How can we have so many immigrants yet still lack personnel in essential sectors like healthcare, education, engineering, and technology?
The question shouldn't be whether we are allowing people to immigrate, but what occupations those people are intended to cover for. As it stands, it seems like we are simply importing labour and socializing the cost of a massive population increase. It's not benefiting the Canadian economy by increasing average worker productivity (by allowing high-skill workers to immigrate), it's not helping to cover gaps in our social systems (by allowing healthcare/education workers to immigrate), and often times it's not even benefiting the immigrants themselves (as can be seen by the many "college scams" out there).
Our points-based system needs a revamp to help fill in the loopholes people are using. Since demand for immigration to Canada is so high, we can afford to be more selective in who we take.
The key changes I would make are:
Constructing a whitelist of permitted Canadian post-secondary institutions (limited primarily to publicly-funded universities that form the core of the Canadian post-secondary system)
Giving additional points for those coming from well-regarded international schools (think IIT Bombay, Tsinghua, Technion, Sharif University of Technology, Seoul National University, National University of Singapore) to a similar degree as from a Canadian institution
Accreditation of what is considered "skilled work" under the Canadian skilled work experience clause
Expansion of the H1B visa transfer program
I would couple this with significantly expanded funding/tax breaks into the startup environment for Canada to create more employment opportunities for skilled workers.
Canada is clearly an extremely desirable place to live (moreso than the US in many ways), so why not use that advantage to attract the best and brightest from around the world and use them to develop burgeoning domestic industries?
Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines have been complaining that NATO doctrine, which relies on complete local superiority, is basically sending them to die when used against a peer force.
NATO doctrine has evolved into one that is really good at fighting insurgents and completely inferior militaries (e.g. Iraq) but has never been good in a peer war. Even historically, this is evident by the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the War in Afghanistan.
Have you been following Ukraine's counteroffensive at all? Despite NATO training and being showered by NATO equipment, Ukraine is incapable of making progress in offensive operations. It's been four months and they've just barely claimed a 10km x 10km area of low ground.
Then why have a peace blueprint in the first place? By your description, Ukraine has no reason whatsoever to ask for peace. Why propose a peace blueprint?
I completely agree, particularly given Canada's defensive environment. Canada has a whole fuck ton of terrain to play with in the event of an invasion, so why not develop the capability for working in that terrain?
That would still be an improvement, though. I think it's perfectly fair that US defence contractors get paid for their development, and I'd even accept paying them on a per-repair basis, I just don't think that Canada's defence capability should be entirely dependent on when a US company decides to send their repair team.
Why would we want an offensive force? We have enough land as it is and our primary focus should be on soft power (so people don't want to invade us) and defence (so people who try end up bleeding so much it doesn't matter). Canada is uniquely suited for defence in depth given that our key geographical rival (Russia) would have to invade from the North, literally the furthest they could possibly be from key population centers, and that on the off chance that China decides to invade us, they'd have to cross through the Rockies AND the Prairies just to make it even close to the Golden Horseshoe. In fact, I'd actually argue that our key rival in terms of defence should actually be the US: their instability makes it increasingly likely that we may get caught up in a sort of hostile occupation if war should break out and they have the capability to easily strike all main Canadian population centers.
How can we have so many immigrants yet still lack personnel in essential sectors like healthcare, education, engineering, and technology?
The question shouldn't be whether we are allowing people to immigrate, but what occupations those people are intended to cover for. As it stands, it seems like we are simply importing labour and socializing the cost of a massive population increase. It's not benefiting the Canadian economy by increasing average worker productivity (by allowing high-skill workers to immigrate), it's not helping to cover gaps in our social systems (by allowing healthcare/education workers to immigrate), and often times it's not even benefiting the immigrants themselves (as can be seen by the many "college scams" out there).
Our points-based system needs a revamp to help fill in the loopholes people are using. Since demand for immigration to Canada is so high, we can afford to be more selective in who we take.
The key changes I would make are:
I would couple this with significantly expanded funding/tax breaks into the startup environment for Canada to create more employment opportunities for skilled workers.
Canada is clearly an extremely desirable place to live (moreso than the US in many ways), so why not use that advantage to attract the best and brightest from around the world and use them to develop burgeoning domestic industries?