Question content, Scope, Purpose

Carmen I agree that narrowing our questions down to 1. government funding on immigration settlements 2. Income of immigrants would make it easier for us to formulate our questions.

Possible Research Question(s): (?)

1. What effect does government funding of immigration services have on immigrants' career success?

- If so : We would need to define "success", which could possibly be measured by immigrants' annual income.

- Carmen, I do agree that many immigrants may not even be aware of the programs that are available to assist them. That is precisely the problem. Would more funding by the government equate to increased effectiveness of these existing programs? For instance, could we actually try to promote these programs by having more translators that speak different languages spread the word? The programs are established because they are intended to help immigrants find suitable careers. If services are not promoted, immigrants do not know that they exist. If immigrants do not seek these services while people are still hired to perform them, then perhaps government money should be allocated elsewhere so that it is not wasted. In this sense, funding does influence effectiveness of these programs. I think "How many government funded immigrant settlement programs do you know of? a. More than 10 b. 6 - 9 c. Less than 5 d. None" is a great start to our question. Before asking this though, maybe we should first ask "are you a(n) (a)immigrant or(b)Canadian born citizen" then something like "if answered (a) go to question 2, if (b) go to question 3. This is because citizens may be more aware of these programs, while immigrants may not. Maybe if we want to be even more specific, we could as if they are second or first generation Canadians. What do you think?

- JomChu - I'm interested in what you mentioned with regards to "increased rates of poverty among immigrant families as identified by the census of the last 2 decades". Do you know if they came to Canada rich, or at least with a large sum of money? Or if they are admitted "poor"? Like you, I am interested in whether or not immigrants are doing less well economically because they are excluded, or if they are just poor to begin with (which would then just have to do with the issue of admission.