Born here. I can speak in English and Cantonese, both fluently. If you speak Mandarin very, very slowly to me like I was a 5-year old, I might be able to understand.

If they don't pay taxes, they shouldn't benefit from ours.

Yes, it does seem a tad un-Canadian but it's a change I wouldn't mind. It's also un-Canadian not to contribute to society.

So who are these people that don't pay taxes. Everyone pays taxes one way or another unless there native.

Not people that come and go from the country, using our social services like health care and dental etc. and then fly off to somewhere in EU or USA to live.

No I'm not saying they're as global here as they are in Africa.

What I am saying is that we have an obligation to spend money to ensure everyone in our own county has an acceptable standard of living before we give money to Africa. And that's a hard thing for me say, my general instinct is toward humanitarian causes but I think it's morally and financially responsive to tend to your own house FIRST. Canada's currently living off it's credit cards. We don't have the luxury of handing over millions to other countries.

Additionally, I would go on to point out the flaws in the international aid programs as they actually harm a lot of developing nations more than they assist them. The nations become extremely reliant on this form of funding and in many cases it's squandered on administration in the better cases and goes right into the pockets of tyrants in the worst. Rarely does it have it's intended effects with the exception some very targeted programs.

There are more effective means of aiding these nations that are far more cost effective AND helpful then the current methods we use (and often funded via private donors).

Ideally, we would have the option to contribute or not via our income taxes every year. Would you like to give an extra .5% to international aid... check here. (as I understand a lot of people dislike donating to private charities, many of which take up to 90% in administration costs). And you know what... I think a lot of people would do it. And this money could be completely independent of the budget and just automatically form the International Aide budget of it's own.

But just to go and do it when we can't even balance our own books and this is more money we have to BORROW to help these countries out?

I can't justify it when we have Native American kids living in abject poverty. I can't justify it when we can't afford to pay for our own schools? I can't justify it when it's more debt that my own kid is going to inherit.

So they don't eat while here?

Like all those people in Lebanon who we have spent $100M to evacuate even though they were living there.

Canada needs to change its citizenship laws. If you're not living here, you lose it.

stop the chinese from comming. Just fucking tired of god damn richmond chinese mainlanders and especially the c-lai bitches who stand in line at grocery store bitching at the clerk and looking around at ppl expecting to help her over a extra few cents on the receipt!

what's weird is that my elementary friend moved here in gr7. he stayed with us until gr.9, when he was deported by the government claiming that there was a population crisis.
what pisses me off is that he is British, and he speaks 200% better english than the fobs do.
PLUS he was in line for a citizenship, he and his whole family. and these two fobs that came to my elementary in gr6, are still here to this date (university) who don't speak a word on english.

if there is some sort of immigration thing between the UK and Canada, please correct me if i'm missing anything

I have this issue and im total gwai-lo, especially since I eat at alot of honger cafe's in richmond.

as with this 1800 citizens thing? Bullshit. These people are citizens like anyone else and they are parts of our everyday community. Basic human rights that canada offers shouldn't be a membership it should be available to anyone.

Sadly people will take advantage of it.

No we do not. In fact, helping Africa could be the worst thing we could do for them - let me explain.

Do you know about the genocides in Rwanda? Where almost a million people were killed in 3 months? Where the predominantly wealthy tribe was mostly killed, thus why it is falsely called a genocide?

If not, please read about it. Rwanda is a country of 11M in an area the size of Hawaii with few resources. How did it end up this way? Population expands to the size of resources, so everytime we gave them more money and food, the population grew until it hit a breaking point.

Sadly the best thing for many of these Africa countries is depopulation through disasters like famine. Then there'll be less people competing for resources, and maybe one day they'll learn to live within their means rather than abusing handouts.

My relatives in greece lives in canada for 10 years paying taxes here before moving back. Even though they no longer pay taxes, I believe they paid enough that if shit hits the fan the government can help evacuate them in times of natural disaster.

And yes they have come back over here since they sold their country to the IMF.

Taylor we don't often agree but I will agree with you on part of what you said. (Though I'm morally opposed to letting people starve for population control, I'd rather these people's religious leaders would just stop telling them condoms are bad).

I'd also suggest people read about the horrifying shit going on in Zimbabwe and some of the other really poor afrian countries.

In fact just book mark BBC News - Africa and read it every day.

Their religion plays a huge part in this as well. 56% catholic... And we all know the catholic church's stance on any form of birth control.

Taylor and NewGirl, your ignorance is fucking astounding. I know I should expect it from both of you but holy shit.
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You really don't like Skinnypup do you?

And what about those Canadians that want to retire to some place warm?

So what's the threshold to "lose" your citizenship?

1 Year? - So take an extended vacation and you lose your citizenship?
5 Years? - Do a work/education term out of the country and lose your citizenship?

This type of response is expected from you. Name calling with no substance. Useless, keep it to yourself.

Condoms aren't the problem, its the subsidies. If you have X kids, you get X dollars. So if you're poor and un/under-employed - what do you do? pump out more kids!

You've read Gladwell, now read Desmond Morris. Isolated tribes have been studied to explain why they don't suffer these same problems. Its because the tribes could never expand beyond their resources, if they did they either starved, or fought with other tribes until numbers were reduced back to the available resources.

We've got to stop fucking with their resources. As bad as it is to see an Africa baby starving on TV, by giving them $$$ you're just creating another mouth to feed.

I understand a system like this will never be perfect, yet here's an example of how it can be abused:

My sisters both live in the US and work. They can work their entire adult lives in the US, never pay a dime of taxes to Canada, then return and use our healthcare system in retirement. Fair? No way.

So an arbitrary system to lose citizenship will punish some, yet the current system is broken and punishes us all.

So my cut-and-dry "lose" policy would obviously need more details, yet the current system is broken and needs to be fixed.

I don't understand how you explain it's falsely called a genocide.

As well, there were many factors playing in the strife between the majority Hutus and the Minority Tutsis. Part of it being the Belgians who further added fuel to the fire during the colonial era.

Honestly - the western world plays a huge part in the crap that goes on in Africa. Resources are exploited - so a small percentage will get very rich.

Please elaborate on your conclusions.

I left that open to anyone who wants to look it up.

The material I've read state the Tutsis are the wealthier of the 2, and when your country is starved of resources, who are you going to attack? Other Hutus with little? or a Tutsi who may not have much either, yet has more than you?

Ontop of that, of those killed there was a lot of Hutu on Hutu killings, showing it wasn't just Hutu wanting to wipe out Tutsis exclusively.

They go to kelowna or the "sunshine coast"

:seriously:

Yes Canada send all your old and sick people to B.C. our hospitals are empty and waiting for them.