A Canadian proposal to direct immigrants to less populated areas has drawn fire from human rights and immigrants groups who are calling it a threat to freedom of movement. The idea was presented by Canada's Immigration Minister Dennis Coderre, who wants immigrants to sign a social contract accepting to live in an assigned location for between three and five years before being allowed to move to urban centers. Under the scheme, new arrivals will be sent to the Atlantic or Prairie provinces, or the rural areas of Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia. Half of Canada's 250,000 annual immigrants head for Toronto, 15 percent choose Vancouver and 11 percent settle in Montreal. The Coderre plan is meant to help stop the flow of young people from rural regions by using skilled immigrants to help improve "quality of life" in areas such as education and medical care. But the plan -- not yet adopted by the Canadian government -- has its critics. For Glora Fung, chairman of the Chinese Canadian National Council's immigration committee, it recalled Communist China's similar but bigger attempts rural relocation. "I wonder," she says, "if Minister Coderre is suggesting Canada should go in the same direction."
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=27062002-112820-5715r
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