By Judi McLeod
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Unlike its southern neighbour, Canada has no fence against illegal aliens, and no plans for an amnesty.
Canada's legal immigrants are causing the most angst for some Canadian taxpayers.
Until the Canadian government began evacuating their citizens from Lebanon last summer, no one paid much attention to estimates indicating there are more than four million immigrants holding dual citizenship with Canada and at least one other country.
Now that the bills from the mass evacuation are in, Ottawa has estimated it cost $85 million to bring home the 15,000 citizens in Lebanon holding valid Canadian citizenship. a Foreign affairs report suggests that as many as 7,000 evacuees have since returned to Lebanon.
Canada's Immigration Minister Monty Solberg may be the only `fence' for longsuffering taxpayers footing the bill for dual citizenship having to be temporarily repatriated.
a Vancouver resident, who sent a letter to Canada Free Press associate Editor arthur Weinreb, believes Dual Passport Welfare has created a Two Tier Canadian Citizenship--those who pay income tax and those who don't.
"I live in the Vancouver-Kingsway riding which has become a tax-free retirement destination for Hong Kong grandparents and their grandchildren while their parents work and live full time in China until they retire in Canada with no one ever filing a single tax return in Canada," the Vancouverite wrote Weinreb.
"For instance, we have my house where everyone files an income tax return each year and next door we have three generations of a family who came from Hong Kong over 10 years ago and no one in that household has ever filed an income tax return in Canada. The parents work and live full time in China. In fact, the oldest son after graduating from UBC has been working in China and is about to return with his wife to have a child which will take them into four generations of Dual Passport Welfare. We now have two tiers of Canadian Citizenship--one that pays income tax and one that doesn't."
"In mid-august of this year on the front page of a Saturday edition of the Vancouver Sun around the time the Canadian government was extracting Canadian passport holders from Lebanon, it was proposed what would happen if a similar event occurred in China. They found that in the last five years over 300,000 residents of Hong Kong who gained a Canadian passport were now working and living full time in China. Of course, the next question was why this group had gained a Canadian passport.
"They did a survey of this group and found three main reasons. The first reason was that it was easier to work in China with a Canadian passport. The second reason was if there was a crisis similar to the one in Lebanon, they could fly to Canada. The third and overwhelming reason was that they all wanted to retire in Canada--without ever having to file a single income tax return here.
"What do we tell our children when they graduate from post secondary education…move to a low-tax region like China and work until you are ready to retire back here in Canada on the backs of Canadians too stupid or poor to leave the country?"
Little wonder that after Monty Solberg was looking at dual citizenship this made the front page of newspapers in Hong Kong.
CFP's arthur Weinreb had written that it's time for Canada to end dual citizenship.
"In a perfect world people would be responsible for their own actions and everyone rescued from Lebanon would be required to pay their own transportation costs--just like they did when they traveled to that country. anyone who chooses to visit, work or study in a country that has virtually no government and is controlled by a terrorist group like Hezbollah and that borders on what Ontario MPP Phil McNeely calls "a rogue state" should have to pay to come back to Canada.
"But if we demanded that, the next thing you know is that we would require those that run to a doctor every time they have a slight headache to pay for that too and the Canada we know and love would cease to exist. So given that we have to pay for the repatriation of citizens, should we have to pay to bring those that are simply "citizens of convenience"?
Meanwhile, Solberg has his work cut out for him.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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