Talk:Economic impact of immigration to Canada/Archive 1

POV review

The article has been tagged for review over concerns regarding point of view. The language appears to primarily focus on the negative aspects of immigration policy, as exemplified by some of the wording. Looking at the lead section, for example, there are phrases such as "a controversial topic", "The alleged economic benefits of immigration", and "Studies have often contradicted the purported economic benefits". It is certainly an important topic, and one that can be explored in depth, so it's not a question of deletion by any means. I just feel that there is a need to overhaul the article to present a more balanced viewpoint. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No, no. Not so simple. If you tag it as POV, you must comply with WP:NPOV dispute#Adding a page. In particular, you are not meeting the requirements for POV:

If you add the above code to an article which seems to be biased to you, but there is no prior discussion of the bias, you need to at least leave a note on the article's talk page describing what you consider unacceptable about the article. The note should address the problem with enough specificity to allow constructive discussion towards a resolution, such as identifying specific passages, elements, or phrasings that are problematic.

You have given no specificity at all.

• In terms of POV, here is some more background:
  • I made an appeal to Canadian Wikipedians to help find more positive economic impacts here (scroll to the right) and did not receive any responses.
  • I had a similar discussion with Ggbroad in Talk:Immigration to Canada, where he was going to look for positive impacts and get back to the article, and never did.
  • The Immigration to Canada article has a summarized version of this article in the economic impact section. That article was independently rated as A-Class by another Wikipedian.
  • I have made a request for a Peer Review (above) which has not resulted in POV points.
  • The article has been well "advertised" (linked to) since June in roughly its current form, without objection.

In short, either get more specific, as you are required to do, or remove the tag. Deet 03:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, the lead was edited by another user, and not myself, although I agree with the edits. Deet 03:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, since you bring it up, I should have used the {{pov-check}} template instead. While I still stand by my explanation above, I acknowledge the error in using the wrong template, since this is the first discussion on this talk page. As for your feelings that this is personal, please be absolutely assured that it is not - the comment I've just left on your talk page will better outline this. Remember, though, I saw it for the first time earlier tonight, and my honest impression (as I read through it) was that the article seemed to skew towards the perspective that immigration was, economically speaking, bad for Canada. I would like to work toward correcting the above concerns, with you and the other editors here, as the topic is certainly an important one.

I should also say, since I didn't mention it before, that this is not a "bad" article by any means. (Check out this one and the related spillover into Canada to see what I've been dealing with the past few days.) I just felt it needed some work to represent different perspectives. Thanks, apologies for not explaining myself as clearly as I should have from the start, and I hope we can work together to improve this article. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I accept that your views on this article are independent. Getting back to the lead section of the article, I support the version last re-written by User:Outriggr for the following reasons:

• WP:LEAD was followed.
• "a controversial topic" -- it's ok to say something is controversial, if it is. Maybe it can be changed to use "much debated" instead of "controversial".
• "The alleged economic benefits of immigration" -- what is not clear is that the government is correct in asserting that there is a net economic benefit, which causes the use of the term alleged. In Wikipedia, it is acceptable to use "alleged" if there is a reference for the allegation. In this case, the allegation is being made by the government and references are provided. I could get my head around removing the word "alleged", providing that the next sentence (contradictory studies) remained as the counter-point.
• "Studies have often contradicted the purported economic benefits" -- this is an accurate summary of the contents of the article. A summary of the article is required by WP:LEAD

I realize that much of the economic info is, as you called, "negative". But, unfortunately, if you meditate on the employment statistics table long enough, and realize that most landed immigrants are not working, you will also realize that it will be very very difficult to find "positive" statistics or studies. I'm not sure what to do about it, but as I told Ggbroad in Talk:Immigration to Canada, I'm not planning to white-wash the topic, and we shouldn't because Wikipedia is not censored. Deet 12:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get a chance to reply earlier today. You're right, of course, in saying we shouldn't try to write a puff piece - that won't help anyone. With regards to the lead, "controversial" is probably OK. I think the double shot of "alleged" and "purported" in the lead is a bit much, though. (It's those two words specifically that bothered me, not the "contradictory studies" sentence itself.) There are other things... describing the Fraser Institute as "libertarian" rather than "conservative, in the context of this article; it would be nice to have more of a historical context, as was noted in the peer review; and it would help to have an opposing voice to contrast with the Fraser Institute. I'll try to add more here when I get a chance. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Oops, wasn't logged in, but I made some changes to the article. Let me know what you think. Deet 02:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

CIC misleading info

Citizenship and Immigration Canada likes to obscure the whole principal worker vs. dependant issue. I'm not sure if I should directly call them on it in the article or not. Here is a highlight quote from their website:

CIC recognizes the benefits of attracting highly skilled workers. Nearly 59 percent of Canada's immigrants are in the skilled worker and business immigrant categories. They help fill shortages in our labour market or invest in our economy and contribute to Canada's economic growth.

If the majority of the 59% are dependants, how will they fill shortage in the labour market? Deet 05:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Economic Class

Is it possible to make #2 "business class", which includes only investors, entrepreneurs and self-employed, and create a #3 for live-in caregivers and provincial nominees?

OK. I tried it again. Let me know if you think that doesn't do the trick. Deet 17:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Good job. :)

Peer Review

GA nomination

Deetdeet - saw your note, good luck with the GA review. I think you're doing a nice job of cleaning up the article. As for the talk page, I wouldn't delete anything, maybe just archive it - that avoids anyone coming along and squalking about comments being removed.

I've taken a shot at the lead, rewriting it to avoid repetition of the words "economic" and "immigration". I've also moved the links out of the title; I believe that is preferred under the Manual of Style. I'm a bit rushed right now, but I'll try to read through the rest of the article in a few hours. Again, good work... --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?

I think this article reads like an interesting term paper, but I don't think it fits the purpose of the encyclopedia very well. On that basis, I'm not going to promote it to GA. Appraiser 18:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Given that Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world, it is certainly an important topic. I guess the question is how to best write the article. It would be great if you could give some more detailed feedback. I find this kind of cryptic feedback to be of little use to assist me in improving the article. A term paper usually has a thesis and conclusions... this article lets the facts speak for themselves. I can't help it if you find the facts disagreeable. Deet 23:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I've decided to ask for a review to get better feedback on how to improve the article. WP:GA/R. Deet 02:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC). UPDATE: I've recieved a response on the GA/R page that I will cut and paste to here for the benefit of others:

:Hmm, that does sound like a much better reason to open an AFD (Which I think would not delete the article in the end) than fail a GA candidate. On a quick glance, the lead could use expansion, if you haven't already look at WP:LEAD for the general idea, in particular I recommend it be about two or three paragraphs, the rationale and impact sections can probably be made into one thought like a "The rationale seems to of led to...." sort of implication in maybe just one or two sentences, and maybe make another paragraph try to tie together the last three major sections. Also, parts of sentences like "It is important to note that, along with the principal applicants," don't seem quite right, important to note according to whom? Homestarmy 02:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've made a couple of changes based on this. I'm somewhat reluctant to expand on the lead for danger of introducing conclusions on the topic. I'm more inclined to just let the facts speak for themselves. If someone else thinks they can do a better job with the lead, have at it. Deet 12:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)