Editorial: Population boom will test province



Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller's warning this week that a major increase in population over the next 25 years could potentially ruin the province's quality of life and natural spaces merits much debate. Up to 6 million more people will settle in Ontario by 2030, nearly 75 per cent of them in the Greater Toronto Area and the Golden Horseshoe. With infrastructure — roads, water, waste management — already stretched to the limit, Miller wonders where all the new residents will go.

In many respects, Miller makes valid points. Toronto and regional governments have failed to develop long-term plans to deal with waste disposal, roads and public transit, water and sewage treatment for the existing population, let alone millions of newcomers.

On roads, for example, the Toronto area is already facing almost 24-hour rush hours. The effect on air quality of so many new cars will be substantial. This follows a summer in which a record number of smog days was recorded. And while GO Transit and TTC ridership is up, neither system has had a major capital expansion for too long.

In this respect, Miller can make a strong case that growth needs to be planned far better than the Ontario government has done to date.

True, the government under Premier Dalton McGuinty has, through its creation of a massive greenbelt stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough, prudently set aside an abundance of natural areas for future generations. Its Places to Grow Act focuses development in urban areas and seeks intensification in order to conserve space and reduce urban sprawl. It has created a stand-alone ministry to deal with new infrastructure.

But none of these initiatives is perfect. In fact, Miller notes the greenbelt lacks the same protection from new roads and other development-driven infrastructure as the Niagara Escarpment or the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Troubling in Miller's report, though, are his musings on population growth. While he insists he isn't talking about limiting immigration, Miller refers in the report, and in an article he wrote for the Star that appears on today's Opinion page, to "continuous, rapid population growth."

He notes that northern Ontario, where he lives, is actually losing population. He wonders if other parts of the province or Canada may be more appropriate places for the settlement of new immigrants. He is completely disingenuous in this argument because it is irresponsible to suggest you can limit growth in southern Ontario by encouraging immigrants and current residents to go to northern Ontario, where there are no jobs.

He asks whether it is true that population growth is needed to create jobs, protect the tax base or infrastructure it supports, adding "there are prosperous European economies that thrive without a burgeoning population base." On this topic, Miller has gone far beyond his mandate as environment watchdog. What he has done, perhaps inadvertently, is to open the debate on whether Ontario should adopt a Zero Population Growth strategy. Such debates are now raging among U.S. environmental groups.

Population growth is coming whether Miller likes it or not. The federal government has raised its target for immigration in 2006 to 255,000. The cap is likely to go over 300,000 in subsequent years. If the past is any indicator, the lion's share of immigrants will come to southern Ontario.

That means the province must intensify its work on how best to accommodate growth in southern Ontario. On that point, at least, Miller is right.



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Nov. 4, 2005. 01:00 AM




STAR COLUMNISTS



Immigration funding vote assailed
Decision could be reversed, Tory says

Groups press need for promised money


KERRY GILLESPIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU

Federal opposition parties — criticized as being anti-immigrant — say they're ready to reinstate $168 million in immigration funding they chopped from the budget this week.

If they need to know just how vital the money is, Mario Calla says he can tell them.

Immigrants aren't getting jobs because their English isn't good enough, but there isn't funding for more classes, said Calla, executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services.

The same is true for training and Canadian work experience programs, he said.

"In the last 20 years, the poverty level among immigrants has increased 125 per cent compared with 13 per cent for the general population," he said.

"There are solutions but the solutions require resources."

Groups that work with immigrants were reeling yesterday after discovering that the Tories and Bloc Québécois banded together in a committee vote on Tuesday to block new funding.

More than $20 million was to have come to Ontario as part of a pending federal-provincial deal. This would have been the first increase in federal funding for immigrants in Ontario in nearly a decade, Calla said.

Debbie Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, said that "Ontario takes in 125,000 immigrants a year. Those are the people who are going to be suffering if this money doesn't get through."

Federal opposition parties said it was Immigration Minister Joe Volpe's "arrogant" and "evasive" appearance before the immigration committee that prompted them to vote down the funding request.

"It was clear he was looking for a blank cheque without the scrutiny," Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer said.

But the decision has turned into a public relations nightmare for the Bloc and the Tories.Yesterday, Jaffer (Edmonton-Strathcona) said the Conservatives are willing to reinstate the funding if Volpe will reappear before the committee.

"We would like to give the minister a chance to come back, address some of the issues we raised ... and we will gladly give the money," Jaffer said.

Volpe said yesterday he's willing to return to committee but denied he ducked questions during his earlier appearance.

"If you don't get the answer you want, it does not mean that the answers are not detailed and fulsome," Volpe said.

Today, Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Mike Colle will be in Ottawa at a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for immigration.

"I'm going to go there to make sure we get back on track," Colle said referring to the provincial-federal immigration deal.

But for that deal to be realized the $168 million in immigration funding has to be approved.



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nov 2
Canada expanding immigration plans
By BETH DUFF-BROWN

The Associated Press

TORONTO — Canada's government unveiled changes to its immigration policy Monday, including plans to take in up to 300,000 new immigrants annually within the next five years.

Immigration Minister Joe Volpe, in a report on immigration introduced in the lower House of Commons, said Canada accepted nearly 236,000 immigrants last year, facilitated 2,000 international adoptions and reunited 6,000 refugee spouses and children with their families.

He said Canada intends to accept as many as 255,000 new immigrants next year.

"Looking to the future, more successful and well-

integrated newcomers in all parts of Canada are key to nation building and to our economic prosperity," Volpe said in his annual report on immigration.

Volpe told The Globe and Mail newspaper in Monday's editions that Ottawa was "desperate for immigration" and would be prepared to accept as many as 300,000 immigrants a year within five years. He did not return calls seeking further comment.

In his report, Volpe said Ottawa plans to hire more temporary workers to tackle the enormous backlog of 700,000 prospective immigrants. Applicants can wait as long as four years to have their applications processed in Canadian missions around the world.

Canada — a vast country slightly larger than the United States, though much of it is in the frigid north — has only 33 million people, compared with the U.S. Census estimate of 297 million people in the United States today.

According to the most recent national census in 2001, 18.4 percent of Canada's population was foreign-born.

Volpe said Citizenship and Immigration Canada had met the target for immigration for the past five years, with more than 220,000 people obtaining permanent residency annually since 2000.




"To succeed, we must make the system work better. It is not enough to have people come to our country," Volpe said. "Equally important, we need them to be successful once they are here to ensure that both immigrants and Canada fully benefit from the skills and talents newcomers bring."

Canada is often criticized for attracting highly educated immigrants, who then complain that their professional credentials are not accepted. Many foreign doctors and engineers end up working as taxi drivers and waiters. Statistics Canada has found that recent immigrants earn less than their Canadian-born counterparts, despite higher levels of education.

Volpe says he plans to consult with unions, businesses and immigrant groups to better understand what kinds of workers are needed.

Press alarmed by French riots

France's immigration policy comes under scrutiny as papers in France and beyond consider the political repercussions of continuing riots.

Several dailies warn that the rest of Europe faces similar problems and may not be immune from disturbances.

'Contagiousness'

Papers in France wonder how the state can restore public order after riots spread from poor Paris suburbs to other cities in the country.

A headline in Le Figaro warns of the "worrying contagiousness" of the unrest. The paper notes that the riots spread to the provinces over the weekend "despite many calls for calm made by elected representatives and organizations working in the suburbs".

Liberation calls for greater political continuity on law and order. The paper warns that people's concerns over whether the state can still guarantee public order could turn into "panic" in the face of a "growing number of extreme acts of violence".

"And when people feel abandoned like this, it is to be feared that they will show individual or collective reactions aiming to defend their immediate safety through any means necessary," it says.

The paper argues that both the right and the left have failed to develop a cross-party consensus on long-term law and order policies which "each camp would be able to adjust but not radically call into question".

Le Monde says the riots raise doubts about France's social model.

"In full view of everyone, a country which regards itself as the birthplace of human rights and the sanctuary of a generous social model is proving to be unable to ensure decent living conditions for young French people" who are the descendants of immigrants who contributed to France's economic success in the post-war period, the paper says.

Racial resentment

The Spanish daily ABC says the aim of French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday was to contain the "shock wave" of violence spreading from Paris to the provinces.

The unrest among the immigrant community, says the paper's Sunday edition, has been "ignored for too long".

"From Bordeaux to Nice, from Strasbourg to Rennes, France has been set ablaze by the embers of a racial resentment that the Villepin government has been incapable of extinguishing," it says.

"It is too late to call the firefighters," the paper concludes. The Basque daily Gara, meanwhile, mixes the incendiary metaphor with a medical one.

"In the offices of Paris work is under way... to find an antidote to treat an epidemic that is spreading like wildfire," says its Sunday edition.

The paper rejects both policing - as advocated by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy - and financial measures as solutions.

"Because it comes too late, an injection of cash into the estates... may ease the pain but not heal the wound," it says, pointing out that many of the rioters have turned their backs on the welfare system.

Policy 'in ruins'

The Czech daily Mlada Fronta Dnes says France's policy of trying to assimilate immigrants is in ruins.
"All that remains of it after the last few days is smoking car wrecks, burnt-out shops and piles of ashes," the paper says.

Another Czech paper, Hospodarske Noviny, says the problems have been building up for years.

"There has been no agreement whatsoever between big political parties on how to tackle the issue of immigration," the paper says.

It feels that politicians have vacillated between "investments and subsidies one day and iron rule the next".

The paper believes that these two approaches merely served to cover up the politicians' helplessness.

A European strategy?

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sees good and bad in Mr Sarkozy's strategy.
The paper says it was unwise of him to make remarks about urban gangs which were "an expression of anger rather than political rationality".

"But his tactics of restoring law and order first before the problems are tackled is right," it feels. Berlin's Die Tageszeitung says similar riots might well erupt in Germany one day.

The paper argues that the impoverishment of "whole sections of the population" is a crucial parallel between the two countries.

"This policy of social apartheid affects primarily, though not exclusively, the descendants of immigrants," it says.

The paper adds that this policy is currently a "dogma" in the entire EU, but it acknowledges that there are some French specificities.

"In France the ghettos are particularly big and isolated," it says, "but their inhabitants are all the more self-confident." Belgium's De Standaard says the riots point to huge challenges ahead.

"What is happening in France provides us with food for thought on the sheer depth of the social problems we face," the paper says.

It argues that "simple analyses" in terms of racism and multiculturalism will no longer do.

"Let us begin by admitting that the challenges are huge, and that we do not even know how to talk to each other," the paper says.

"If you do not know how wide the river is, you cannot build a stable bridge," it warns.

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.