For some new Canadians like myself, there’s an additional reason to live in constant apology, fear and loathing:

Guilt by association.

And bracing for the recurring media hate-fests, taunts and torments after events we have no control over.

No matter how non-religious, apolitical, non-ethnic, liberal, secular, agnostic, sceptical, atheistic we are, we cannot disassociate ourselves from the associative burden/baggage of our roots.

The Federal Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act is yet another example of genius ideas that could only originate from government committees and inter-departmental projects relying on expensive studies, funded ‘experts’ and fact finding missions to exotic locations – thus creating more work for each other and jobs for the boys.

Or may be it’s a psychological comedy play whose name cannot be uttered with a straight face: Cracking Up with Crooked Consultants – Act I… harharhar. Please!

According to the sales pitch which I think won the hearts and minds of folks at the Immigration Ministry, the Act “will allow

That big bang you just heard wasn’t the garbage truck slamming your trashcans. It’s the marketing effort by a particular (recently-battered) industry targeting a particular community. It’s the realization of something big. And that’s where the money is.

You see, there’s an entire cottage industry — no, strike that (silly me.) There’s a whole lucrative multi-million dollar industry that’s been milking immigrants. It’s what I’ve started calling The Immigrant Market Industry (a full post on that later.) Most of this ‘market industry’ is busy churning out magazines, seminars, sessions, counselling, researches, academic studies, periodicals and acres and acres forests worth of paper. The more you produce, reproduce and recycle, the more government funding you get, apparently.

But that’s not what this post is about.