Canada and the World Backgrounder, Dec 2002
"We must continue to welcome new arrivals so that Canada will continue to grow and prosper and continue to be recognized in the years ahead as the best place in the world in which to live."

Former Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan (2001)

"Immigrants not only help to produce the goods that Canada sells to the world, they buy those goods as well. They not only participate in construction activities, they buy houses, run businesses and create jobs. Best of all, immigrants have children and bring them up as good Canadian citizens. Those children attend our schools and universities, get jobs and pay taxes. They keep our economy lively and help us grow as a people."

Myrta Rivera, Executive Director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre (2002)

"Everyone has met a cab driver with a PhD, or an immigrant who began with pennies and made a good life here; and since when did Canada become so high and mighty that the people who helped build this country are no longer good enough, smart enough, adaptable enough for us? Wasn't it diploma-less immigrants who broke ground in the West in the early years of the last century, and who built the cities in the post-war years?"

Globe and Mail editorial June 2002)

"Too many people in Canada forget that people crawl across minefields to get here."

Ignat Kaneff, Bulgarian-born immigrant to Canada (1989)

I think one of the biggest mistakes made in (Canada) was that it was so tough about immigration. We should have another 30 million people here."

Novelist Mordecai Richler (1989)

"Laotian refugee who, 'safe' in Vermont, still sleeps with both hands clasping his throat because of scenes of throat-cutting and torture he saw on a wartime airfield converted to a showplace of terror for the conquered populace."

Edward Hoagland, from his diaries published in the Summer 2002 Paris show "I think that a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born to the soil, whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half dozen children, is good quality. "

Clifford Sifton, Canada's Minister of Interior (responsible for immigration) 1896-1905

Copyright Canada and The World Dec 2002

Source: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3695/is_200212/ai_n9160733