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Why Ghulam Rasool, New Immigrant To
Canada, Is Calling It Quits!
The following is a gut-wrenching story of how the dreams of one
immigrant to Canada came to naught. Ghulam Rasool is a Mechanical
Engineer (1976) with M. E. in Production (1979) and Industrial
Engineering (1980) from India with immediate family on both sides of the
border. Before he migrated to Canada, induced by the promises held forth
by Canada's immigration policy, he had picked up years of experience in
machine building industry.
He recently contacted us with his story that he wanted to tell the
people through Voice. It was a sort of a last minute 'gift' to thousands
of others who suffer silently, having been denied in similar fashion
opportunity that they sought in Canada.
When I received his email, I wanted to meet with him not just to
empathize with him, but also offer my congratulations on a bold decision
that many stay away from - to talk about it openly without shame or
fear. Ghulam Rasool is going back home, most probably to Mumbai, and by
the time you read his account of his five years in Canada, he will be
thousands of miles away, the land that he once held dear. He and his
family left town on May 14.
He wrote to Voice: "I may not be able to access my mail anymore now.
There is not time left for me. My phone is gone and I am in a basement
living on Bread and Water literally, but waiting for the next three days
to go by so that 14th dawns. Thanks for taking interest in my case. I am
aware of you doing a lot for bettering the lot of immigrants. I would
like you to somehow reach this to the Prime Minister and compel him to
reply in the Newspapers. As a media you have done well, but probably
there are no takers. Good luck to you all. My best wishes for you to
prosper here in Canada. Insha Allah, should conditions improve, it will
be good for all. The only advantage of Canada is its very little
population. But the narrow mind does more harm!" I can certainly bring
Rasool's story to you the people, but the Prime Minister? Right now it
just might be a tad inconvenient for Martin to be reading the sad tale
of a single immigrant!
We all know that Rasool's case is not unique or rare. Among the
immigrant community, especially those who come with decent skill sets
and qualifications, frustration is building up. Something is drastically
wrong with Canada's immigration system. At least for the qualified
immigrant, this is proving to be a passport to wilderness. Rasool says
that he knows of other families who have quietly decided to move back or
go to other destinations to survive. Ghulam Rasool says he realized how
it's to live a nightmare. Many in our country, (that include politicians
and bureaucrats and of course, those power brokers such as the
regulatory bodies and the unions, are either unaware or reluctant to
admit this deplorable state). Mercifully, there is some real
authoritative statistics coming out of such independent bodies like the
Conference Board of Canada on how this country wastes immigrant talent.
Rasool says, "Many articles have been written before. Nothing will come
out of this as well, but please try and reach this to as many people as
possible." While we wish Rasool and his family the very best in his
old/new homeland, here's his account of the great Canadian dream gone
bad. It would be an understatement to say he is critical of Canada, but
when you have seen your whole life unraveling before you, thanks to a
system that's exclusionary, then who are we to nit-pick? The least we
can do is to let him blow his steam, hoping that someone somewhere would
be moved by yet one more story to do something about it.
CANADA - A NIGHTMARE COME TRUE!!
By Ghulam Rasool
Enough is enough! It's never too late to call it quits. Having realized
this after 5 long years, I am going back to my country and for good. The
ruling equation here is that while immigrants build Canada, Canada
batters and shatters them! The very people who come here drawn by
attractively designed websites or on the 'invitations' of immigration
consultants' invitations, eager to build a new life while contributing
to this country are destroyed and consumed by it!! What an irony!!
Having moved around in this country for long, I have hardly come across
recent skilled professional who is happy professionally, barring a very
miniscule few, who have just ridden on their luck! Others have resorted
to unethical means to get rich quick in. Skill, talent, knowledge,
wisdom, hard work, honesty, discipline, loyalty etc., seem to have no
place here! All that matters is how many dollars you can sponge out of
the other, and how soon! This is the only measure of success. Rest is
all lip service!
I had brought with me as my money, a sum of just over $ 25000. When my
wife came, we had sold off our property and managed another $ 35000. I
had tried my level best to get a decent job and in the meanwhile, had
lived on survival jobs. My earnings were so far, close to $ 122,000 in
these five long years. That works out to 147,000 as money generated by
me. Plus the 35000 $ which is $1,82,000 in 5 years. From all this what
do I have now? Just about $ 3,000 and an old car that would fetch me
about $ 750 at best. Thus $ 3750 to pay for tickets! Go back to where I
came from and start all over again! And with no money at all, a beggar
in my own country from Day One!
What does this mean? Even with the most frugal ways of living, spending
on just the barest of bare minimum, one still cannot survive. A proper
job is needed! And where is it?
Let us analyze a few things. They say Canada needs technical personnel!
What did I do here? I sent in over 10000 resumes, attended at least 8
different HRDC conducted programmes, each spanning over a few weeks,
made about 50,000 telephone calls for jobs, of which well over
49,000 were just voice mails that never cared to return the call, made
cold calls to over 3000 establishments, spent over half my time on the
Internet, did over 30 different odd jobs to survive, volunteered my
services for 4 months and applied to at least 10 Universities and
Colleges for a course. For reasons known to many, all drew blanks! There
is really no place and no way for new immigrants to settle here. All
this country desires is to squeeze out the last cent an immigrant brings
with him and then dump him!
And Canada wants more skilled immigrants to come here!!
It is said that there is a serious shortage of good teachers in Ontario
/ Canada.
The lady in the family I share accommodation with has over 17 years of
experience as a very renowned teacher.
She had been told to do her entire teaching course all over again!
Having passed TOEFL, etc. with over 95% marks, she has not been able to
get into any University since the past two years, due to too many
students wanting enrolment. In the meantime, she has been volunteering
her services for a school. Good and Quality work for FREE! In return she
is not even allowed to use the school bus, due to Insurance reasons! So
she walks the 4.5 kilometers each way, come snow or rain! Already she
has slipped and fallen many times, but it is her sincerity that makes
her go. What if she meets with an accident? She will not be able to
afford the expenses. Will the school reimburse even one dollar? If she
dies, it will cost the family 5 or 10,000 dollars in funeral expenses!
Family grieved and in debt, but country richer! Make money in every way
is the country's policy. An immigrant cannot afford insurance so he
cannot afford to die! This is a trap.
But yet many of these exceptional teachers are not allowed to teach in
Ontario or will not get any job however hard they try, because they are
not certified!
Why this certification? To ensure that they measure UP to the very high
standards of Ontario Teachers! And what are these high standards?
A Teacher's capability can be estimated by the qualities in the
students! It is on record that 2 out of 3 students of the high schools
in Ontario cannot even measure up to the basic reading and writing
levels! Spelling and Grammar are considered unnecessary here! What is
going to become of these poor students who after so many years of
teaching by these high standard Ontario Teachers are not even able to
read?
One can see and observe the absolute lack of respect and manners by
these students who have been taught by these High Standard Ontario
certified teachers. They have no respect for elders, parents, lack
decency in behaviour, use the f. word at least ten times in every
sentence, talk rudely to everyone, and do all what is not expected of
them!! They may be low in manners, but they are high on drugs, sexual
knowledge, girlfriends and boyfriends, and many other activities that do
not form part of any school curriculum! Growing academically, acquiring
knowledge, returning to society what they can, has no meaning in their
lives!
Canada was rated as the number ONE country to live in not so long ago!
It has fallen very low now. Law and order is supposed to be their
strength! Yet, with all these top quality police force, there are
shocking revelations on racism, brutality, and corruption. High tech
systems can detect and track down a car parked at a mall for just 10
minutes over the scheduled time, but a child fast asleep at home, gets
kidnapped and finally murdered goes completely baffles the experts.
Canada is supposed offer free medical care. This is today in dire
straits. A slight toothache for me resulted in an expense of $1880 as
the dentist did everything that can be done to a tooth and relieved me
of all this money. And, finally my tooth itself! And in many cases, one
visit means the patient is roped in for life! And if he has insurance,
then the dentist becomes a millionaire in no time! It's good to be
insured! That's why Insurance is the biggest business here!
If health care is free, how come eyes, teeth, and bones are not always
covered?
The legal system is supposed to be very good here. But here we have all
types of lawyers guaranteeing that traffic tickets, penalties, etc. can
be waived! Or else it is free! How is such a guarantee possible! And
these services are advertised!
There are thousands of Doctors with fantastic experience from other
countries here in Canada picking up garbage, driving taxicabs and
delivering pizza! Can they not be used better since there is a shortage
of Doctors here? Are they worth NOTHING?
Canada is supposed to be a place with no corruption! The scandals and
scams that we hear about would make the most corrupt leaders elsewhere
in the world blush! They may want to take a lesson or two!
They say employment practices are fair and of a very high calibre here.
Yet we see very large organizations - such as in Power Generation,
National Airlines, and several others enveloped in the worst scandals in
management and mishandling of public funds. Then they get declared as
bankrupt! All tax payer's money. A very large Public owned corporation
has a very high minimum wage, combined with a huge static workforce. It
cannot even bear its own weight! Then they want to cut down work force.
To do so, they offer several millions of dollars to their chosen top
executives to accept as severance!
A third or fourth string hockey player gets over a million-dollar
salary! A Nuclear Engineer gets 6.85 dollars an hour for 30 hours a week
(if he or she is lucky) to support a family! A PhD in Microbiology, who
was head of an Institution doing Clinical Microbiology is a cashier at
Food Basics for the past two years! In spite of doing prescribed courses
here, she still finds no takers! Not even interviews! And one reads in
the papers that in Manitoba and elsewhere, Pig Farmers(!!!) are
conducting laboratory trials and analysis, as there are no certified
analysts! There is a shortage of such people. This proves that Canada
regards a ranch raised Pig Farmer a better analyst than someone who had
studied, personally analyzed for years and finally rose through the
ranks to be a Head of an Institution with 20 years experience! Yet, Pig
Farmers are accepted, Doctors rejected!! Reason: Pig Farmer Canadian,
Doctor Not!
All in all, this immigration business (racket) to Canada is only a very
clever method to get skilled servants to work for free and pay for the
people here who want to only enjoy life without doing anything!
There are far too many people doing nothing but prefer to live as
parasites. Canada wants these people to enjoy even more. And a skilled
immigrant can slog and slave, but he will not be allowed to get into the
system. The irony is that the very reasons that brought the candidate
in, are the very reasons that will keep him out of work, as soon as he
gets in!
In fact the system here ensures that talent, hard work and skill, do not
get rewarded. Many professionals are returning after a futile struggle
and many do not want to come here anymore. These 'pleasant' experiences
of professionals are being made known to the rest of the world! It will
be a sad day when only pizza delivery boys and bar girls will populate
this country. Will that be an advanced country then?
Who will care for these skilled people and their plight here? Does
anybody know what they are going through? The former Premier, Eves, just
before relinquishing his office, declared that if the people vote for
him again, then he would do something to solve this problem. Nobody
believed him because he had done nothing while he was premier. And now
we have another Premier saying the same thing. And so does the Prime
Minister! Are these not gravely important issues? At least when compared
to gay marriages, lesbian clubs, school buses, or marijuana laws?
Original Publication Date: Saturday, May 15, 2004
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