate their economies without considering their interdependence. In its 2009 bill, the U.S. Congress included a Buy American provision to bar Canada, Mexico and other countries from supplying iron, steel or manufactured goods for public projects. The provision violated the North American free-trade agreement and Canada rightly protested, spending substantial funds lobbying Congress and negotiating a waiver. The U.S. finally relented, but, last September, President Barack Obama asked Congress for a jobs bill with a similar provision. Seeking a Canadian exemption against such a movement is like trying to stop a tsunami with your hands. Instead of trying to eliminate a negative, Canada should try to catch the wave with an affirmative. Inserting just one word North in the middle of the Buy American movement might do that and begin to change the way Americans think about themselves and their neighbours. When Americans think about North America, however, they include Mexico. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Desjardins Dept: It's odd that in her summary of Larry Desjardins' political career Our true 'champion,' Feb. 9 , Alexandra Paul mentions the part Desjardins played in the fall of the Howard Pawley government in 1988 but leaves out the story of Desjardins' pivotal role in the formation of the Ed Schreyer government almost 20 years previously. Send a Letter to the Editor, according to Winnipeg Free Press. To send a letter for consideration on our Letters page: Fill out our online form at the link above, or Email letters@freepress.mb.ca, or Fax 204 697-7412, or Mail Letters to the Editor, 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2X 3B6 and desjardins' pivotal role The Free Press welcomes letters from readers. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Dept: Clashing armies, societal upheaval, mass killing, desperate escape and lullabies? I confess I was wary of finding something gauzily poetical: a romance-of-war novel. I was wrong. Our narrator, An Tinh, comes in a spare, almost uninflected voice, neither stark nor embellished, unspooling a retrospective story of a childhood turned nightmare and the beginnings of a new life in Canada, according to Globe and Mail. Thuy eschews modes of reminiscence and emotion in favour of recall and assessment. The prose is softly relentless. Even the crush and fear and stench of the dark boat hold is expressed in a flow of waves the syntactical equivalent of ocean swells. The effect is to reilluminate a familiar dichotomy that we all know and often deny: Peace and war, joy and misery, are as unstoppable and eternal as the ebb and flow of tides. Thus sentences feel spontaneous and untweaked. Fischman s translation shows its sensitivity here. To call the writing lyrical, emphasizing authorial spin, would in fact be misleading and launching the tale is a note on the meaning of ru . In French, it denotes a small stream or a flow of water, blood, tears or almost anything else. In Vietnamese, ru means a lullaby. Through the first years of war, An Tinh and her family managed to hang onto a bourgeois Saigon life, with servants and live-in French and Vietnamese chefs. Then the communist inspectors came, backed by troops. The Nguyen family lost everything but a few diamonds sewn into shirt collars and a small cache of gold, which bought their escape. They boarded a decrepit boat with hundreds of others, their destination a squalid Malaysian refugee camp. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Canada Dept: So why is Prime Minister Stephen Harper s government so keen on playing the diaspora card?, according to Globe and Mail. While it s true we see political competition by all parties to win ethnic ridings, it s increasingly apparent that the Harper government has made pandering to diasporas a foreign policy priority. Indeed, as a right-of-centre government, it can hold an even more extreme position on diaspora issues without fear of being outflanked by more centrist or left-leaning parties and but it s a dangerous game. By playing the diaspora card, Canada s leaders are opening up the country to exploitation by other countries looking to disrupt our internal affairs, using diasporas to lobby or influence our leaders or bring their conflicts here. Most Canadian governments have understood, correctly, that our own security needs, both domestic and international, rest on policies that advance the interests of many diverse groups, not just a few. After all, Canada functions on civic nationalism, so it makes sense it upholds that same principle abroad. First, Canada is more and more ethnically diverse, making new Canadians a key battleground for politicians. Like most OECD nations except the United States , Canada s population is increasing because of immigration, not birth rates. Politicians competing for the support of diasporas fall into the classic dilemma of outbidding, which can lead a government to escalate its commitments to extreme and unnecessary levels. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.