AN UNEMPLOYED CANADIAN SPEAKS OUT AGAINST IMMIGRATION

I am a 49 year old man. I started working when I was 16 years old. I worked 17 years in a sawmill for a large forestry company in B.C. : I drove a forklift, worked on the green chain, was a First Aid attendant and Power Plant worker. After that, I was a sanitation foreman at a large bread factory for three years. I’ve also worked at the UBC research forest, a large B.C. Tea & Coffee importer, and a Shake and Shingle factory. I was laid off late in the past recession. For the last five years, I have not been able to find a job.

I’ve given up hope. I cannot provide any recent references because of the situation I am in. People from other countries have an unfair advantage. They may provide references, but who is actually going to check theirs ? All the homeless I see are Whites or Native Indians. And the numbers keep growing. I have to remain in poverty while I watch immigrants grow in wealth. I’ve had to put up with their racism. I am scorned by some of them if I even look at them the wrong way.

If I and many like me cannot count on our Canadian Citizenship entitling us to first consideration for any jobs, what good is our Citizenship? Maple Leaf Foods and employers like them, who use their name and the Canadian flag to boost their business, receive huge subsidies from our government, but they hire large numbers of immigrants. They are being racist against single Caucasian men and women and Native Indians. Immigrants outnumber Canadians two to one in Maple Leaf’s work-force. If trends continue there and in other work-places, Whites will be the lowest class.

I have recently earned my Building Service Worker certificate. A Building Service Worker is just a fancy name for a janitor. I got very high marks for the course (88% ). While I was taking the course, I was on welfare. I am still on welfare. However, I still had to pay $600 out of my own pocket for the course. I tried every avenue to have the course funded, but was turned down at every turn. When I went to the course, I met people who were not from Canada, but who told me they had received funding.

Since the course ended, I have sent out hundreds of resumes. But to this day I remain unemployed without even one response to my applications. Unfortunately, my European-descent last name seems to exclude me. As with all unskilled labour jobs at the moment, these jobs are all being given to immigrants. I’m sick and tired of seeing immigrants everywhere I look, doing the job I went to school for while I suffer in abject poverty. I’m not a racist person. And I too am not against immigration altogether. But immigration is completely out of control in this country.

Whenever I tell employment agencies like WorkBC the things that I believe are really unfair, I am told that I am extremely negative. I think anyone would be negative if they had been unemployed for five years as well.

Contrary to what British Columbia’s tourism promoters say, I’m not of the opinion that B.C. is the best place on Earth. I’m of the opinion that born-and-raised Canadians are being shafted by the rich and powerful.

I live outside of Vancouver in a smaller city. I volunteer at the Salvation Army. This city has become the dumping ground for all the disaffected, single white males who are homeless and unemployed in Metro Vancouver. All have been sent here from Surrey, Vancouver and other municipalities where immigrants are becoming the majority. We are like refugees in our own country !!

I do smoke cigarettes. But I am not an alcoholic or a drug addict. Neither are most of the single, unemployed white or Native Indian men I meet.

I just want to say that I come from a family where if you do not have a job, you are really looked down upon. My entire family have turned their backs on me because I am unemployed. I do blame immigration for destroying my family as well. And I am alone.

In the past five years, I have been in many homeless shelters. I have slept in my car for a month.

And for my story, there are thousands of others just like it or worse.

I want to say that ten years ago, I was a very liberal-minded person. I used to love the idea of multiculturalism. Now I am beginning to deeply resent it.

I’m angry. I have had my ego bashed into the ground. For the first time in my life, I am also beginning to deeply resent what Canada’s governments have done to me and to hundreds of thousands of other Canadians.

I feel they are destroying my soul and the souls of hundreds of thousands of other Canadians. And I no longer feel any hope or happiness.

At the moment, I feel that all I can do is rant about it.

But it is a comfort to know that at last, someone cares. Thank you again for writing to me.

You have given me back a small measure of pride.