I'm a lot less exorcised by Obama's executive order than I am the absolute ineptitude of both the White House and the Congress to negotiate and pass some comprehensive immigration legislation. As I understand it, the provisions of the executive order will go away in two years, but "we the people" will still be left with a rudderless immigration policy because of the political bickering and stalemating of our political parties in Congress.

I happened to hear Canada's Prime Minister interviewed and a part of what he discussed was their immigration policy, particularly as regards trying to attract the kinds of people who are properly educated and have the skills to contribute and grow the Canadian economy. The interview was a part of Fareed Zakaria's GPS program entitled "Roadmap for Making Immigration Work" and how immigration laws affect the economies of various countries. If the program is ever re-run, I'd recommend it highly.

Canada was held out as having the best immigration laws in the world, having a very positive effect on their economy and their ability to attract investment and create new jobs. Canada apparently reviews their needs for workers quite frequently, yearly I believe, and adjusts their immigration policy to specifically target immigrants who have the skills and education needed by Canadian employers. The program used as examples how effective loosened immigration policies have been in attracting doctors and medical personnel to serve both their people as well as their healthcare industry. Another aggravating example was discussed as they were showing pictures of major new plants in British Columbia which had been built in the last couple of years by Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Intel and AMD.

These plants are staffed in large part by immigrant engineers and scientists recruited to work in Canada, who were easily granted either visas or full citizenship based specifically on their level of advanced education and/or technical skills. They also interviewed employers and employees in the medical device and other manufacturing businesses who were enthusiastic about the opportunities provided to them to live and work in Canada. All were well-educated immigrants.

So while our politicians are doing stuff like issuing executive orders to permit mostly young Mexicans who are kids of illegal immigrants to stay here for another two years, and then arguing back and forth about the Constitutionality of the order, the Canadians are quietly and effectively managing their immigration policies to attract the kinds of skilled and educated workers they need to attract investment, grow their economy and create jobs.

It's no big secret. Many of the top technical companies have testified before various Congressional hearings that they simply cannot get the quality of employees needed to staff their factories here in the U.S. They have been appealing to Congress to legislate better education policies as well as immigration policies, which would result in an increased pool of talented, well-educated workers.

Of course, the Republicans and the Democrats can't agree on anything that they think should pass into law on either of those subjects. In the meantime, they're arguing about inconsequential issues that get their base political constituencies arguing with one another, always working hard to gain enough votes for re-election. In the meantime, few jobs are being created and the big employers are building plants outside the U.S.

Sick!