One of the really great things about Vancouver is it’s proximity to other great cities. Within a couple of hundred miles radius, there are Seattle and Portland. Both cities are different from Vancouver and different from each other. A weekend excursion to each is worth the time spent driving.

Seattle, our closest American neighbour to the south, is no stranger to Vancouver-ites. How often have you asked what someone was doing the next weekend and the response…..”going to Seattle to shop”. On my last “shopping trip” to Seattle, I popped into Ba Bar on 12th between Capitol Hill and the International district. This place is a Vietnamese gem! Owned by proprietor Eric Banh, who also owns with his sister, the Vietnamese “Queen Bee” Monsoon. Ba Bar focuses more on street foods of Vietnam. It is heavy on noodle dishes and I ordered my Sunday morning main stay of Beef Pho. The Pho was perfectly balanced and used locally raised, organic beef. The interior of Ba Bar is enchanting and, on this warm summer day, took me back to trips to HCMC and Hanoi. This place is definitely worth a little break from shopping the next time you are in Seattle.

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Applicants with desirable skills at front of the line

BY ALTHIA RAJ, POSTMEDIA NEWS JULY 20, 2011

Canada needs more immigrants to sustain economic growth, but the Conservative government won’t significantly increase immigration because Canadians don’t want too many newcomers and the federal government can’t afford to integrate them, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said.

Canada faces a labour shortage and needs immigrants to offset the balance of an aging population, Kenney told the Vancouver Board of Trade Tuesday.

“Several studies have concluded that we would have to quadruple immigration levels from 250,000 to more than one million annually in order to maintain the [working] age ratio in the Canadian population. But that’s not going to happen,” he said, according to his speaking notes.

“We do not have the resources or ability to integrate a million new immigrants every year. We can’t teach them English or French. We can’t flood our taxpayer-funded services like health care and public education. We don’t put such high pressure on housing and real estate markets,” Kenney explained.

“We must also be very careful not to jeopardize the generally very positive and welcoming attitude toward immigration and immigrants that Canada enjoys,” he said.

Only 30 per cent of Canadian immigrants are economic migrants, people selected on the basis of their necessary skills or arranged employment offer, Kenney noted. Another 30 per cent are the spouses or dependents of these individuals and 26 per cent are immigrants from family class while 14 per cent are refugees.

“People want to come to Canada because we are a model for the world. We can’t, however, take all who want to come. There is a limit,” Kenney said.

The Citizenship and Immigration Department is consulting with Canadians about amount and the types of people it should accept into the country.

Faced with a backlog of more than a million people in the immigration queue, Kenney says he has issued ministerial instructions to put applicants with experience in key occupations and those with job offers from Canadian employers in front of the line.

“We have enough parents and grandparent applicants for seven years, and this problem is getting worse,” the minister said.

Kenney also announced the federal government will increase the number of provincial nominees – immigrants that provinces themselves select based on their own economic needs – from approximately 36,000 to 40,000.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

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Meet Jose

Say “Hola” to Jose! Jose is our new Mexican intern. Who has come to us from our friend and client, Naoko at GEOS Language Academy.

Jose will be assisting us by sending spanish translated content to our sister site “Imin Consulting Mexico”.
Already Jose has been busy with our new Imin Consulting Mexico Facebook site. Two days ago we had 5 friends and now we have over 40. Way to go Jose!

Even if you don’t speak Spanish, please visit our spanish site and check it out.

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The true spirit of Vancouver emerged early this morning with individual citizens coming downtown with their brooms to help clean up our town.  These are the people who represent Vancouver not the self centered, bad people who attempted to make us look bad.  Yes….the windows of the famous Bay Department store are boarded up but in their ugliness they’ve become a spot where Vancouver-ites can come and express their apologies and regrets for what happened last night.  It is really quite emotional to see people (many obviously immigrants to Vancouver) giving of their time and energy to help erase what the bad people did.

If there is a saving grace to the bad peoples arrogance, they stupidly thought it cool to show off for all the bystanders shooting video on their cell phones.  Let’s hope their arrogance was recorded and will be used to give them the notoriety they really deserve..in court!

Vancouver is still a beautiful city (we heal quickly) and it is full of amazing people.  We want everyone who reads this to understand that last night wasn’t really who we are.  We are the luminous city everyone expects us to be…..even when ugliness tries to invade our spirit.

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