homework help

You know I get a lot of email from people who want to move to Canada. I try to be helpful, although my first-hand knowledge is limited to the route we took.

I don't know anything about student visas, temporary work permits, spousal applications, third-country applications, business ownership or any other immigration category. Even the skilled worker class, which most of our US-to-Canada community fell under, is changing all the time. If the Conservatives' new immigration regulations take effect, it will change even more.

I offer a limited amount of advice and encouragement, but I urge everyone to do his or her own research and not rely on what I say.

So many people, though, don't seem to distinguish between the two. It's amazing to me how many people seem willing to base major life decisions on what "someone said," somewhere on the internet. I may be reading them wrong - I hope I am - but it seems as if they don't understand the difference between asking a question on a bulletin board or forum, asking Yahoo Answers, and looking up the information on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website. They seem to think one source is as good as any other: it's someone on the internet.

I think this may be an extension of the "everything is relative" mentality that scoffs at the idea of expertise and doesn't distinguish between fact and opinion. You know: "In my opinion, the world is flat." "Oh the experts say humans descended from apes. That's just a lot of eastern-liberal-latte-drinking-sushi-eating hooey!" "I think milk is a vegetable!"

I'm more than happy to tell people what I know, but when they ask about things completely outside my field of knowledge, and I tell them so, and they seem to want an answer anyway ("Well, in your opinion, would Canada mind if I did this?"), it's a bit frustrating. I always urge them to go look it up themselves.

The really scary part is when they tell me they are looking it up - they're asking me!