Income inequality and opportunities among immigrants in BC

I think those are great survey questions Cyrille, they cover the broad range of socio-economic aspects of our 'immigrant' construct. If we decide to take this particular direction; surveying respondents based on their perceived accessibility to government programs contingent on their sociological profile and financial bracket, I suggest we take extra precaution in delineating the boundaries that differentiate the relevant traits and components of our immigrants. More specifically, if we include in our survey questions querying the respondent on his/her language background and exposure to various Canadian social paradigms in their home country prior to immigrating, we might get a clearer understanding of what type of 'immigrant' we are dealing with.

For example, recall Lucy's hypothetical where a native English speaker who emigrated from Britain, having lived in BC for 10 months, versus a Vietnamese immigrant whose English isn't nearly as good, compares in their relative comprehension and utilization of government programs. All that being said, I'd personally add or incorporate somehow the following survey questions:

Prior to immigrating to BC, to what extent were you at all familiar or trained in the English or French language?

(a)Not at all (b)basic or elementary level (c)moderate or intermediate level (d)fluency

Prior to immigrating to BC, to what extent were you exposed (through electronic or print media, etc) to what you would now consider 'Canadian cultural norms'?

(a)Not at all (b)a minor extent (c)enough to enable significant familiarity (d)complete exposure; seamlessly adjusted to Canadian lifestyle

These are only possibilities, and I think your survey is quite alright the way it already is, but the above questions might lead us a little further to a clearer understanding of the immigrants; allowing us to ascertain the causal relationship with less ambiguity.