Back from Humber

I can hardly keep my eyes open and it was an absolutely exhausting week - I will write a lot more tomorrow when the dust has settled - but I am finally back home, and I kid you not, it felt like it’s been a month. Honestly. There was so much information to be processed, that you unavoidably end up walking away in an excited but also contemplative mood, with more than enough food for thought. Although I do have to confess that I teared up a bit at the end - I will miss the exhilaration of the Assembly Hall lectures and the amazing creativity sustained in Richard’s classes, and there are quite a few people I intend to keep in touch with, because it would be a shame to lose contact with other people who share this passion for the written word.

I do hope that everyone keeps their promise to email and get together again, because our craft is such a solitary one, that some days you can feel like you are going crazy and nobody understands the feeling you have when you want so desperately to create, to mould something with your words and breathe life into it. And it is true - it’s such a lonely profession, one where you sit nose to nose with your computer screen, day in and day out, and so many times it feels like nobody else understands why on earth you would be so determined to keep at this instead of getting a well-paying job and moving on with your life. (Oh, and for those of you with well-paying jobs - you’re buying me lunch!)

So to all of you people from Humber to whom I handed my business cards (shameless self-promotion, indeed) and who found yourselves lured to my site by promises of scandalous musings - do try to get some rest this weekend, get some rejuvenation happening, and then good luck with all of your zealous writing pursuits!

Tomorrow I will write more to recap the final days at Humber, and as promised, give everyone who asked my honest opinion on whether it was worth it and would I recommend it to another budding writer.  Also, I’ll probably post some photos, though I didn’t take nearly enough. To all of you who I promised a photo - you know who you are - I will be emailing them out tomorrow as well, as soon as I download them from my camera.

Sleep well everyone!

Humber - Day 4

It’s almost ten p.m. and I have just come back to the room - I try to avoid it during the day, and the sun was so bright today I couldn’t stay in. But I know that later on I’ll regret not keeping a Humber journal, so here goes. (By the way, I made my life easier and bought an ethernet cable from the bookstore downstairs - you don’t realize how much you appreciate the internet until you lose it for a week!)

If you’re ever in this area, try to go down to the lakeshore. It was so pretty down there, the water sparkling a deep blue, and all the ducks going crazy quacking and flapping, the breeze gentle and cheery, and it was the best I’ve felt all week. I think I’m getting over that weird bug - which, incidentally, one of my classmates mentioned he was experiencing as well. I wonder if it was the food……

Once again, the day went rather well, with the highlight being the morning session, and if there was a tedious moment at all, it was during the last speaker’s talk. Oh my God, she was so horrible (ok, you know it was a she - but that is all I’ll tell you) that three or four people I spoke with afterwards really, really couldn’t stand her! She might be a fine enough writer and an ok instructor, but you should have seen how pompous and unprepared she came across to be.

At the end of her speech, we were all, well, speechless. Taking the lack of reaction as a compliment, she actually exclaimed something like “Got ya there!” or something to that effect. God. She was supposed to talk about poetry, but other than a few encouraging lines at the beginning, and the recital of the beautiful poem Jerusalem (forgot who wrote it), she spent the ENTIRE hour alotted - and it dragged on, feeling like two hours - completely unprepared, reciting various passages from various fictional books - none of them on the poetry topic. And someone PLEASE teach this supposedly well-travelled woman how to pronounce Azerbaijan!

 Anyway……… the talk before that was by Lisa Moore, who talked about her circle and how they published, was right on - like everyone before her, it was inspiring to hear what motivated her and her friends to come together, persevere, pester the hell out of literary journal editors, and ultimately experience success. She seemed like a really nice person, too, which adds to the credibility factor. I imagine she would make a great instructor too because she came across as so down-to-earth and approachable. I honestly liked her.

About me….I transferred out of instructor X’s class (that’s a whole other story which I don’t need to get into right now) into Richard Scrimger’s group first thing on Monday morning, and he has been a fantastic instructor. I really appreciate how he pushes us beyond our creative boundaries and keeps us on our toes. With me in the class, there are now seven of us, and generally everyone is pleasant and enthusiastic. The other notable thing was that we got some homework yesterday, to write a couple of paragraphs about a character who has a flaw, yet doesn’t know he has it. I have to say that I really appreciated the homework. I’ve been so drained from processing all the info, that getting this assignment was incredibly useful for pushing past the mental intertia and actually springing back onto my creative feet.

Oh. Wait. Is that the sound of a rolling suitcase I hear? Oh my god, yes it is. SHE’S GONE - my bitch roomate is finally out of my room and life forever. (I wouldn’t put it past her to be on the redeye flight back to Brooklyn, New York right now, given that her sessions - yes, she got her stuff workshopped twice, and I bet you wonder what she had to do to get that kind of special treatment - are now finished. And if you knew her, even passably, you’d realize that it’s not like her to actually stick around and go over other people’s “mediocre” writing.)

Fuck, the sound of that suitcase rolling away is sweet music to my ears. Finally, I can sleep in and no more banging, slamming the toilet door out of spite at five am and inconsiderate behaviour. Finally, I can sleep until eight o’clock! the joy.

I don’t know why she was such a horrible little creature. Everyone else has been nice or at the very least amicable, but of all the 30-some people in residence, it’s Murphy’s Law that I’d end up with the one who seemed to hate my guts on sight. At first I thought she resented me because I got in with a scholarship, but as the days progressed and I speculated that she was so loaded there was no need for such resentment. Then I thought, Aha! Maybe she’s acting like this because she would’ve preferred not having a roomate at all.

When I was about to quit this course on Sunday and ask for a refund, feeling sickened by the overt special treatment I percieved she was getting, and the fact that she was invited by Instructor X to have two sections of her book workshopped on two different days, unlike all the rest of the other, less “brilliant, just brilliant” (Instructor X quote) class participants, who paid the same money and only got to have 15 pages reviewed, a couple of people intervened - we put our heads together over dinner at the Polish restaurant on Sunday evening, trying to figure out why on earth this particular individual was getting the special treatment from Instructor X, and this one particular guy I confided in told me straight up that he thought something smelled rotten underfoot, and the special treatment was very likely about money and her potential family connections. That was before I looked her up online yesterday and discovered that she was the ex-associate editor of a really, really famous business/financial magazine in the US - when you think of business and money, it’s the first that springs to mind.

So I have my extremely perceptive colleague to thank for enlightening me - his well-trained instincts were spot-on. There is always a reason why people suck up to someone, whether with flattery or extra-special treatment, and though not always the case, often it IS about networking and making contacts with people with money, as in the case of this woman I had the misfortune to share a room with. I purposefully keep myself ignorant on such things, because I’d rather see the world as a hopeful place, but this issue I have with roomie and Instructor X was very disheartening. This is effectively why I transferred out of that class. It physically hurt me when all this happened, because I had so admired Instructor X and really looked forward to meeting with him - but I owed it to myself, and my own writing career, to make the decision that was best for me.

I refuse to play second fiddle to, and participate in a class that is obviously tailored to suit one individual’s needs more than the rest of the other participants’. Honestly, even if roomie was absolutely great, which is also somewhat a matter of taste, I believe with all my heart that if there is a time for praise, compliments and kissing ass, it is to be done behind the scenes, during one’s private one-on-one time with their mentor, not inconsiderately, unprofesionally, and in front of others in the class. It make me nauseated, unfortunately, and I ran to my room and packed everything, and was about to leave when others intervened and talked me out of it. I am really glad they did. The course is still wonderful, and all the more because I am in a class that is being conducted professionally, and where there is no overt favouritism shown.

I will say no more on this matter, other than mention the fact that over the last few days I noticed that roomie hardly mingled with anyone, ate lunch on her own or only with one or two other women, and overall scowled the entire day. Maybe she wasn’t used to hanging out with common folk. She wasn’t rude, don’t get me wrong - just extremely withdrawn and looking quite uncomfortable all the time, like something crawled up her butt and she couldn’t get it out. Sometimes I actually felt sorry for her - and then I remembered her inability to keep from slamming doors. Also, someone who is in her class told me that she more or less freaked out when people brought up grammar issues in her supposedly amazing story. She’s one of those people, you know - the ones who grimace as they pretend to smile as long as they hear good things only about themselves, but at the slightest bit of critique they bristle up, the fur stands on its ends, and you just KNOW they hate your guts for being competition, and for simply pointing out a flaw that, if resolved, could improve their writing.

Well, enough bitching & drama for one night. The witch is gone, back to her 400-thread count sheets and fancy millionaire boudoir, and I must bid you all a good night - I for one, will finally get some well-needed sleep, the first time in 4 days (or nights, rather…lol).

Hey from Humber

Hello people,

well, for the first time in 4 days I managed to get internet. It’s been an amazingly frustrating experience for not only myself, but at least 20 of the people staying here in residence. Wireless is nonexistent, and all the usernames/passwords we were given do not work at all.

So, as much as I would’ve liked to start my entry going on about all the great things going on here at Humber during my writing week, I had to address the really bad tech issues in this building. (The only reason I’m even writing you right now is that somebody on the floor lent me an ethernet cable). So, my apologies to those 4 or 5 readers who left comments on this blog over the last week - I’ve just now had the opportunity to check in and approve your comments, thus moving them from their limbo state into their rightful places.

Although I have kept sort of a haphazard diary of this week, I am coming down with a bug of some sort - I feel dizzy and am running a bit of a fever, and I totally feel like shit today. Also, for obvious reasons, I will abstain about commenting on this week until it is all over and I can freely give you my overall impression.

I will say this: overall, most of the one-hour talks we have had in the Assembly Hall were really great, and yes, although not much is new information, it was still inspiring, very motivational stuff - notable speakers so far were the two Richards who talked back-to-back yesterday - Richard Scrimger and Richard Bausch - amazing for completely different reasons. Scrimger is a fantastic performer, speaker, comedian - the ease with which he speaks and gets the audience involved is astounding. He makes you feel at ease while still giving great advice; he can get his message across while still refraining from the kind of lofty, condescending attitudes so many other published writers have been known to have. I don’t know where he gets all that energy from, but he certainly makes the most of it. The audience was hanging unto his every word.

Bausch, in turn, is beyond description, though I will make a humble effort to try. His speech cut right down to the chase: profound and inspirational, he didn’t hold himself back at all from speaking the closest I have heard to the Truth in terms of his advice for writers. When I am back home I’ll try to sum up his List of 10 Commandments, but simply to listen to this man gave me goosebumps. Really amazing talk - too bad either of the Richards didn’t have more time allotted, because one hour just doesn’t seem to be enough.

Then also had some editors and publishing house reps in yesterday (and today), and it was pretty funny to see them cut up people’s first page manuscripts and for the most part horrendous cover letters - although if I may say so, I think they held back a great deal, because some of those first pages were downright painful to look at.

I also really enjoyed Janice Kulik Keefer’s talk more than I ever expected I would; not that I didn’t look forward to it, but simply because I hadn’t read any of her writing and didn’t really know much about her other than that she had written a book also set in Eastern Europe (Ukraine in particular) and Canada. But it was a moving, profound talk, and really engaged me given that I am also writing a book about the same part of the world and with the same themes of memory preservation, history and loss.

Ok, so not everything has been wine and roses, but overall, pretty good so far. For now, I am feeling somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of info to process, and lots of it, frankly, is competing opinions. I think all boils down to choosing to think for yourself - do what feels right and true to your self, and to your story.

I’ve known even before I started this week that my book needs some serious revising, particularly in choosing its entry point - choosing the right time and place to start the journey and invite the writer in. Right now I am feeling more confused than ever as to where I am going to start the story. But nevertheless, the story will be told. I just think that I will need several weeks to digest this workshop, allow all the competing ideas to settle, feel what is right, and ultimately get back to my own sense of what I need to do.

PS The dorm is really nice, clean and pretty comfortable despite a rock-hard mattress, but my roomate keeps slamming doors and as of 5 am, when she allowed the bathroom door to slam so loudly that it woke me up, and since I was rather feverish and stressed about my class, I didn’t manage to get back to sleep. Who could be that inconsiderate? God, what a bitch.

Blowing the dust off our Securitate dossiers

This year I am applying to several grants for the book I am working on - a lot of it will be about Romania before the fall of communism, and it will weave together the story of my family and many other stories that need to be told in order to preserve the historical value and integrity of that time - and preservation of history in any form is one of the biggest reasons I write, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.

Anyhow, given the number of grant requests I am putting in and the strength of the project itself, I feel confident that something will break through. So I am beginning to make inquiries into sending a representative to CNSAS in order to petition for the release of the files (since I’m in Canada). I will go down there when they are ready to release the documents, and put the finishing touches on the book in the place where it all began: Bucharest.

The files are bound to be extensive: I remember being followed from school to playground to our apartment, and people with bags of candy approaching me in the park and asking questions about my parents. I remember the policemen always hovering around the downstairs door, and our friends, relatives, aquaintances and even teachers telling us of how Securitate men showed up at their doors and pressured them for information. 

My father had a history of making comments against the state, and my mother sought political asylum in Italy in 1985. Father & I were followed and scrutinized for 2 years until we were given exit visas under the Red Cross Family Reunification Program, in 1987 - 2 years before the Revolution.

I welcome any comments from anyone else who has personally, or knows of someone else, who has gained access to their Securitate dossiers. I know the files can take up to a year to be released. How long did it take in your case? And were there blacked-out parts, or did you get the names of the Securitate officers who were assigned to the case? I know as of Feb2008, they cannot be prosecuted anymore, but that would not be my intent, anyway - I just want to know all that happened, what was said about us, and what kind of information they have on my parents. So - how long is the process? And what was the cost? If you have a lawyer/notary you can recommend, I’d really appreciate it.

Please feel free to respond here or email me privately - I understand Romanian perfectly (only bad at writing it), so you can contact me in either language.

Renouncing Motherhood

I don’t want to worry after a child. I can’t imagine what it would be to experience the uncertainty I have seen in mothers’ eyes when they look out the window and see their baby crossing the street and disappearing into an uncertain future filled with other anonymous people who don’t have the same tenderness, the same cherish, the same endless adoration for the one you love.

I don’t want to feel the trepidation of watching the one you have cradled in your arms and fed at your breast, as he or she stumbles away from you, away, away, falling and crying but always moving further out of range, propelled by an inexplicable forward motion into the distant unknown, propelled by a bottomless ache for exploration that stabs you through the soul.

I don’t want to bear the weight of my grandmother’s fears, as she looked out the same window so many other women before and after her have stood at, arms tucked like prayers in the hollows of elbows, holding themselves tightly, trying to abate the cold that seeps in – the cold of What If? Will he be safe? Will my boy come home tonight?

I don’t want to be my mother standing in that window, on that grey concrete balcony of hers, stubbornly ignoring my furious waving for her to go back inside. I don’t want my eyes to carry like hers do, at the back of my head, so heavy with regrets - regrets of abandonment, of hurting me, regrets of a wretched life that vibrates like a shout in the air between us. But her eyes, nonetheless, full of regrets as they are, plead after me in the road until I am swallowed up by the urban concreteness of the city, and they can no longer follow the shrinking pinprick of my outline.

I don’t want to carry that worry inside me like a shadow infant, a twin of the one who has been born and tears away from you. After a physical birth, a secret pregnancy continues, an afterbirth that you carry in your spirit forever. Even as your baby turns into a toddler, then a youth and finally an adult who goes to school in another city or perhaps gets a job in another country, the twin thrives, sucking from your marrow, clawing through your heart, becoming the pulse in your veins and the throb in your gut.

I don’t want that. I don’t want to bear the pain of creating something as fragile as a human being only to watch him or her slip away from me, while I die a little every day inside. I don’t want to tell her of all my past hurts and all the hurts and demons of her grandmothers and the great-grandmothers before that. I don’t want her to inherit the suffering of her forefathers, the ache of a wounded country, the knowledge of having inherited her flesh from generations of women bloodied by revolutions and wretched men and abandonment and despair.

I think it is more merciful to murder the idea of an infant before it hatches into something more. To hurl that idea as far away as I can, to hurl it like a rock into an abyss of oblivion, to get it far away from me, away, away, away.

(written today, on the occasion of my mother’s birthday)

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My take on the Schapelle Corby case - the brothers did it

All day yesterday I waited with anticipation for a documentary that would air on the Movie Network later in the evening: Ganja Queen - the Schapelle Corby story.
In preparation, I looked her up on the net and caught up on the details of the case: in 2004, an Australian girl in her late twenties is caught in a Bali airport transporting a boogie board filled with ten pounds of marijuana. After several trials, the supreme court of Bali last year upholds the original verdict: twenty years in prison (with about a year taken off for time served). By the time the documentary aired, I had a prima facie assumption of guilt. And then I watched an hour and a half of a completely, fully-biased, pro-Schapelle film.

Ok, so after weighing both sides, this is what my gut tells me: the brothers, particularly the younger one, who was seventeen at the time, planted the pot in her bag. Upon doing some more research, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one to think so - Corby’s very own ex-defence lawyer, Robin Tampoe, appeared in another documentary, which aired in Australia just this past week - and what did he say?

“Look at the brothers. Just look at her brothers. [...] These are the biggest pile of trash I have ever come across in my life. I have never seen a more ungrateful, nasty piece of work than this woman (Corby’s mother, Rosleigh Rose) and this family.”

It seems to me that, while coming off at points as a tad arrogant, Schapelle wasn’t stupid enough to fill up her own bag with the largest quantity of dope Bali has ever seen. However, her younger half-brother did have access to the bag, and carried it for sometime the very day of the arrest. Also, while she was tested for drugs and was cleared, nobody bothered to test this brother, and lo and behold, a year later, a police raid of his house turns up copious amounts of pot and he is charged (get this!) not only with drug possession in large quantities, but also beating up two known drug dealers.
His defense - uh, I was just beating them up to get them to, you know, tell me who framed my sister.
Hmmm - I suppose this is why he stored their dope in his own house also?…ya right.

Watching her family on television, I was struck at how perfectly, how utterly and fantastically perfectly they fit the “White Trash” mold. In my honest opinion, if there was ever a family in which a set of brothers would let their sister rot in jail for them, thinking “Well, she’s a girl, so she’s getting off easier than we would…only twenty years ain’t so bad”, I tell you, this would be them.

Only two questions remain.:
1. DID she know that her brothers were involved?
AND
2. What other stupid moron would ever attempt to smuggle drugs in southeast Asia (a continent where drug-smuggling can be punishable by death or life imprisonment)? The jails are filled with mules (mostly young women talked into it by a boyfriend) and idiots who think they won’t be “the one” who gets caught, that somehow they are smarter, luckier, etc. It’s pretty sad.

I propose an idea to every parent whose kid is about to go off backpacking in foreign lands - sit them down and make them watch, just once, a marathon of these 2 movies: Midnight Express (especially for guys) and Brokedown Palace (all girls take notice). I’m not kidding. Trust me, it may save their lives.

Have you done a midnight run from Korea and lived to tell the tale?

…If so, I need your comments. I’ve had overwhelming queries following my last year’s entry on the topic. A LOT of foreign teachers in Korea are in this boat. However, I haven’t done the run myself (as close as I ever came to it, I did abstain and I am glad I did, but it was rough), and therefore, as much as I know about it and sympathise with your situation, I still need to give others in this position the right advice.
So please, if you have done it and are back home safe and sound, do add your experience - I welcome and truly appreciate it. If you’ve been lurking on the net bitching about how you escaped Korea, this is an invitation to finally write about it. How did your midnight run go? Anything to watch out for? Any unexpected situations? Any issues at customs re. the multiple-visa issue, or leaving with another 6 months left on your visa?
If you click the link below, it’ll take you to the original blog that stirred the whole thing up. The comments and links to it have been growing ever since. Please don’t forget to add your imput!

How to do a Midnight Run without getting caught

from one dweggi waygook to another lol….

Final Verdict: I got my scholarship to Humber

I’m starting to realize that to be a writer, you can’t write in a vacuum. Even if you have a moral and financial objection to being pitted against other writers in subjective contests that cost an arm and a leg to enter.
To be honest, I haven’t submitted anything to any mag/rag/poetry zine in years. Other than self-publishing my poetry book last year (see it on Amazon), the last time I got published was 6 years ago, when I had 3 pages of poetry appear in Grain Magazine. Why? Partly laziness, partly not enough thick skin to handle the rejection letters, partly lack of funds. When you send out even a few contest entries per year, the cost of entry fees is prohibitive. When you add to this the overwhelming chance of rejection due to editorial subjectivity, you may as well flush the money down the toilet or pay the idiot tax (aka play the lotto).

But when I make up my mind about something, I go for it with a calculated, psychopathic precision and intensity: I live and breathe the carrot in front of me; I sniff it like a hound dog, tracking its scent until it overwhelms my senses, shadowing everything else.

The goal this year: go to the Humber School for Writers’ Summer Workshop. It’s said to be the best program of its kind in the country, and you have the chance to be mentored by some of the most famous and popular Canadian writers of our time. It’s not a cheap course either; at $1000 for six days of instruction, I doubt any talented young people can get to go unless their fees are seriously subsidized.

I imagine that many of the attendants are either retired or wine-sipping middle-aged novice writers who are still plugging away at their daytime professions, likely something safe but still distinguished, say, middle-management perhaps. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Somebody has to pay the writers for their time. But the point is, I’ve had a hard time envisaging how a full-time writer, especially a younger person with student loans and a lower income can afford such exorbitant fees. Unless mommy and daddy pay for it. So I do feel for everyone who also applied to get a scholarship but didn’t get it.

So here’s my update.
The goal: get into Humber by any means necessary.
The means: (twofold)

1) submit a manuscript “portfolio” to Humber directly, and request financial aid/a scholarship (which is evaluated based on a combination of need and talent, and awarded to those who show “considerable promise”)

2) enter the CLGA essay contest, where a full scholarship to Humber would be given to a selected entry

1. The manuscript took me two and a half weeks to pull together (write and edit it to my satisfaction, which is still not what I would call “finished” by any means), and I had to Xpress Post it to Humber to get it just under the deadline
2. The short piece (2500 words) I submitted to the CLGA contest was written in one night. Not bad, for a piece that attracted the editor’s attention (we spoke the day the story was received) and ended up on a shortlist for the scholarship.

The outcome: I got my scholarship!!!!! from the Humber School for Writers directly! So I’ll be going the week of July 12-18.

I will be staying in residence for the week, so if anyone can contribute to the $300 room&board fee, it would be so much appreciated! You can feel good knowing that a future literary figure is forever indebted to you - and if you can spot me at least a portion of the fee, I PROMISE you to send you an autographed, FREE copy of my book when it is eventually published. And every cell, pore and fiber of my being tells me that it will be published.

When I am this certain of something, it always comes to fruition. The opportunity to attend a program I never could have afforded, and the determination to write a brilliant story in a span of a few hours, is proof of this. Remember, anything is possible if you have the burning drive, the unwavering belief in your ability to transcend the universal fear of inadequacy, and the courage to listen to nothing but your own, original voice.

Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Never.

The mornings will be spent with my mentor (I’m still not sure who it will be) and a small group of other students. The afternoons will have lectures from other famous writers, publishers and agents. I can’t wait to meet other writers and students and make some connections with fellow brilliant minds

I’ll try to log in (if I can pick up wireless in residence) and write a few journal entries during the week to let everyone how the course is progressing.

WTF is the problem with Young People F*cking?

As so many of you are aware, a little independent film, which may or may not have any artistic value (I haven’t seen it yet, and even if I did, my subjective opinion has no bearing on this post) has splashed into the news, solely because of its cheeky title: Young People F*cking.

Now I don’t really know anything much about it except having heard some convoluted news reports involving Canada Arts Grants and public outrage, of the sort that goes something like: “Is this what our tax dollars are going to,” yadda, yadda, yadda.

Not that I find Arts Grants judges to be much more than an inbred, pat-each-other’s-backs sort, but ask yourself this: If this title should have been called any of the titles below, would anybody in the media have batted an eye, never mind sensationalise it to such a degree that now it is receiving top billing at film fests (as the filmmakers undoubtedly intended)?
Young People Killing
Young People being raped and murdered by psycho cannibals
Young People dismembering each other
Young People blowing each other’s heads off
Young People being torn to shreds and eaten by wild dogs
Young People being murdered by eccentric millionaires in Slovakian torture chambers
Young People being disemboweled by crazy hillbillies
Young People being hunted down by serial killers at roadside stops
Young People cannibalizing each other

Well, what do you think? Would Bill C-10 approve of any of the above? Most likely, if it’s anything like the garbage being produced by Hollywood and the television industry over the last few years? So — how many of those titles I just listed sum up any of the films you might have seen over the past year or so?

Of course, all of that gory, gross stuff is nothing compared to the rather insipid, vacuous act of Young People Fucking.

Well, at least it wasn’t called Young GAY People Fucking. It wouldn’t even make it past the screening room.

If you’re rich and a doctor, Welcome to Canada! Others need not apply, thank you very much

If you thought Canada’s two-tiered immigration system was unfair as it is, get ready for the ninth circle of ethical hell: today a new controversial bill was passed.
The bill, which was a confidence matter, contains the following immigration reforms:

According to CTV:

- The immigration minister is now able to set limits on the types of immigrants that can have their applications processed in a given year.
- The minister also has the power to reject applications by individuals already determined to be inadmissible by immigration officers.
- Also, any claimant seeking to immigrate to Canada on humanitarian grounds must already be in the country to have their application processed.

Without further ado, here’s a QUICK QUIZ:
In order to settle in Canada you already have to:
a) come up with nearly a thousand bucks a head
b) speak English and/or French to near perfection
c) have a medical or computer skills degree
d) come from only a few countries wealthy enough to afford the above
If you guessed All of the Above, you are right.

With this new bill, you may as well say Screw You to any third-world, impoverished individual who, much like the founders of this nation, has the dream to immigrate here and fulfill their dreams.
You wonder what this government is implicitly saying, by fast-tracking the applications of those who are wealthy and well-to-do enough in their own homelands that they would not need to come here. Let’s face it, they aren’t likely to be starving Africans or dirt-poor Roma families without an education. Why would we let them in at all? Hell, what need do we have for more taxi drivers or menial labour janitors?

I can just hear some MP whisper over an aged bottle of Cabernet Sovignon in some ritzy dining room up in Rockliffe Park: “Canada doesn’t need more riffraff - we wouldn’t want to turn into the States, what with all their problems with those illegal Mexicans…not like they bring in any huge bank accounts or buy a house for cash, do they?”

The icing on this idiotic cake is the decision to no longer accept humanitarian cases unless they are already in the country. So basically, good luck to all of you gays and lesbians who are about to get executed in your own countries for your homosexuality, and sayonara to all of you loser dissidents who happened to draw a satirical cartoon and offend some head huncho who’s just ordered you and your entire family killed. Bon Voyage to all the women who’ve been burned by their husbands and thrown on the streets because they could not produce a baby with a willy.

See y’all when you cough up enough cash to pay smugglers to get you over several borders, risking beatings, rapes, and death through starvation, just to be crated for a month inside a trans-atlantic cargo ship. Provided you don’t get thrown overboard by the crew who are fined several thousands per each stowaway head, you might JUST make it through to Canada. And if you’ve made it this far, rest not that you are free of persecution. A balding bureaucrat will do his damndest to prove your application is a fraud and sign your deportation order.

But hey, if you have the bucks to get yourself a fancy degree back in, let’s just say, Hong Kong, Moscow, Saudi Arabia or New Delhi, you can bypass the quews of wretched souls standing outside embassies in rags and buy your way to a Canadian citizenship. Hell, you’re probably here already on a student visa, paying over twenty grand a year to U of T… having a Canadian citizenship would be like owning a luxury car, a commodity to flash around to your envious friends, a cheaper education for your prep-school kids, but not something you absolutely need to save your life, is it?

How pathetic can a country be, to be led by the nose by bleeding-hearted hypocrite liberals who go so far as ban light bulbs and push for a “carbon” tax to save our endangered environment and all those polar bears from drowning, but make the monstruous decision to turn a blind eye to the thousands of famished, scared, persecuted souls whose only dream for themselves and their children is to escape the terrible conditions of their war-ravaged homelands and savour the values of freedom and opportunity that the Canadian nation used to be founded on.

Now all you need is a hefty bank account and a medical degree.