My eBook, How To Immigrate To Canada For Skilled Workers: The Authoritative Guide To Federal And Provincial Opportunities is available now on Amazon and other online retailers. Get your copy of the essential guide to Skilled Worker class applications today!

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Also available is my new eBook, "How To Immigrate To Canada In The Family Class: The Authoritative Guide Including Québec And Super Visa Opportunities". Get it at Amazon or the other e-retailers noted above.

Monday, September 25, 2006

How I spent my Summer vacation

Ok - I think I'm back. Fall is officially here and that means that (once the weather really turns) there'll be plenty of excuse to be inside on this machine, seeking out and commenting on immigration issues and keeping you up to date with my glacial struggle (emotional and financial) to make a new life in Canada.

So how did I spend the Summer? Well, I travelled a bit, went camping, rode motorcycles, performed in a band at a handful of shows, did lots of physical labor and generally enjoyed a dry and warm season. I leave the summer feeling much more fit than I did entering it, and now I'm looking forward to Fall.

The emerging Canadian in me is looking forward to hockey season, and new episodes of The Mercer Report, 22 Minutes and Air Farce. Makes the typical bleak Fall and Winter evenings a little easier to bear.

Plus I picked up a gig that may help me significantly toward my financial goals required to get back in line.

So thank you, Summer of 2006 - you were a hoot.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

New BnL release - get it today!

Ok - I haven't just had fun here for a bit, so let's lighten the mood! Barenaked Ladies have a new release and it's great. Follow the link below to check it out!

BnL were introduced to me by my ex and while I had been aware of them before, I didn't really get into them until the stories they sang connected with experiences in my own life. Now I can't hear them and not see some of the landscapes and heartscapes of Toronto that have become my own. This latest release is well worth some of your money!


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Sunday, September 10, 2006

9/11 - the immigration legacy

It's been five years since that sad day that America was attacked. Five years since the towers fell in New York and the Pentagon was punctured; since flight 93 went down. Five years since this nation and many other Western nations began to live in fear.

While many in the press are summarizing 9/11 from the point of view of loss of freedom vs. security issues; or they are looking at the impact on health to the emergency responders at ground zero in NY; there is one impact I don't want to go unmentioned, and so tonight I decided it was a good time to mention it.

9/11 has made immigration more difficult than ever to both the US and Canada. It has taken away manpower and budgets that used to go to process cases. It has bred an atmosphere of mistrust in new immigrants. It has led to calls to close borders. It has empowered racist tendencies. There are calls everywhere for reductions in immigrants allowed in and a tightening of requirements that would even allow for application in the first place.

The dream of a free and open North America has been replaced with the dream of a big wall on our northern and southern borders.

9/11 has impacted all of us, but living in fear of the world through a bias against immigration can only harm us in the long run. Answering the call to secure our borders and biometricize the world in order to allow it access to us will lead to our econmoic and political undoing. Business is conducted where it is free to be so and business WILL migrate to those markets. In the arena of World Politics, our cries of freedom and liberty for all will be reduced to hollow rhetoric when viewed against our actions.

The greatest damage done on 9/11 was the freeing of the forces of fear. It has already done far worse to this nation than anything that happened five years ago.