[LINK] "Beefed up at the border"

Andrew Chungs' article in The Sunday Star, "Beefed up at the border", takes a look at the often-intrusive Department of Homeland Security's actions on the US-Canadian border.

Most Canadians are aware of stepped-up security at border crossings or at the airport. The Border Patrol is eager to show how the same is happening everywhere in between.

In the change room at the tidy Champlain Border Patrol station, a sticker decorates a locker door: "Terrorist Hunting Permit," it reads. "Permit No. 91101."

"Nine/eleven really opened the eyes of people in the U.S., and Canada," Richard Labounty, a Border Patrol supervisor, says of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. "It's one of our most important missions, to apprehend terrorists and terrorist weapons."

[. . .]

A back-road tour with soft-spoken Labounty shows that the other remote routes that lead to Canada are, like Matott's, blocked off. The gates in place are not the Berlin Wall, but Labounty explains they are backed up by a growing array of surveillance cameras and sensors – be they motion, seismic, metal or infrared.

Labounty insists the Border Patrol is gaining "operational control." The idea is that every illegal entry "will come to a law enforcement conclusion at the border."

Champlain now has 34 agents, about double the number it had when Labounty arrived nine years ago from the southern border, where all officers are first assigned. Space is getting tight; a new station will be needed soon.

In 2001, there were just 340 Border Patrol agents assigned to the U.S.-Canada boundary. There will be over 1,800 agents by next year, a near sixfold increase.

The majority of people coming into the United States are from countries other than Canada. Labounty hauls out last year's worn logbook. "They're from everywhere imaginable," he says, flipping through the pages. India, Pakistan, Burundi, Iran – each country of origin is meticulously written in ink. Any narcotics are also noted.

He's surprisingly sympathetic toward the illegals, given the gruff reputation of border authorities and his own emphasis on stopping terrorists. "You may feel bad for them, for the country they came from," he says. "But you have to do your job."

The article doesn't say much that I don't already know, but it's a good enough primer to the situation.

[LINK] "Labour shortage? Bring in the Jamaicans"

The Globe and Mail's Wency Leung takes a look at what may well become a significant new destination for Jamaican immmigrants.

Mr. Reid, 38, is among the first of hundreds of Jamaican students to attend Kelowna's Okanagan College, recruited to help fill a shortage of skilled workers in the Okanagan and the rest of the province.

Under an experimental, "interprovincial refresher" program, the college expects to train and find job placements for between 300 and 400 Jamaican students this school year in high-demand trades such as culinary arts, automotive collision repair and carpentry.

The sudden influx of students from Jamaica is bringing cultural diversity to the campus and local work force, which has never before had a significant Caribbean population.

"It's definitely changing the cultural landscape," Okanagan College president Jim Hamilton said. "Certainly as you go around the community, we see many more people of Caribbean origin than we ever did before."

About 16 months ago, the college, which has a full-time student population of more than 7,000, didn't have one Jamaican student, he said.

But since it began recruiting students from Jamaica, a country where skilled labour is high but jobs are scarce, the Jamaican population on campus has started to swell.

The unusual relationship between Okanagan College and Jamaica was initiated by Michael Patterson, a Jamaican-born marketing professor at the college.

Seeing an opportunity to fill the needs of both local employers and tradespeople in his native country, Prof. Patterson believed the college could help bridge that gap.

"It's a win-win," he said, adding that the college is selecting only highly skilled students who will adjust well to life in Canada. "When you take people in with no skill, people who are desperate ... that is where you get problems, and we're looking for a particular type of people coming in."

In June, the college began training the first group of 37 Jamaican students under the program, including Mr. Reid. Two weeks ago, it started training a second group of 40.

Students in the program are screened by the Jamaican government and the college before they can enroll, ensuring that they have at least six years of experience in the field they intend to study. They then attend 16 weeks of instruction at Okanagan College, broken up by 16 weeks of paid work in the field.

At the end of the training, students take a test to earn their Red Seal certification, which qualifies them as journeymen in Canada. They then have the option of applying to become permanent Canadian residents through a provincial program that accelerates immigration for qualified skilled workers.

The Jamaican-Canadian population is at present overwhelmingly concentrated in the large cities of central Canada. The formation of a Jamaican-Canadian population in Canada's western provinces--of any Caribbean immigrant community, for that matter--is unprecedented to the best of my knowledge. Notice, also, the concentration on skilled immigrants as opposed to a more representative cross-section of the Jamaican population.

[PHOTO] Looking past Centre Island Beach

Looking south at Centre Island Beach
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

I took this picture as I was looking south towards Lake Ontario, past the western breakwater of Centre Island's beach.