Comments on: Wednesday Night #1332

By: Diana Thébaud Nicholson

Diana Thébaud Nicholson — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:40:15 +0000

A disgraceful and cynical surge of self-interest
11 September 2007
We should not be surprised that the Congressional testimony from General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, yesterday painted an encouraging picture of the situation in the country. General Petraeus was reporting on his own efforts to curb the insurgency in Iraq and evaluating a military approach that he had personally championed. He was never likely to conclude that the surge had failed. And nor was the White House likely to schedule a report of failure to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The Independent - Leading Article

By: Diana Thébaud Nicholson

Diana Thébaud Nicholson — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:32:33 +0000

Note to the CCAPRCD A new report warns that many skilled foreigners are leaving the United States because the annual quota for resident visas is too small. The study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation says that about one million potential immigrants compete for 120,000 visas issued each year. As a consequence, applicants are forced to wait several years to get the visa. The report says that many leading American businesspeople first came to the U.S. as students, and then remained. Almost one in three founders of an American technology startup company is an immigrant. The large majority of those founders were from India. Last year, foreign nationals living in the United States contributed to one in four of all international patent applications. The report warns that visa applicants are frustrated by the long wait to obtain resident documents and decide to return home, creating a reverse brain drain.

By: Diana Thébaud Nicholson

Diana Thébaud Nicholson — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:13:46 +0000

Harper puts politics above the national good
“The first session of the 39th Parliament was exceptionally productive,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last week, “especially for a government in a minority situation.” There’s some truth in that. What he didn’t then go on to say, but we will, is this: “… by continuing the session to pass worthwhile bills now on the order paper, we could accomplish even more for Canadians.”
Instead, the PM has chosen to prorogue Parliament. That stuffy old word means “throw out all the legislative work done this last year and more, except for bills already passed by both houses, and start over.” For a man who claims to be concerned with the well-being of Canadians, Harper certainly seems to have weighted this decision on the side of the well-being of his own career and party. Gazette editorial 10 September 2007