Ok: dreigen met zoutzuur, door de brievenbus pissen, ontucht, het is allemaal heel erg. Beheren van een sekslijn met nepprofielen, ook niet goed. Maar blijkens door Light Sound Dimension uitgevoerd antecedentenonderzoek zitten er nog veel grotere boeven in de PVV-fractie.
Meet PVV-Kamerlid Léon de Jong (28). Volgens zijn cv van 2006 tot 2010 “fulltime muzikant” in de tweepersoonsband ‘In-Front’. Het is vrij lastig om iets over de band ‘In-Front’ te vinden op het interweb, daar ze geen eigen site hebben (wel een hyve, en de OFFICIAL LEON DE JONG WEBSITE via Ziggo – more than just a voice), maar ik ben toch op het een en ander gestoten.
Zie bijvoorbeeld deze “Showflits” van TV Oranje, waarin de band ‘In-Front’ zich presenteert aan het muziek van eigen bodem minnende publiek:
“Een kruising een beetje tussen het oude Ten Sharp, we worden ook wel eens met Savage Garden uit Australië, uit Melbourne vergeleken. (…) Het is eigentijdse muziek, pop/rock.”
Parlement.com beschrijft de sound van ’In-Front’ als ”een combinatie van pop, rock en enige klassieke invloeden”.
En hoe klinkt dat, eigentijdse pop/rock met klassieke invloeden? Nou, zo:
Catch me now, take me anywhere! Wie zien we daar op 0.41? Fucking Mike Starink. Ik vroeg me laatst nog af waar die gast gebleven was. Hier dus.
Hier is het nummer Stormy Mind, naar het gelijknamige album van de boys (807 views):
Tot slot “brak” PVV-Kamerlid León de Jong volgens zijn cv ook nog “door” bij het RTL4-programma “Popstars”. Een compilatie van zijn optreden daar vinden we hier (802 views):
Maar met het vervuilen van de Nederlandse ether met dit soort anonieme, gelijkgeschakelde, zouteloze Hollandse pop/rock Sky Radio-derrie ben je pas echt een crimineel, om niet te zeggen een ‘musical terrorist’. Tijd voor een spoeddebat!
The New York Times sings Canada’s praises for avoiding the messy strife over immigration raging across much of the western world with a fairly lengthy article contrasting the Canadian experience, and especially the Manitoban experience, with the U.S. It describes how the province went out of its way to attract more new arrivals in an effort to compete with larger Canadian cities Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver where immigrants typically settle:
(…) Demanding “our fair share,” Manitobans did something hard to imagine in American politics, where concern over illegal immigrants dominates public debate and states seek more power to keep them out. In Canada, which has little illegal immigration, Manitoba won new power to bring foreigners in, handpicking ethnic and occupational groups judged most likely to stay.
This experiment in designer immigration has made Winnipeg a hub of parka-clad diversity — a blue-collar town that gripes about the cold in Punjabi and Tagalog — and has defied the anti-immigrant backlash seen in much of the world.
Rancorous debates over immigration have erupted from Australia to Sweden, but there is no such thing in Canada as an anti-immigrant politician. Few nations take more immigrants per capita, and perhaps none with less fuss.
Is it the selectivity Canada shows? The services it provides? Even the Mad Cowz, a violent youth gang of African refugees, did nothing to curb local appetites for foreign workers.
“When I took this portfolio, I expected some of the backlash that’s occurred in other parts of the world,” said Jennifer Howard, Manitoba’s minister of immigration. “But I have yet to have people come up to me and say, ‘I want fewer immigrants.’ I hear, ‘How can we bring in more?’ ”
(…)
“From the moment we touched down at the airport, it was love all the way,” said Olusegun Daodu, 34, a procurement professional who recently arrived from Nigeria to join relatives and marveled at the medical card that offers free care. “If we have any reason to go to the hospital now, we just walk in.”
(…)Canada has long sought immigrants to populate the world’s second largest land mass, but two developments in the 1960s shaped the modern age. One created a point system that favors the highly skilled. The other abolished provisions that screened out nonwhites. Millions of minorities followed, with Chinese, Indians and Filipinos in the lead.
Relative to its population, Canada takes more than twice as many legal immigrants as the United States. Why no hullabaloo?
With one-ninth of the United States’ population, Canada is keener for growth, and the point system helps persuade the public it is getting the newcomers it needs. The children of immigrants typically do well. The economic downturn has been mild. Plus the absence of large-scale illegal immigration removes a dominant source of the conflict in the United States.
(…)
French and English from the start, Canada also has a more accommodating political culture — one that accepts more pluribus and demands less unum. That American complaint — “Why do I have to press 1 for English?” — baffles a country with a minister of multiculturalism.
Another force is in play: immigrant voting strength. About 20 percent of Canadians are foreign born (compared with 12.5 percent in the United States), and they are quicker to acquire citizenship and voting rights. “It’s political suicide to be against immigration,” said Leslie Seidle of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a Montreal group.
(…)
The article does note that there are “some stirrings of discontent”, though it gives them pretty short shrift, and does quote an individual, Martin Collacott, from an NGO “that advocates less immigration”. Collacott argues that “There’s considerably more concern among our people than is reflected in our policies”. This is quite likely accurate for at least some parts of the population. Although even there note that the argument is not to cease or radically reduce immigration. Even Collacot notes “There’s literally no one in Parliament willing to take up the cudgel”.
The article, while playing into mythology of the ‘always nice’ Canadian, points to some factors that may explain why the Canadian experience might be successful:
The Manitoba program, started in 1998 at employers’ behest, has grown rapidly under both liberal and conservative governments. While the federal system favors those with college degrees, Manitoba takes the semi-skilled, like truck drivers, and focuses on people with local relatives in the hopes that they will stay. The newcomers can bring spouses and children and get a path to citizenship.
Most are required to bring savings, typically about $10,000, to finance the transition without government aid. While the province nominates people, the federal government does background checks and has the final say. Unlike many migrant streams, the new Manitobans have backgrounds that are strikingly middle class.
“Back home was good — not bad,” said Nishkam Virdi, 32, who makes $17 an hour at the Palliser furniture plant after moving from India, where his family owned a machine shop.
He said he was drawn less by wages than by the lure of health care and solid utilities. “The living standard is higher — the lighting, the water, the energy,” he said.
The program has attracted about 50,000 people over the last decade, and surveys show a majority stayed. Ms. Howard, the immigration minister, credits job placement and language programs, but many migrants cite the informal welcomes.
“Because we are from the third world, I thought they might think they are superior,” said Anne Simpao, a Filipino nurse in tiny St. Claude, who was approached by a stranger and offered dishes and a television set. “They call it friendly Manitoba, and it’s really true.”
One complaint throughout Canada is the difficulty many immigrants have in transferring professional credentials. Heredina Maranan, 45, a certified public accountant in Manila, has been stuck in a Manitoba factory job for a decade. She did not disguise her disappointment when relatives sought to follow her. “I did not encourage them,” she said. “I think I deserved better.”
They came anyway — two families totaling 14 people, drawn not just by jobs but the promise of good schools.
(…)
Every province except Quebec now runs a provincial program, each with different criteria, diluting the force of the federal point system. The Manitoba program has grown so rapidly, federal officials have imposed a numerical cap.
(…)
But Arthur DeFehr, chief executive officer of Palliser furniture, does see a lesson: choose migrants who fill local needs and give them a legal path.
With 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, he sees another opportunity for Manitoba. “I’m sure many of those people would make perfectly wonderful citizens of Canada,” he said. “I think we should go and get them.”
While I love DeFehr’s pragmatic attitude and think it may be a big part of the story of the continued success of immigration in Canada I am not as sure that any of the factors in the Times’ story fully explains, unto themselves or in combination, Canada’s seemingly more positive immigration attitudes or experience. The article glosses over the fact that there has been considerable evolution in Canadian immigration policy, processes and requirements. For example, the greater devolution to provinces to craft their own immigration agendas is pretty new. There have been changes in the point system over time, and indeed the point system itself was only created in 1967. And yet, Canada has a fairly positive immigration experience over a broader time span. This short presentation provides a much fuller description of this evolution examining eight periods of Canadian immigration history. So it seems to me there is something more at play here that the article does not dig into. Perhaps it is the very adaptability that the author make so little of that has led to the great benefits immigrations has bestowed upon Canada?
Recent polling seems to affirm the article’s general thrust, that there is no prominent anti-immigration thrust among politicians or most citizens:
More than half of Canadians (54%) said they think the number of immigrants coming to Canada is about right, up from 49% in 2004; Almost one in four (23%) said there are too many immigrants, down from 31% in 2004.
Though there are nevertheless signs of unease:
The firm also said that while 71% of respondents said they felt immigration was good for Canada, the number declined to 48% when asked if they thought it was good for their neighbourhood …
The article leaves much to desire in identifying the historical and current problems and/or concerns that plague the Canadian immigration system. As that presentation linked to above makes much more explicit than the Times article did, Canada has had shameful racist immigration policies in the past. But, there are also a number of issues that should currently be raising eyebrows. This Maclean’s piece makes clear that whatever the upside of attracting more middle-class migrants, that it is also leading to exclusion. Even if the article is correct this does not amount to simple racial profiling it seems as though it may be having a similar, if not the same, effect. That Maclean’s article also makes clear how recent policy shifts are delaying and limiting family reunification. To the degree that we are wanting to attract folks who will stay and become permanent citizens this seems rather misguided not to mention it is rather crude to begin with. Finally, very recent responses to mass human trafficking cases threaten to recast how we define and treat refugees, both rhetorically and in practice, including what rights we afford them. All of these items – and they probably only scratch the surface – ought to be giving us serious pause and none of them are explored in the Times article.
We have a terrible habit in Canada whereby, to the degree that we are seen to compare favourably to our southern neighbours on any matter, whether important or not, we tend to pat ourselves on the back and rest on these laurels, however dubious they are. A great example is political culture. For years we prided ourselves on the fact that we had not succumbed to the worst excesses of the kind of negative politics practiced in the States, believing that our politics were more rational, grounded in reality and suitably gentle. Assuming that this would always be the case, no matter that the differences were probably considerably more narrow than perceived, we did little to figure out what the actual differences were, why they existed and how we might protect them (to the degree we saw them favourably). Today there is virtually no light separating American and Canadian politics. Let’s hope that we don’t take our positive immigration experience for granted in a world where immigration seems broadly under attack, and instead start working to address already growing number of serious problems now.
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