Being a Canadian in the United States for the last nine years has been an interesting adventure, to say the least. Although our nations are neighbours, there can be two more different approaches to the same problem so close to each other.

I can’t claim to be an expert on how Canada processes new immigrants, but I can say that it has to be better than what has happened in the US.

Nine years ago, I started out on the NAFTA Free-Trade visa, the TN-1. This is a non-immigration visa, which is restrictive in the occupations that you can work in, but essentially allows highly-skilled Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans to work in the free trade zone, a term I use very loosely in this context.

In 2001, my status was migrated by my previous employer to an H1-B. This is a much more formal visa and is used for skilled workers from around the world. It is also infamous for its quota system, and is the bane of most (if not all) high-tech firms who insist on recruiting the best talent from around the world to work in the Unuted States.

In some respects, while the off-shoring trend that was so big a concern a few years back (still?) is founded on a number of different economic realities, the driving force was the restrictive nature of the H1-B visa. I encountered a version of this when I changed employers and transferred my H1-B from employer A to employer B. When I did this, I could not leave the US, for any reason, until I had my new H1-B without forfeiting the entire process.

One of the conditions I had for switching employers was that employer B would start the Green Card process for me and my family. This process alone has taken 3.5 years, and from what I can tell, being an employment-based application from a Canadian means that I haven’t had to wait nearly as long as some of the people who apply under other circumstances or from “less friendly” nations.

This process is approaching (we hope) its final phase, as there is talk from the people assisting us that there is a chance that we may be processed through the final stages in late 2008 or early 2009. But, as with all things related to this process, this is still very much speculative.

Whew.

So, as a citizen of the United States reading this, you are likely saying “So what?”, or “How does this affect me?”. Frankly, it doesn’t. But, in a fundamental way, it does.

As a nation built almost completely on immigration, the United States has become increasing isolationist, especially in its immigration policies. Mostly at a political level. Where the conflict appears to be developing is between the political agenda and the economic needs of the US economy. US firms are reliant on importing the best and the brightest from around the world. These same firms are now finding increasing resistance from these highly-skilled employees who are looking at the current state of the US economy and the incredibly restrictive immigration criteria, and choosing to walk away, or choose other more lucrative and less restrictive opportunities.

As a person involved in this process, I can say that up until late last year, when I recieved my EAD, I was in effect an indentured serf, beholden to the company for which I worked, which none of the options or flexibility that my US colleagues had available to them.

I own a house. My children go to school in the town where I own my house. I pay US, not Canadian, taxes. I pay property tax.

However, in the eyes of the United States government, I am considered “three-fifths of a person”. A person bound to this country but not of this country.

The truly American among you may say “Shut up and become a citizen”. I chose not to. I have chosen to retain my personal Canadian Identity, those things that I hold dear that separate Canadian and Americans. I retain my Canadian passport. My youngest son holds dual-citizenship.

I have chosen to make a life in the United States. However, the process that I have been involved in does not allow me to recommend this path to any other Canadians.

To other Canadians, I say: Stay home. Make Canada the best it can be. Make it a truly integrated player in the Global Economy.

To the United States, I say: Wake up. Your destiny has come, and gone. And the way you treat your immigrants is a clear demonstration of that.

Some have said that the United States is a fading empire, most-often compared to the Roman Empire. However, as this piece in the LA Times states, even an ancient empire, in its fading glory, understood how you become great: You become more than the sum of your parts.

Yesterday, I read Anne Zelenka’s post on ROWE at Best Buy. I was heartened to see that this idea was getting mentioned again, and that it was getting front-page interest from Big Media.

On a lark, I forwarded the post to my director and VP. Their responses frightened me. They were written in management-ese, and indicated that timesheets are soon to be added to my daily routine.

Hugh Mcleod — Sheep/Wolf

I can help cure the first, starting with Why Business People Speak Like Idiots, and George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

The second plague, timesheets, I see as more odious. It goes along with the new measurement-focused management culture in our company. Sometimes, I wonder what’s more important to the managers and executives: measurements or results.

As a person who is difficult enough to manage due to my bipolar, and my deep-rooted desire to do things that have meaning, timesheets are a problem for me. I don’t work to timesheets; I work to goals.

Structured environments have always been a serious problem for me. They trigger a deep resentment, some deep rooted need in my soul not to conform. I know that they serve a purpose, and that some people take a great deal of comfort in the process of knowing how they spent their day. My comfort comes from delivering meaningful results, not in worshipping the almighty bureaucracy.

I suppose that as the company I work for grows and has more people to manage, timesheets are inevitable. However, it’s about the time that timesheets appear that I feel the need to find more results-oriented, dynamic organizations.

Timesheets are a sign of corporate doublespeak, freeing people from the need to excel.

Technorati Tags: work, management, timesheets, bipolar, sheep/wolf, gapingvoid, Web+Worker+Daily, Anne+Zelenka

I’m with Kevin Burton on this.

The more restrictions they place on air travel the more our economy will suffer – which means the terrorists win.

Technorati Tags: Terrorism, capitalism, ryanair, economic+terrorism, relative+victory, Political+capital, politics

Oooohhh! A surprise!

DeLay indicted, steps down as majority leader

I think he should personally be responsible for cleaning up Beaumont, TX.

<RANT>

George Bush is lame, and a lame duck.

He is a stooge, only in place to ensure that the right-wing packs the Supreme Court for a generation (Think Pelican Brief).

Now, after playing politics with 9/11, Karl Rove is playing politics with Katrina.

WHY?

What does playing politics mean? How many lives does it save?

FEMA failed. DHS failed. Santorum wants to gut NOAA so it can fail during the next crisis.

Karl Rove committed treason. George Bush committed stupidity. Brown and Chertoff were shown to be useless in the face of a disaster.

SHUT UP.

Unless you are going to New Orleans to DO something, stay home. Stay off the TV. Stay out of the media.

The White House has NOTHING to add to the conversation. It has added nothing to the effort to save these people.

The president of the oil companies and conservative religious fanatics failed the United States. And Karl Rove is trying to make the chimp look good.

Karl, you have failed. You are the most reviled man in America. I think that Karl Rove should be made to clean the Superdome. By hand. Alone.

</RANT>

Chuck Cadman, a man and a politician I highly respected, passed away Saturday. [here]

Chuck was a man who was moved into action by a single, life-changing event: the murder of his son in a random attack by a group of boys in 1992. Propelled onto the national stage, Chuck drove his agenda, and his passion, at everyone and anyone who would listen.

He beat the odds when his party tried to throw him out due to political expediency, winning his last election to the Canadian Parliament standing as an independent. In a previous life, I noted that due to the distribution of seats in the last parliament, Chuck held the deciding vote that could sink or save the Liberal Government.

He used that power on May 19, in the last act of his career, flying to Ottawa, full of chemotherapy poison, to cast his vote with the government, and allow the budget to pass.

I will miss you Chuck.

Technorati: Chuck Cadman, canadian politics, Canada

This picture holds many fond memories for me.

Did you forget that American Politics is a bloodsport?

Don’t enemies of the state get sent to Gitmo?

Technorati: Karl Rove, KarlRove, Gitmo

Followed a link trail to this post. Read the whole article here.

Ok folks. Your time has come. You may be incarcerated without your consent in the future by your government (not my government, your government) because they “suspect” you are mentally ill.

So, what are you going to do about it?

Technorati: US politics, Texas, Psychiatry, Secret Police, President Bush

A response to the FEC chairman’s C|Net interview, which I commented on yesterday.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact: Mark Glaze
202-271-0982

Statement of the Campaign Legal Center

Setting the Record Straight: There is No FEC Threat to the Internet

Washington, D.C. — In a recent interview with CNET, Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith claimed that as a result of new campaign laws and and a recent court decision, online news organizations and bloggers may soon wake up to find their activities regulated by government bureaucrats. That would indeed be troubling, if it were true. Fortunately, Mr. Smith – an avowed opponent of most campaign finance regulation – is simply wrong.

The issue the FEC – and the courts – are grappling with is how to deal with online political ads by candidates and parties, and with paid advertising that is coordinated with those groups. As the Internet becomes a vital new force in politics, we are simply going through a natural transition as we work out how, and when, to apply longstanding campaign finance principles – designed to fight corruption – to political expenditures on the Web. Mr. Smith has advocated an extreme position that politicians, parties and outside groups can pay for Internet advertising with “soft money” – unlimited, unregulated checks from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals. A federal court rightly rejected that position, saying that the new ban on soft money in our elections obviously applies to Internet advertising, too.

These laws are decidedly NOT aimed at online press, commentary or blogs, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was carefully drafted to exclude them. The FEC has now been asked to initiate a rulemaking to work out how to deal with different kinds of Internet political expenditures, and there will be plenty of opportunity for public commentary. The CommissionÂ’s duty then will be to distinguish candidate and party expenditures, and coordinated independent expenditures, on the Internet (which should be subject to campaign finance law like any other expenditures) from activity by bloggers, Internet news services and citizens acting on their own that should remain unregulated, free and robust.

Mr. SmithÂ’s comments are obviously designed to instigate a cyberspace furor to pressure Congress to reverse the court decision requiring that paid political ads on the Internet should be treated like any other paid advertisements. Mr. Smith has a right to try to win converts to his anti-regulatory philosophy, but he has an obligation to present the issues fairly and forthrightly, and his comments to CNET fail both tests.

For more information on why the sky is not falling, see a chapter on the history of the FEC regulation and deregulation of the Internet by Trevor Potter, former FEC Chairman and president of the Campaign Legal Center, in the Brookings InstitutionÂ’s New Campaign Finance Sourcebook at http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/gs/cf/sourcebk01/InternetChap9.pdf

For the relevant court decision, please check out the Campaign Legal CenterÂ’s website at http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/attachment.html/Opinion.pdf?id=1257

For information on the future FEC rulemaking, see the agencyÂ’s website at www.fec.gov.

# # #

1736 19th St NW
Washington DC 20009

T 202.232.6222
C 202.271.0982
F 202.232.3040

I post this verbatim. For more info, contact Mark Glaze

Interesting screenshot from Brazil….

Ummmm…it’s your dog food…

Courtesy of C|Net.

My sources tell me that this is a result of a third-party provider feeding content into this page. However, it is the optics (a phrase popular in BC politics) of the situation that makes this looks not so good for MSN.