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Why are so many new immigrants leaving Canada?

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Immigrants to Canada are increasingly leaving this country for opportunities elsewhere, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the Conference Board of Canada.

In fact, the number of immigrants who left Canada rose by 31 per cent above the national average in 2017 and 2019.

According to the study, factors that influence onward migration include economic integration, a sense of belonging, racism, homeownership, or a lack thereof, and economic opportunities in other countries, the report revealed.

Amid a crunch on affordable housing and other services, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced on Nov. 1 that the federal government intends to maintain its target of admitting 500,000 new permanent residents in 2026.

In the days since the announcement, dozens of people who came to Canada as immigrants have reached out to CTVNews.ca to explain why they’ve abandoned their efforts to build a life here, or are close to doing so.

Most respondents said the high cost of living and competition for jobs and affordable housing have driven them to look beyond Canada’s borders for better prospects.

Julian Cristancho immigrated to Canada from Colombia in 2019, after briefly considering the U.S., and started an entry-level human resources job after completing a human resources degree in Ontario. The job paid $17 per hour – not a living wage in most Ontario cities at the time, according to the Ontario Living Wage Network – and he quit after two years to apply for something better.

“It took around 50 applications and countless hours tailoring resumes and cover letters just to get three initial interviews and not hearing back from those companies,” he wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca. In Cristancho’s experience, Canada’s immigration system works well at getting people into the country, but not at setting them up for success after they’ve invested some time here, he said.

Emilson Jose, from India, has lived in Canada for 10 years and has learned that many Canadians can’t afford to live close to where their jobs are located, meaning they spend dozens of hours commuting each month.

“So literally you will spend the majority of your time on roads which could be otherwise spent with your family,” he told CTVNews.ca in an email. From daycare to housing to daily household expenses, Jose has found that the cost of living in Canada can easily exceed a family’s income. He said he worries how much harder it will be for his children to attain homeownership decades from now.

“No matter how much you make, your take home pay is not even keeping up the expense. Families barely keep their head above water,” he said.

“After 10 years of hardship, I am now a proud Canadian citizen who doesn’t want to live in Canada anymore.”

Saikiran Yellavula came to Ontario with his family to study in 2019 after having practised dentistry in India for two years. Yellavula got a job in retail while studying health-care administration at Conestoga College, and in 2021, he and his family became permanent residents. For the past 16 months, Yellavula has worked fervently to land a job more suitable to his education and training, with no luck.

Saikiran Yellavula came to Ontario to study with his family in 2019 after having practiced dentistry in India for two years. It’s been so hard for Yellavula to find work and afford the cost of living here, he said he’s considering moving back to India. (Saikiran Yellavula photo)

“I have applied for approximately 2,000 jobs in Toronto, but have received only one interview,” he told CTVNews.ca in an email. “The high cost of living, particularly the soaring grocery prices, combined with the current inflation…has made it incredibly difficult to make ends meet.”

On top of struggling to get by in a city known for having some of the highest living expenses in Canada, Yellavula and his family have found Canada’s cold climate hard on their physical and mental well-being.

“The combination of these factors has led to a deeply disheartening and depressing experience, not just for us but for many other immigrants facing similar circumstances,” Yellavula said. “Regrettably, these challenges have driven us, as well as several others we know, to contemplate leaving Canada for good. It pains us to consider leaving a country that we initially chose with hope and optimism for a better future.”

Shahrukh Al Islam, originally from Bangladesh, has been in Canada since 2011, when he moved here for school at 18 years old. He excelled at the University of Alberta and received several academic scholarships. Upon graduating, he landed a job with Amazon in Vancouver. However, Canada no longer holds the same appeal it once did for Al Islam, and he’s preparing to move south, where he believes he will earn more, and enjoy more spending power.

“(I) will be leaving Vancouver for Seattle soon,” he told CTVNews.ca in an email. “Tech salaries are higher, taxes are lower, houses are cheaper and USD is stronger.”

Shahrukh Al Islam, originally from Bangladesh, has been in Canada since 2010. He’s employed full time in Vancouver but said he’s planning to move to Seattle, Wash., where wages are more competitive and the cost of living is lower. (Shahrukh Al Islam photo)

Bernard De Vaal and his wife moved to Canada from South Africa in 2018 and tried for five years to build a life here. De Vaal completed a post-graduate program in journalism and the couple had a baby. In 2019, the small family moved from Windsor, Ont. to Vancouver to try and settle into life in Canada.

For another four years, they struggled with social isolation, the high cost of living and the prospect of reaching old age without a sufficient retirement fund. They settled for an apartment that didn’t meet their needs, but which was all they could afford. Eventually, they gave up on Canada.

“My wife and daughter have since moved back to South Africa with me having to stay and work in Vancouver to pay off the debt we accumulated over the course of the last five years,” De Vaal told CTVNews.ca in an email.

“We feel extremely let down by the ‘Canadian’ dream. What we found is a withering, uncertain and anti-working class government, happy to sell promises it never intended on keeping.”

Other readers who contacted CTVNews.ca cited health-care woes and a hostile political landscape among their reasons for leaving Canada, though affordability was still a common thread.

Bianca Mtz and her partner moved to Canada from Europe when she was 29 and both secured well-paying jobs in Vancouver. Mtz came armed with a master’s degree and a PhD in engineering.

Despite their professional success, the two found it hard to cover the expenses of their small family.

“We found ourselves merely scraping by, unable to afford a home to raise our child,” Mtz said in an email to CTVNews.ca

Meanwhile, although they had chosen Canada over the United States for its health-care system, they were unable to secure a family doctor.

Compounding these issues, Mtz said, were daily headlines about political scandals, policy failures and pervasive social inequality. It was enough to convince Mtz and her partner to return to Europe.

“Confronted with a society where hard work did not seem to correlate with fair rewards, where health care and educational systems were compromised, and where government corruption was not an anomaly but a recurrent headline, our longing for Europe’s more accountable and equitable social systems intensified,” Mtz said.

“We are thus compelled to return to a society where taxes lead to tangible public services, healthcare is a given right, not a privilege and where schools are havens of learning, unmarred by the pervasive reach of politics.”

 

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Indonesia swears in Prabowo Subianto as the country’s eighth president

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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated Sunday as the eighth president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, completing his journey from an ex-general accused of rights abuses during the dark days of Indonesia’s military dictatorship to the presidential palace.

The former defense minister, who turned 73 on Thursday, was cheered through the streets by thousands of waving supporters after taking his oath on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in front of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries. Banners and billboards to welcome the new president filled the streets of the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands gathered for festivities including speeches and musical performances along the city’s major throughfare.

Subianto was a longtime rival of the immensely popular President Joko Widodo, who ran against him for the presidency twice and refused to accept his defeat on both occasions, in 2014 and 2019.

But Widodo appointed Subianto as defense chief after his reelection, paving the way for an alliance despite their rival political parties. During the campaign, Subianto ran as the popular outgoing president’s heir, vowing to continue signature policies like the construction of a multibillion-dollar new capital city and limits on exporting raw materials intended to boost domestic industry.

Backed by Widodo, Subianto swept to a landslide victory in February’s direct presidential election on promises of policy continuity.

Subianto was sworn in with his new vice president, 37-year-old Surakarta ex-Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka. He chose Raka, who is Widodo’s son, as his running mate, with Widodo favoring Subianto over the candidate of his own former party. The former rivals became tacit allies, even though Indonesian presidents don’t typically endorse candidates.

But how he’ll govern the biggest economy in Southeast Asia — where nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 282 million people are Muslims — remains uncertain after a campaign in which he made few concrete promises besides continuity with the popular former president.

Subianto, who comes from one of the country’s wealthiest families, is a sharp contrast to Widodo, the first Indonesian president to emerge from outside the political and military elite who came from a humble background and as president often mingled with working-class crowds.

Subianto was a special forces commander until he was expelled by the army in 1998 over accusations that he played a role in the kidnappings and torture of activists and other abuses. He never faced trial and went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998, although several of his underlings were tried and convicted.

Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein was expected to attend Sunday’s ceremony, but canceled at the last minute because of escalating Middle East tensions, instead deciding to send Foreign Affairs Minister Nancy Namrouqa as his special envoy. Subianto and Abdullah met in person in June for talks in Amman on humanitarian assistance to people affected by the war in Gaza.

Subianto, who has never held elective office, will lead a massive, diverse archipelago nation whose economy has boomed amid strong global demand for its natural resources. But he’ll have to contend with global economic distress and regional tensions in Asia, where territorial conflicts and the United States-China rivalry loom large.

Leaders and senior officials from more than 30 countries flew in to attend the ceremony, including Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and leaders of Southeast Asia countries. U.S. President Joe Biden sent Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Adm. Samuel Paparo, the U.S. Commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, was also among the American delegation.

Army troops and police, along with armored vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances, were deployed across the capital, and major roads were closed to secure the swearing-in.

The election outcome capped a long comeback for Subianto, who was banned for years from traveling to the United States and Australia.

He has vowed to continue Widodo’s modernization efforts, which have boosted Indonesia’s economic growth by building infrastructure and leveraging the country’s abundant resources. A signature policy required nickel, a major Indonesian export and a key component of electric car batteries, to be processed in local factories rather than exported raw.

He has also promised to push through Widodo’s most ambitious and controversial project: the construction of a new capital on Borneo, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away from congested Jakarta.

Before February’s presidential election, he also promised to provide free school lunches and milk to 78.5 million students at more than 400,000 schools across the country, aiming to reduce malnutrition and stunted growth among children.

Indonesia is a bastion of democracy in Southeast Asia, a diverse and economically bustling region of authoritarian governments, police states and nascent democracies. After decades of dictatorship under President Suharto, the country was convulsed by political, ethnic and religious unrest in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, it has consolidated its democratic transition as the world’s third-largest democracy, and is home to a rapidly expanding middle class.

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Associated Press journalists Edna Tarigan and Andi Jatmiko contributed to this report.

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Voters in Arizona and Nebraska will face competing ballot measures. What happens if they both pass?

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Voters in Nebraska and Arizona will see competing measures on their November ballots — in one case about abortion, in the other about primary elections. If voters approve them all, what happens next could be up to the courts to decide.

Like more than a dozen other states, Arizona and Nebraska have constitutions stating that if two or more conflicting ballot measures are approved at the same election, the measure receiving the most affirmative votes prevails.

That sounds simple. But it’s actually a bit more complicated.

That’s because the Arizona and Nebraska constitutions apply the most-votes rule to the specifically conflicting provisions within each measure — opening the door to legal challenges in which a court must decide which provisions conflict and whether some parts of each measure can take effect.

The scenario may may sound odd. But it’s not unheard of.

Conflicting ballot measures “arise frequently enough, and the highest-vote rule is applied frequently enough that it merits some consideration,” said Michael Gilbert, vice dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, who analyzed conflicting ballot measures as a graduate student two decades ago when his curiosity was peaked by competing measures in California.

What’s going on in Nebraska?

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a nationwide right to abortion, Nebraska enacted a law last year prohibiting abortion starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy except in medical emergencies or when pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest.

Abortion-rights supporters gathered initiative signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment that would create “a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health” of a pregnant woman, without interference from the state. Fetal viability generally is considered to be some time after 20 weeks. The amendment is similar to abortion-rights measures going before voters in eight other states.

Abortion opponents, meanwhile, pursued their own initiative to essentially enshrine the current law into the constitution. That measure would prohibit abortion in the second and third trimesters, except in medical emergencies or pregnancies resulting from sexual assault or incent.

The Nebraska Constitution says the winning measure with the most votes shall become law “as to all conflicting provisions.” State law says the governor shall proclaim which provision is paramount. Lawsuits could follow.

If the measure creating a right to abortion until fetal viability gets the most votes, it could be construed as fully conflicting with the restrictive measure and thus prevail in its entirety, said Brandon Johnson, an assistant law professor at the University of Nebraska.

But if the restrictive measure gets the most votes, a court could determine it conflicts with the abortion-rights measure only in the second and third trimesters, Johnson said. That could create a scenario where abortion is elevated as a fundamental right during the first trimester but restricted in the second and third.

“There’s a decent legal argument, based on the language that talks about conflicting provisions of the measures, that you can synchronize the two,” Johnson said.

What’s going on in Arizona?

Arizona, like most states, currently uses partisan primaries to choose candidates for the general election.

The Republican-led Legislature, on a party-line vote, placed an amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine partisan primaries in the state constitution, reaffirming that each party can advance a candidate for each office to the general election.

A citizens initiative seeks to change the current election method. It would create open primaries in which candidates of all parties appear on the same ballot, with multiple candidates advancing to the general election. It would be up to lawmakers or the secretary of state to enact requirements for exactly how many should advance. If at least three make it to a general election, then ranked choice voting would be used to determine the winner of the general election.

The Arizona Constitution says the winning ballot measure with the most votes shall prevail “in all particulars as to which there is conflict.”

In the past, the Arizona Supreme Court has cited that provision to merge parts of competing measures. For example, in 1992, voters approved two amendments dealing with the state mine inspector. One measure extended the term of office from two to four years. The other measure, which got more votes, limited the mine inspector to serving four, two-year terms.

In a case decided 10 years later, the Supreme Court said parts of both measures should take effect, ruling the mine inspector could serve four, four-year terms. That could have implications for Arizona’s future elections if voters approve both competing measures on this year’s ballot.

“The court really goes out of its way to harmonize the two,” said Joseph Kanefield, an attorney and former state election director who teaches election law at the University of Arizona. Striking one measure entirely “is something that the court will try to avoid unless they absolutely determine the two cannot exist together.”

What’s happened in other states?

When Gilbert’s curiosity was peaked about conflicting ballot proposals, he teamed up with a fellow graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, to examine 56 instances of competing ballot measures in eight states between 1980 and 2006. In some cases, the measures appeared to directly conflict. In others, the measures merely addressed similar topics.

Their research found that the measure getting the most affirmative votes often was the one that made the least change from the status quo.

But sometimes, the highest-vote rule never comes into play, because voters approve one measure while rejecting the other. Or voters defeat both measures.

In 2022, California voters were presented with two rival proposals to legalize sports betting. Interest groups spent roughly $450 million promoting or bashing the proposals, a national record for ballot measures. But both were overwhelmingly defeated.

In 2018, Missouri voters faced three different citizen-initiated proposals to legalize medical marijuana. Voters approved one and rejected two others.

“It is not unusual to have conflicting measures,” said John Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. “But my observation is that voters usually understand the game and approve one and turn down the other.”

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From showgirl feathers to shimmering chandeliers, casino kitsch finds new life

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Crystal chandeliers that once glimmered above a swanky lounge, bright blue costume feathers that cloaked shimmying showgirls, and fake palm trees that evoked a desert oasis are just some the artifacts making their way from the latest casino graveyards of Las Vegas into Sin City history.

The kitsch comes from the Tropicana, which was demolished in a spectacular implosion Oct. 9 to make room for a new baseball stadium; and from The Mirage, the Strip’s first megaresort, which dealt its last cards in July and is set to reopen as a new casino nearly 40 years after it originally debuted.

As the neon lights dimmed and the final chips were cashed in, a different kind of spectacle unfolded behind the casino doors. Millions of items big and small were meticulously sorted and sold, donated and discarded.

“You take this hotel-casino and you turn it upside down, shake everything out of it until it’s empty,” said Frank Long, whose family business, International Content Liquidations, led the effort to unload the Tropicana’s merchandise before its implosion.

Long, 70, a third-generation auctioneer, likes to say he’s in the business of “going, going, gone.” He jokes that his Ohio home is “decorated in early hotel,” having helped clear out dozens of them as well as casinos across the country. In Las Vegas, that includes the Dunes, Aladdin and Landmark.

“Vegas buyers are special,” Long said. “This is their community, and they want a piece of it.”

Trolling for a piece of history

On a hot day in June, two months after the Tropicana shut its doors, Long welcomed buyers onto the casino floor.

The whirring slot machines were long gone, transferred to other casinos. In their place sat an odd collection of things: desks and chairs, rattan night stands, table lamps, pillows and sofas. Piled high in what was once the high-limit gambling room were mattresses and box springs. Small crystal chandeliers going for $1,000 hung suspended from old luggage carts.

“Fill up your entire truck for 100 bucks,” Long told shoppers, grinning.

Buyers of all ages filled wagons and luggage carts with arm chairs priced at $25, mirrors at $6, floor lamps at $28. Behind red velvet ropes where guests used to check in, customers waiting to pay stood in line with 43-inch flatscreen televisions. One man hugged a mattress and box spring, trying to keep them from toppling over.

In the Tropicana’s vast conference hall, piles of large vintage spotlights labeled “FOLIES” sat in waist-high bins marked for donation. They were off-limits to buyers, destined for the Las Vegas Showgirl Museum.

The Tropicana was home to the city’s longest-running show, “Folies Bergere,” a topless revue imported from Paris. Its nearly 50-year run helped make the feathered showgirl one of the most recognizable Las Vegas icons.

Elvis’ image among the forgotten treasures

One of Long’s favorite parts about the job is sifting through forgotten corners of casinos.

Inside the Tropicana, his team rescued black-and-white photographs of stars who wined, dined and headlined there. His favorite was a candid photo of Elvis Presley found in an unused office.

In its heyday, the casino played host to A-list stars including Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

Long said his people have fun with the job, too. The tedium of collecting several thousand pillows from the Tropicana’s two hotel towers turned into “the world’s biggest pillow fight.”

When Sarah Quigley learned the Tropicana was closing, she knew she needed to act fast if she wanted some of the casino’s historical records for the Special Collections and Archives at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Quigley, director of the special collections, wasn’t the first to call.

But after a meeting with the Tropicana’s management team, UNLV’s special collections acquired five boxes of records from 1956 to 2024, including vintage 1970s ads for the Tropicana’s showroom, old restaurant menus, architectural blueprints and original film reels of the dancing “Folies” showgirls rehearsing in the mid-1970s.

Salvaging the neon Vegas is famed for

The Neon Museum, which rescues iconic Las Vegas signs, got the Tropicana’s red one and The Mirage’s original archway that welcomed guests for 35 years. In a herculean effort, the 30-foot sign was placed on a flatbed truck in August. A chunk of the Strip closed so the piece could be slowly driven to its new home at the museum.

The Mirage opened with a Polynesian theme in 1989, spurring a building boom on the Strip that stretched through the 1990s. Its volcano fountain was one of the first sidewalk attractions, and tourists flocked to the casino to see Cirque du Soleil set to The Beatles or Siegfried and Roy taming white tigers.

In just a few years, the Strip’s skyline will look different. The Mirage will become the Hard Rock Las Vegas in 2027, with a hotel tower shaped like a guitar. The following year, the new baseball stadium is expected to open on the former site of the Tropicana.

While the last of the Tropicana’s buildings came tumbling down in 22 seconds, pieces of the Las Vegas landmark have found a new life in nearby museums, curated collections and homes.

“There’s history here,” said Aaron Berger, executive director of the Neon Museum. “You just have to look past the glitter to find it.”

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Associated Press video journalist Ty O’Neil in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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