Atinitonews.com : Philippine News Feature - The Power of the Minority

The Power of the Minority
by Marissa Buyco-Corpus

Statistics Dont Lie ! The recently released statistics on the population of Canada by ethnic origin reflects the major changes in the socio-economic and cultural milieu of this country.

With the thrust of Canada to open its doors to immigrants the past decades, this has generated an influx of a great number of immigrants from many countries all over the globe mainly from the South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka , China and many Asian nations like the Philippines , VietNam, and other less developed countries in Africa, and the rest of the world.

The annual growth of the immigrant population has contributed much to help propel Canada to continue to achieve growth targets as these migrants serve as the labour force necessary to sustain economic growth and development.

But the growing ethnic minority it seems will soon no longer be the minority as it will surpass the "real Canadians" , a misnomer as most of the population are actually immigrants ( including the Irish, the Italians Greeks, etc who have come in waves via ships). The native Canadian ( First Nations) population is not significantly large in numbers.

These strong ethnic minority populations has huge impact on several fronts. First and foremost is the labour force will be predominantly migrants, thereby affecting future memberships in labour groups, a strong force to reckon. Second, these groups will affect the political climate and representation from these groups will be inevitable as its populations grow larger . The usual political parties and their supporters will or might eventually change in the coming years. Third, the various ethnic groups will be enpowered and occupy key cabinet positions and possibly the highest post of the land. A case in point is the rise of the black sector in America with its first black president Obama. Fourth, the strong ethnic ties with their assumed higher than average population birth rates will further increase their numbers. Then Canada will be a predominantly brown country.

Most ethnic groups have emerging political representations in the government and this will be anticipated to further increase in numbers through the coming years. It may impact their views and positions and affect public policy on immigration, wage rates, discrimination and human rights, and governance. Why do i think so. Because these immigrants bring with them their socio- cultural beliefs that may support or be counter to that of existing policies and because of their sheer numbers have the ability to introduce such changes in public policy.

These are exciting times for all of us immigrants. We have a growing and important role to play in this society and in this country specially in the coming years. Our children will be the future leaders of this nation. Will they be able to bring it to greater heights ? Only time will tell!

Marissa Corpus is Managing Director of MBC Im migration Specialists, Servicio Filipino Internationale and the Philippine Multimedia Productions. She is a Certified Canadian Immigration Consultant (CCIC) and is the Publisher/Editor of the Filipino Telephone Guide. To contact Marissa, you can check her website at www.mbcimmigration.ca or call her at 416-266-3838 or email her at mbcorpus@yahoo.com.