

Defying Trend, Canada Lures More Migrants - gamble
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/world/americas/13immig.html?hp

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ojbyrne
The very last paragraph is killer.

With 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, he sees another
opportunity for Manitoba. “I’m sure many of those people would make perfectly
wonderful citizens of Canada,” he said. “I think we should go and get them.”

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byoung2
I bet those 11 million illegal immigrants are concentrated in larger cities
like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami, and Phoenix. If I came to the US
illegally, I wouldn't move to Montana or Wyoming...fewer job opportunities and
harder to "blend in" with the locals. These are the same people who would
prefer MTV in Canada - Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver, so I doubt they would
go to Manitoba

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ojbyrne
The largest city in Montana has 90 thousand people, the largest in Wyoming has
60 thousand. Winnipeg has a population of 650,000 (actually a larger city than
Miami). And the entire news article is about how Winnipeg is making itself
attractive in competition with Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, by offering
good jobs, good schools, and (I've lived there) a pretty cosmopolitan
atmosphere. As an immigrant, it's not hard to blend in (as is the case in most
large Canadian cities). Though that wouldn't actually be required, as the
article was talking about offering legal immigration to those who are
illegally in the US.

The winter isn't pleasant though.

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byoung2
_Winnipeg has a population of 650,000 (actually a larger city than Miami)._

That's a little misleading...in the US, big cities are usually part of a much
larger metropolitan area. Miami proper has a population of about 400,000, but
the South Florida Metropolitan area has 5.5 million
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami>). Expanding Winnipeg to the Winnipeg
Capital region only increases the population to 735,000
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Capital_Region>).

You're right about Montana and Wyoming though...

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ojbyrne
You're right that I was a _little_ misleading. But Winnipeg is amazingly
multicultural for a city in the middle of the great white north.

