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John Thomson  

Thomson report

Below is an email I received from a reader after I did a piece on the refugees, all 492 of them who landed safely a few weeks ago. Surprisingly there has been little or no news from the situation since they started their interrogations.

Dear John,

I was interested in the article you wrote about the 492 people that landed on our shores in BC.

There is a total misconception that Canada and Australia can absorb all these refugees that come to our shores. Listed below are the 10 largest countries by total area, which includes all the water area within the borders of each country.

Country Gross area Sq. Mi Population/Sq. Mi

Russian Federation 6,592,849 21
Canada 3,855,103 9
USA 3,794,085 80
China 3,700,593 355
Brazil 3,287,613 58
Australia 2,969,907 7
India 1,183,364 988
Argentina 1,068,302 37
Kazakhstan 1,049,155 15
Sudan 967,500 40

It would appear at the outset that Canada and Australia are so sparsely populated that they can adsorb 1,000's of people.

This is totally wrong one must look at the gross area less water area and then evaluate the habitual and arable land that can sustain a reasonable population.

I have looked at Canada and estimate that about 22% of our gross area is arable and can sustain population. This would then translate to a population density of about 40 people per square mile of arable land.

Many people do not understand that Nunavut, NWT and Yukon are 4% of our gross area and support only 1 person per square mile!

I sum this up by saying that we cannot accept any more people or our arable land will be over populated.


I have a real problem with these people trying to jump the queue and get their way into Canada through the back door. The front door is legal. They seem to get "lawyered" up within minutes of their landing so you know there has been some contact with the Canadian lawyers prior to their arrival. They were there waiting for them when the RCMP and officials brought them to Canada. Of course you are paying the legal bills and these lawyers, some from Toronto, take many clients. I saw one lawyer interviewed and he said he had twenty-five of the 78 refugees who landed last October. Business is good.
I think it is time to tell us Ottawa just what this is costing the Canadian people. What does it cost to send a navy ship out to intercept the bucket of bolts? What is the cost of lawyers? What is the cost of everything else involved in this action?

We as Canadians still don’t know what it cost us for the 78 that landed last year. Where are they all? Are they reporting in? Were they all okay as far as identification etc that all of us have to carry just to get home from Wenatchee?

I still can’t understand where each of these refugees got the $30 thousand for the trip. Isn’t that what we have been told they paid this ship owner to get here? Doesn’t a landed refugee who comes here the legal way have to report in to Canada Immigration from time to time? Is that being done?

What about all the Canadians in this valley that are trying to get members of their families over here to become Canadian citizens and they are doing it the legal way. Should we be telling them to get a rusty ship and head out to sea because if you get here it’s a cinch to make it into the country and get all the benefits we can give you. It’s just not fair for one and certainly illegal for another.

Of course the Americans are laughing at us because we can’t control our borders and at the same time they are worried about safety for their own people and our borders are frightening.

We had better get ready - the rumour is another ship is being loaded and ready to go to Canada before the winter season hits.


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About the Author

John Thomson is the Okanagan's pre-eminent business columnist writing his column, Rumours and Things, for over 24 years. Plugged in to the valley's who's who, John keeps his readers coming back for more with his straight talk and optimistic perspective on where we are headed next.

When John is not writing his column, he runs a sixteen year old think tank called the Executive Roundtable and holds his popular "Thomson Presents" quarterly business speaker seminars.

Have a comment, question, or tip for John? 

E-mail John at
[email protected]
or send him a fax at 250-764-8255.

 



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The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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