For sure this bill needs to die before it becomes law. The other even larger concern is the burden these elderly immigrants will soon place on the health care system. Ideally we should have an upper limit of 40 years of age for all immigrants.
Of course with the backlog we have in processing applications, this could mean they would need to be in their twenties when they apply.

Does anyone honestly expect anything more from the Gubbermint anymore? Seriously….. would you expect the Gov’t to have any common sense? I for one do NOT.

It’s been about 50 years since there were any brains or any semblence of accountability in Gov’t.

The Gov’t’s are a complete literal joke anymore and little wonder why we are swirling around around in the crapper as we are heading downwards.

Good luck to ya.

Place an age limit on immigrants coming in unless there is a specific need for an individual relative to a skill shortage here. I think 45 years would be appropriate. And if you want to qualify people for old age benefits with only 3 years of residence have it prorated to reflect that they have only been here for 3 years. If you need 40 years of residence to achieve full Old Age Pension then you would recieve 7.5% of full pension to reflect your 3 year contribution. I believe that would be fair to all.

There are so many crazy things happening within all governments in Canada it is driving me crazy too.

The “Champaign Socialist” - Bob Rae - is at it again. Classic Liberal/Socialist attitude, spending other people’s money because they know better than the owners of the funds. This is so reflective of what has become of the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC). They simply have no credibility on any issue, and have ceased to be any sort of real opposition party. Their steady decline in the polls says it all. And although I am a Conservative, I do believe that a credible opposition is very important to our democracy.

During the twentieth century the immigrants to Canada built this great country - In the 21st. century immigrants will destroy it! I’ve already contacted my MP who suggests this will never become law…..

Let’s encourage the ridiculous Bob Rae to continue to do stupid things. It will weaken and wreck the treasonous Liberal Party and that can only be good.

Members who remember the good old Liberal days must be wondering what has happened to their Party with the arrival of Rae, Kennedy and the idiotic Dosanjh. Anti-military was never part of the Liberal manifesto until Trudeau came along. Welcome to socialist Hell and goodbye Liberals. Their big tent is getting overcrowded with the Left, and the Party is already finding that sensible members have left too.

I totally agree with your comments.

I was told that Bill C248 was simply trying to extend the 3 year limit to all countries, not just the 30 or so countries that already have a 3 year limit. If this is true, then I think Bill C248 at least deserves some debate. If currently there is no such difference, then I think we should leave it at 10 years for everybody.

I notice that you refer to the people promoting this bill as “some of our elected officials”. We have to get away from the mindset where these people are considered “officials” or even “leaders”. We have to get into our minds and theirs that they are our “representatives” and have to find out what we want and not what ideologies they wish to promote. This is a big problem in Canadian politics.

I understood that this bill died on the prorogation of Parliament, and that its chances of being reborn are very remote. So what’s all the fuss? Are people not informed? And when John asks if anyone expects anything more from the Gubbermint, we should remember that this bill was put forth by a Liberal member, supported by a Liberal (former NDP) member, and not the Conservative government. Another reminder of why “progressives” should never be given power over us again. And Ken Griffith, why the hell should we be expected to provide benefits after 3 years, just because someone else who has no brains does it? This is our country and should work for our citizens, not kowtow to someone else’s ideas of what we should be. And for Bob Allen, remember the parable about the nose of the camel in the tent. What starts out as “fair” and “reasonable” is just a foot in the door, and the progressives will never quit trying to get more and more of that “camel” in the tent. They’ve already done it with Official Languages.
And yes, we should have an upper age limit for immigrants, and bring in only those that can contribute to our society and its costs. Otherwise we bring in people that only create an additional drain on all services. Life isn’t fair, and Canada shouldn’t be a safe house for everyone in the world.
Our governments have a responsibility to their own citizens, not those of other countries.

Hang on to your hat (money that is), Bob Rae will likely be the next leader of the Liberal party. If he became PM he will do for Canada what he did for Ontario in the early 90’s. Bob Rae is a fiscal moron, but there are those who still support him, what does that say about those supporters.

MY HUSBAND AND I WORKED ALL OUR LIVES TO GET A PALTRY PENSION, SO I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE COMING FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY SHOULD GET SAME AS US WITHOUT CONTRIBUTING ANYTHING TO OUR WORKFORCE. WE THINK THE PEOPLE WHO SAY THEY REPRESENT US SHOULD GET A GOOD SHAKING-UP.

I got e-mails from both Peter Julian, NDP MP in Burnaby ,BC and Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal MP in Vancouver, BC that they won’t be voting for this Bill. My question is, since it is a private member’s bill from a Liberal MP, doesn’t it have to get pass the Liberal Party first?? What a waste of Parliament’s time and energy.

We have witnessed some amazing stupidity from the Liberals over the years but the team of leftist socialest, Bob & Ruby are right up there with the worst of them.

I am a Vet who suffered a horrific wound in Normandy and what really ticks me off even worse than Ruby and Bob is seeing the Liberals attack our military. It was a sad day for Canada when that idiot Dosanjh managed to get himself elected by a very few votes.

I think we need a school for Politicians.I am going to put forward what I think the North American reality should be so all those lost people in Politics can find some direction.

I would like to think that love in the spiritual world is parallel to light in the physical world.
As biological creatures and spiritual entities we are a mix of the two.Instinct plays a large part on our biological side. This same side consists of elements of survival and fear. However on our spiritual or mental side we are to seek love and strive on faith. Faith is a trust in some-one or something. I would think that sailors in submarines need a great amount of faith in their instrumentation as I.F.R. pilots do too. We probably all have had a battle in our minds between faith and fear. Jesus Christ said that God was love. Sometimes I like to think of love as our spiritual body temperature. Too cold is not good. Too hot is not good and can cause serious illness.The question is how do we understand love in relation to ourselves and other people. Maybe as they say it is a matter of thin and thick skin.

One thing I have always remembered was that love is above stimuli and that all actions are mentally first before they become physically second.
Maybe in order to measure the normal temperature of love we would need to go to the parallel,light. Here we could set up a photon graph. In our modern day we have photographs of our love ones,scenery and various other pictures of interest. We could categorize our photographs into what we deem as cold,normal,beautiful, or hot.
Our eyes absorb light and are instant photographs that are relayed light to our brain that keeps us aware to our surroundings.Here again we have cold normal,beautiful and hot photographs. These so called hot photographs could be categorized as in coming light capable of producing a biological stimulus.The cold photograph could be deplicted as lifeless or absent of signs of love. However I would not put winter scenery into this category,but rather inthe category of beautiful.
A movie is something like twenty eight still frames moving per minute and would come under the same photographic category as photographs. The next question is; do photons clash with love? My temporary answer would be that hot photons would create stimuli which in turn could create a chaotic condition between photons and love. To sort of understand all this a person would need to accept the fact that light is everything in the physical world.

Truth is the absence of deceit

Even the thieves demand honesty

Always take care of the present state of time so that you do not go into the
future regretting the past

If you do not know what gold looks like do not throw away the rock(values and
relationships)

Every action creates a reaction, however this does not imply that the reaction
is correct

All human beings want to live until there is a diminishing of love

Happiness is a state of mind and is usually associated with personal progress
and gain

Sadness is a state of mind and is usually associated with loss and
deterioration

Any group that takes on a name or a label creates a quantified force, every
force has a competing or opposing force depending on their purpose

A sane person can not take an action without first in their mind find
justification for the action

People(individuals) are emotionally affected by love or lack of love(respect
,compassion, consideration etc.) by sound( tone and content) by
communication(thumbs up, thumbs down, index finger up, body language, the
written word, etc)by stimuli(various forms of stimulation that create excitement
and actions)

People(society) are in a constant state of competition that is simultaneously
shifting in a number of categories such as behavior, social status, commerce,
politics, religion, sports, and various other activities.

The power of evil is probably embedded in the excesses of stimuli such as
sex,drugs,alcohol, dishonesty etc. that contaminates pure love which in turn
creates a spectrum of hate(hate being defined as no use for)

I just thought that maybe some day you could use the knowledge.

This is just a great time to introduce a bill such as this. Our priority is to reduce the deficit not increase it. Another example of why politicians such as Bob Rae need to be responsible for the good of the country and not their own personal agendas. Remenber how well he handled financial responsibility when he was premier of Ontario. These people need to join Jack Layton and the NDP where their true social agendas belong.

As a follow up to my comment above and your suggestion to write my representative, I did so, He is Mario Lafromboise, and got the following message back: “Not read: Bill C428. Reduce the 10 year waiting period to 3 years for new immigrants to qualify for old age benefits. Your message was deleted without being read on April 13, 2010 1:15:28 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada).”

This is “representative” of what our “representatives” are doing to “represent” us!!!

This is just ridiculous
Next we will be letting people off the boat from other countries have all
the benefits available at once.
What is wrong with our politicians - do they have their heads in the sand?
There have been too many changes as it is i.e. prayers, mounted police
turbans, etc., etc., etc.
Soon there will be nothing left of our heritage

Unbelieveable. Even the ten year qualification is questionably short. I agree with the comments about the liberal-socialist agenda. This is a clear attempt at social engineering by those who believe they know what’s good for us. Thank goodness for the NCC.

How about this….NO MORE IMMIGRATION until we get the mess it is in now cleaned up…and then a limit on age and an actual profession they can work in…what total BS as usual…we need more people like I need to pay more taxes….NOT needed, NOT required and NOT wanted….PERIOD

As Joe Gunn suggests, this is not likely to happen. But we have to keep informing the public about absurd policies which affect our future. This attempt by the liberals to have new arrivals pay little into the system but reaping benefits after only 3 years is appalling.

Canadians have worked for many more years than the new folks and deserve much more in return. If the law did go through, our traditional Old Timers will have less in their pockets since their returns will be redistributed amongst the newly found 3 year immigrants.

No wonder everyone is so cynical.

Please someone have some common sense,goodness knows nothing of any value is coming from our former Premier of Ontario in which he left the provence in turmoil and debt. No,No, No, to this members bill,it citizens must committ and contribute to building the country before getting.

Once again Bob Rae has come forward to show everyone just how stupid his thoughts, in some areas, are. We don’t need to bribe people to come to Canada. You come here from all over the world, probably because Canada is a better country, to live in and make your way in, than the country you left behind. People born in Canada have worked hard all their lives to secure a pension. The ten year requirement is very fair and reasonable. Let Bill C248 die! DIE! Bob Rae, you should really think things through just a little bit more before you move ahead with dumb thoughts like these.

This bill must be withdrawn or else overwhelmingly voted down. Bob Rae needs to be shown conclusively that this is NOT Marxist Canada. Foreigners do not qualify for Canadian pensions unless they earned them like the rest of us.

Should I apply for an imigrant status to obtain OAS ? I was naive enough to believe that ” Every Canadian will receive Old
Age security cheques…. ” NOT so …. liars….. thiefs…. I paid both as an employer and as an employee , without a chance to opt-out of this farce , to be told 14 years ago that I will never receive a single penny…… from this farce…. I am one of the minority ( 3% of the population ) that got their rights revoked …..

Case in point today, a lady from Afgan, three children, her husband is married to another women over there and OUR taxes are being used to refund her a very nice chq from the tax office.

Mark me down as one of many who are fed up with the system.

What would you expect? Bob Rae is an arrogant, opportunistic, self serving ass

It never ceases to amaze me what Unkl Bobbie will do to capture the Immigrant vote.He’d sacrifice the resident tax payers and their rights,never mind their Pensions!

Hard to believe that people like this can pretend to represent Canada.They would like to destroy it.Proposing a bill such as this is a INSULT to all Hard Working people and a special INSULT to Veterans of our Armed Forces,What ever happened to the politicians we used to respect??????

Unfortunately our bleeding heart left wing press, TV and radio outlets never bring this type of travesty out although they are quick to chastise sound decisions to help the economy during these rough times.

You are bang on with this one. I have been moved to contact my MP re Bill C248. It is time for thinking Canadians to no longer be the silent majority.

I am one of those Canadians that paid into the old age pension for 15 years but now the govt.claws it back in part because I saved too much money by being careful all my life and saved for my old age. This equity?

I am so damned angry at Bob Rae’s proposed bill that I’m almost frothing at the mouth. All my life I have worked diligently and paid my taxes, saving and investing my hard earned money. Now, because I seemingly earn too much, I get absolutely nothing for an Old Age Pension. Meanwhile some guy can come to Canada from far away, pay no taxes for three years, then collect the OAS from a General Revenue that I helped to create since I was almost a kid.
Aside from being a socialist dipper, Rae is endeavoring to get the immigrant vote for the Liberals since few Canadians with any brains support his corrupt party.

Lets face it , we could owe 5 trillion and these guys( Rae ) & Co would still dream up ways of staying in power….even if it ruined us ! May the good lord help us when the best we can is McGuinty , Rae , Charest and Izzy .Can we not find at least one fiscally minded Liberal politician ? Makes one want to cry !!

Most Canadians are not aware that if, you are born in Canada as a Canadian Citizen, you have to remain in Canada for at least 20 years after your 18th birthday to qualify for any old age Benefit. That is a total of 38 years: not the current 10 years for immigrants or the proposed three years under the new Bill.
Even if you are constantly in Canada for 20 years after your 18th birthday you only qualify for 20/40th of the old age Benefit. You have to remain in Canada for a full 40 years after your 18th birthday to quality for the full benefit (58 years).
Immigrants qualify for the entire benefit after 10 years.

I served in the Canadian Military and was posted out of the Country. Since the posting was an “Accompanied Position,” it was mandatory that my wife go along. She was expoected to perform liason and entertainment tasks. If I had been signle or my wife could not go, I was not elligible for the position.

When she turned 65, we were very surprised to learn that she could not qalify for any old age benefits since she had left the country one year prior to turning 38. In addition, I only qualify for 20/40ths of the old age benefits despite being born in Canada and serving in the Canadian Military for over 26 years.

Callous vote buying with special interest election candy to exploit the ethnic plantation. THe Liberals have had a policy of creating their voter base through immigration and pandering to the special interest immigrant groups. They know that only a very small portion of immigration fills labor market short falls. The vast majority of immigration is sponsorship where established immigrants can bring parents and grand parents here under the promise to support them financially. What better way to shove this sponsorship burden for elderly immigrants off on the public teat than reduce the 10 year waiting period for new immigrants to qualify for old age benefits
to 3 years.

Dissolute, cynical vote buying in the immigrant community. Typical Liberal sleaze.

I don’t care if it’s published or not. Have sent an E-mail a few minutes ago to my Federal Governmant Member asking what is he doing about this injustice. Bob Maughan.

NCC, Please keep up your good work. To expose vote buying politicians and insanity going on in Government.
This is another sad example where your input to create awareness to stop a bill from becoming law is badly needed.
I agree with previous comments:
“Dissolute!, cynical vote buying in the immigrant community. Typical Liberal sleaze”

Now you know why Ontario is in such bad shape. Bob is an NDP turned Liberal
and was running for the leadership. As bad as Ziggy is Bob is worse.
Heaven help us if the Liberals ever form the government and he gets a
Cabinet seat.

Contrary to what others may believe, Bob Rae is an absolutely brilliant politician.

OK, now that I have your attention, that is a bit of an over exaggeration. But he is devious, because he knows that he can support this bill and earn votes from immigrants, but that the rest of us will not likely ever hear about his support and vote against him. Now that his severe lack of regard for hard working, Canadian tax payers is being made public and his actions confirm to us that he is working for himself and not Canadians in general, perhaps Ontarians might wake up and elect a more conscientious representative in future.

The real question is, how many votes might Bob Rae and Ruby Dhalla buy from the “immigrant vote” for making and supporting such an absolutely ridiculous bill?

I don’t believe that this bill will pass - call me naive! I just don’t believe that everyone in parliament wants to lose their seat in the next election. Having read a number of the comments here, it annoys me no end to discover that our military end up with the short end of this stick if they serve their country overseas for any period of time. If you are a born and bred Canadian, you need 40 consecutive years after the age of 18 to qualify for full old age benefits (versus the 10 years for immigrants). How in the world can career armed forces personnel qualify, if they serve their countyr by being posted overseas for much of their adult lives? What am I missing here?? We can’t support our troops but we can give full old age benefits to newcomers after 10 years?

Yet another reason to be angry about this stuff.. The legal system in Canada cared nothing for the rights of women in the 60’s & 70’s to receive child support payments from dead-beat dads. Even if there was a court case that required the father’s to pay up it was never enforced, so the mother’s did/paid for everything. Many of these women are now suffering in their older age because they don’t have enough money to live on, while the dads have never been required to pay up. Why doesn’t the gov’t do something to help these women? Bill C428 is just another example of the Canadian govt not showing support, nor respect, to Canadians who’ve contributed their share of taxes through many years so that, in their old age, they can relax in peace. It’s not going to happen for these women like it will for those older folks whose families are bringing them into our country to garner the dollars these Canadian women have provided through sweat & blood. It’s disgusting!!

Bob Ray as a NDP Premier ruined Ontairo, then now as a Liberals he would like to ruin the country.

I agree totally. There is plenty of talk about how Canadians retirement funds have been depleted by past governments and how the future workforce will be unable to fund the plans in the future. All we need is more people drawing from the fund who have never contributed to it. The entire immigration system needs to be overhauled while we are at it but will leave those comments for another day.

This is insane , and this bill must die