Leading off.

This column comes to you thanks to the (unwittingly and certainly upon reading, unwillingly) contributions of a couple of my coworkers. One contributor is none other than the illustrious Paul Martin, who relayed at a recent speaking engagement I attended that immigration is going to become increasingly more difficult to attract. As Paul explained, due to world demographics, including an aging population and a negative growth rate where the number of deaths exceed the number of births, many first-world countries, particularly France and Italy, are looking to solve negative population growth with immigration.

Meanwhile, another coworker informed me of a news report he'd heard that one per cent of the American population is incarcerated. Furthermore, if you're an African American male between the ages of 18-29, that number is one in 10. Of course, it's easy to lay the blame for this latter statistic on gang activity etc., but digging deeper reveals that much of this is due to socio-economic problems in underprivileged neighbourhoods, where little exists in the way of opportunities. And yet here we are sitting in a land of opportunity, where the biggest current concern going is 'where are we going to continue to find workers?'

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Well, why don't we look at developing rehabilitation and relocation programs for low-risk American offenders? Of course there would need to be a highly regimented screening process to identify qualifying applicants. Yes, applicants. You see, they could perceive this opportunity as a way out. Indeed we wouldn't want the unreformable, as we would not want to simply transplant American inner city problems here. But if you remove part of the problem--that being the environment where crime is seen as the only option--then you may just see a different result. It could be a win-win scenario where our immigration needs could be met, while reversing the alarming incarceration rates for young African American males.

Now, of course I realize that Saskatchewan already has a highly accessible and underutilized workforce at its disposal; that being the First Nations and aboriginal demographics. I'm also aware of the highly disproportionate numbers incarcerated at Canadian institutions. But I believe big-picture, socio-economic steps--recruitment, training and education initiatives--are being taken to begin to address this. Obviously, there is a long way to go. But the ship has begun to make its turn. Let's not forget this is not an overnight process ... and that's my point.

Anything that's as off the wall as I'm suggesting (and yes, I concede, it's more than a little bit out there) would take HUGE time and resources. Being government supervised, it would surely take years--heck, generations--to work something like this out. By then, I believe, the current socio-economic problems in our aboriginal population would be addressed, because of the aforementioned programs that are just now in their infancy. Today's underemployed, by then, will become fully integrated and immersed in our provincial economy and workforce.

Ridiculous, you say? I wonder what the Australians might think of such a plan.

Keith Moen, Editor

editor@sunrisepublish.com