In our quest for justice we wrote to all Members of Parliament seeking help and received less then a handful of replies. Those replies were either your standard version of PGA, Please Go Away, or just another way of pretending to care about immigrants.

Our repeated requests for an appointment to meet former Liberal Minister Anne McLellan bounced off deaf ears. We wanted to talk to her urgently and remind the minister that we like other immigrants needed to get some immediate remedies to our situation. Remember our first letter to meet with McLellan was sent out on November 25^th, 2000. That didn’t happen, and it hasn’t happened with the present minister.

Having come to a dead end with Anne McLellan, we decided to turn to the Conservative party and contacted the office of Deborah Grey who was then the Member of Parliament, Edmonton North, Alberta. Deborah Grey made representation on our behalf directly to Former Minister of Immigration Elinor Caplin on December 18^th 2000 in writing.

In response to Deborah Grey’s letter on 1^st April 2001, Elinor Caplin replied that potential immigrants are advised that they may not be able to find work in their professions directly, even if they take additional training in Canada. The weight of these words should not be lost on any immigrant to this country. These are not words of Canada’s law, these are not words in a job posting on the internet, these are not words in a help wanted ad in the newspaper.

These are the words that represent the silent will of the people of Canada. It’s what they really think, because they are the ultimate decision makers about your future in a country that is steeped in processes, qualifications and most of all, “networking”. The means justify the means, to use a twisted turn of phrase. How Canadian. The means, represent the quasi-legal disclaimer that allows legal economic apartheid against you, me and every professionally skilled immigrant who is either already here suffering, or who is never going to make it here. Your future awaits you.

This reflects the Canadian reality but that’s not what is advertised at the front end over in your country. It was no different for us; we the Premakumrans, never received such information before immigrating to Canada.

According to Minister Elinor Caplin, quote:

“Immigrant professionals intending to work in a regulated trade or profession in Canada regardless of immigrant category, have to sign an acknowledgement that a provincial license is requited and that they may have difficulty obtaining a job in their field in Canada”.

Strange as it might be we never saw or signed such an acknowledgement and the government never provided any form of proof that we did this. And no surprise: we know anecdotally, that other immigrants never saw, heard of, or signed such a declaration. Is it part of the legal immigration paperwork to get into Canada?

New immigrants face what Iris Winston, Director, Ministe­rial Enquiries Division of Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, says in a letter to a new immigrant August 9, 2001. She wrote: "When a newcomer cannot use his or her knowledge and skills in the Canadian labour market, it is a loss not only for the immigrant and for the Cana­dian economy but for the society as a whole."

Well, this must be self evident to any immigrant who is being denied legal entry into a skilled trade or profession in Canada, but whose truth is it? Is there something essentially wrong with the understanding of the Cana­dian labour market by bureaucrats and their unwillingness to seek solutions to issues of equivalencies? But then again, who’s suffering? The immigrants or the bureaucrats?

It’s not like the loss is Canada’s entirely is it? Because in real terms the source countries for Canadian immigration lose their best and brightest, to get sucked up into Canada’s immigration industry, which is this: Immigration Canada, other government organizations, quasi-social immigrant agencies and so-called job search firms operating in the private sector. They are all a part of it to do what?

To provide the Great Canadian Experience Farce. Has anybody actually done a study of what “Canadian Experience” means? Do Americans ask for “Canadian Experience”? Do Australians, Britons, French, and Germans ask for this so-called “Canadian Experience”? Is it so valued above the rest of the world, that you must have it to work in any industrialized country?

What we, the Premakumarans have found out metaphorically is this: if you repeat enough language to a parrot, it will reply back to you in that language. Parroted replies that show nobody really knows is what is going on; passing the buck is a sport, and ministers rely heavily on responses from bureaucratic parrots, so no answers here. It’s a dead end, bureaucratically speaking.

Underlings at various levels make up this huge bureaucracy. Government bureaucracy is the shiny paint that helps keep the clean image of Canada. So is industry, so is the public and private sector machine that gobbles up immigrants like a wood chipper. Doesn’t matter what flavor you have when it comes to government, bureaucracy or the private sector: Liberal vanilla, Conservative vanilla, NDP vanilla. Vanilla is the flavor, and vanilla is what you are going to see for the next 150 years. Nothing changes.

After a court hearing the Premakumarans notified all leaders of the three main parties. The response received from the office of the NDP leader Jack Layton was a leaflet asking for support to fight poverty. Thank you Mr. Layton, we wish we could have helped you, but we were too poor. We didn’t belong to any one of your big rich unions, or the fashionable Limosine Liberal Left.

From the office of Stephane Dion leader of The Liberal party we received a telephone response that they were unable to help us, and that the matter should be taken through the courts. Oh Mr. Dion, perhaps your ivory tower was so far in the clouds you forgot about the little people, who make up the working poor, especially immigrants.

Where the Conservative Party, which is currently in power, was concerned, well the  silence is deafening – Silence from the Prime Minister’s office, even though this party took the trouble to read our petition in parliament, and promised to help us before coming to power and in power… it remains silent. The same government which brought in the Accountability Act now refuses to respond to our requests has destroyed our future and of course yours, if you choose to tread the same path as we did. Let this be your practical lesson in Canada 101.

 Correspondence with Ministers before taking matters through the courts:-

• Former Minister of Parliment The Honourable Deborah Grey Deputy Parliamentary Leader-Official Opposition
• Former Minister of Parliment The Honourable Elinor Caplan Minister for Citizenship and Immigration Canada 
• Reaction from Deborah Grey

.... and many more such letters from various Fedral and Provincial Ministers

Correspondence with the three main parties after taking the matters throught the courts and as directed by the courts that it is a matter for the governent to deal with in the ballot box:

Similar letter was address to the leaders of all  three main parties:

• Correspondence from the Premakumarans
  

Response received from:-

• Conservative party   (No Response)
• Liberal Party             (Response over phone to take matters back to court)
• NDP                          (Response was in the form of leaflets asking to support poverty)
  
  
  
  

"Don't think that the grass is any greener ....The Giovernment of Canada and the opposition parties does not care and you will be at the mercy of the various Canadian bureaucratic system that can destroy you life for good"