Is Canada scamming immigrants by importing professionals while not respecting their experience or providing a job?

I have a lot of knee jerk reactions to this question, including the fact that I know a few Canadian born PhD graduates who are currently occupying their mother’s couch and the fact that those in my extended family who are extremely successful actually did it without the benefit of a university education.

But let me go back a few generations in my family to illustrate the Canadian experience.

On my mother’s side, the first immigrant to Canada was a bit of a dreamer who was a skilled tailor specializing in top hats for English gentlemen. But he knew there wasn’t much future in it as he didn’t make enough to ever own his own house or pay for an advanced education for his children. As he knew top hats were made from beaver pelts, he assumed he could make a killing by immigrating to Canada and making them there. Seeing ads encouraging immigration to Canada, he signed up. Upon arrival, he realized – whoops- no one wore top hats in Canada except for a very few elite who liked to brag about their British made hats. So, then he saw an ad from the Canadian government offering free land in the north! Without thinking much about why anyone would give away free land, he signed up and moved his family about 400 miles north, took up his land and tried to become a farmer in the middle of the bush. As he knew nothing about hunting, farming or winter, his poor 4′11″ wife from the centre of London had to resort to trading with the local tribes for food while still pumping out 10 children. While trying farming he had learned a number of carpentry skills so decided to move south to a city and get a job as a carpenter.

He did ok for a while building houses and, while he didn’t yet own a house, his family lived in a home with a piano and even a fancy new telephone and his children were getting well educated. Then the 30’s depression hit. Suddenly, he was out of a job along with thousands of others. His son convinced him to use his old tailoring skills and start an upholstery business as people could no longer buy new furniture. He did well. Bought a home, lost a couple of sons to foreign wars but the remainder of his children all got a good education, good jobs, owned their own homes and mostly became firmly upper middle class.

My point being that, while he made some ill informed decisions and had to reinvent himself several times, not once did he ever blame the Canadian government or anyone else for any tribulations he had to endure on his road to provide a better life for himself and his family.