The Plight of Elderly Chinese Immigrants in Canada

The Plight of Elderly Chinese Immigrants in Canada

Early Chinese immigrants to Canada were mostly male manual laborers  who had come to build the railroads. It was not until 1947 that the Canadian government allowed Chinese immigrants to bring their families to Canada

 

Now China has been the largest source of immigrants to Canada. But  Chinese immigrants also face survival challenges in Canada . Especially those elderly Chinese immigrants who do not know English   have suffered from a lot of discrimination. They taste to the full the bitterness of life in the Canadian bureaucratic society. Unfortunately, they can’t  find anywhere to make their complaints  due to the language barrier. Let  me cite a few examples.

 

 I have written this article based upon  what I was told . I know an elderly Chinese immigrant couple, who told me that more than 10 years ago. They  were sponsored by their son to immigrate to Canada.

 

   As they set foot on Canadian soil, the elderly couple  have  lost their source of income and have to rely on their son’s family for support. However their son’s family has a relatively meager income.  They do not have too much money to help them. But they can only finance them with their own meager earnings  Usually the elderly  couple are fun-loving people with a sense of humor. As they  once said :”  we're out of reserves and must rely entirely on the generosity of our son’s family to survive” in  Canada.... ... They have been eking out a solitary subsistence living  outside of the  white mainstream society.

 

In accordance with the stipulations of Canadian immigration law when  elderly people  immigrate to Canada., despite their old  age (over 65), they are still not qualified to receive Canadian Old Age Pension until they have lived in Canada for more than 10 years. There are financial difficulties for those elderly people who cannot find  jobs due to their old age or inferior language skill.

 

They have gone through years of immigration suffering and privation. Finally it was their qualified age eligible for them to receive COAP that brought an end to those long immigration years of suffering. Readers, you don’t rejoice too soon. When their applications were submitted, awaiting approval. But only the hu*****and’s application   had been approved. Because he loves his wife too much, and then he anxiously asked:” how about my wife’s?”  The government official imperiously and arrogantly  answered  him:”well, Since you do not want  only you to receive COAP  ,you may wait another couple of  years with your wife to receive COAP.”Without giving any opportunity  they need to make a further  explanation .So they were forcefully deprived of the entitlement of the benefits without cause.  They  silently  waited for another three years before to receive COAP. This is a blatant racial discrimination. However this situation is not an individual phenomenon in Canada, It prevails  throughout the country. It should be called an abuse of power by the officials .

 

I invent a word called "the arrogance of telephone", which is also one of the major characteristics of the bureaucracy of the Canadian government.  Wherever and whenever you call the government departments ,you can never expect that  you speak to an actual person.

 

The answer you have always got from the phone is that “please leave your message, we’ll call you back as soon as possible, etc. “ It always Is full of such cliches . What is even more ridiculous  Is that once they heard your English with a foreign accent, they would immediately switch your call  into the automated phone message service. .”The Arrogance of Phone “ reflects their  entrenched bureaucracy and racial discrimination. They assume an imperious bearing ,as a Chinese saying goes:” A dead pig is not afraid of  being  scaled by boiling water .”

 

Recently  a strange event has occurred  in Toronto Chinatown . Golden Oxen Supermarket owner Wang Chen in Toronto Chinatown and two of his employees caught a shoplifter suspects and wait for police to come. On the contrary, the police came to arrest Wang Chen and his two employees, and charged them with four felonies--assault, forcible confinement, kidnapping and carrying a concealed weapon. They may have acted a bit radically. They tied the shoplifter up and put him in a van to wait for police to come. But  whatever they were doing  is their self defence and protecting their property. They shouldn’t be  Charged with four felonies. Whoever has a little legal knowledge will never think such practice reasonable. We hold that all nationalities, big or small should be equal. It has still remained perplexed for us  why they are stubbornly still clinging to their wrong position. They have always been reluctant to correct mistakes .You can see how deep-rooted racial discrimination in Canada.

 

 As stated above is my opinions upon what I think of . This can also be considered as my  essay on current events . 

 

20/06/09