Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has fueled economic growth and plugged gaps in the labor market by ramping up immigration, but now new arrivals are straining public services and contributing to an overheating economy, economists say.
The article and caption image make the error of confusion immigrants and refugees
Immigrants are people we let in for strategic reason. Reasons like, eg, wage suppression, goosing the housing market, artificially inflating GDP and/or avoiding having to make hard decisions like investing in infrastructure and taxing the wealthy.
Refugees are people we take in for humanitarian reasons, like an environmental or political crisis in their homeland, or a legitimate fear of persecution and death. Not only is it a decent thing to do and absolutely table-stakes for being a card-carrying member of the human race, but if we ever go all Handsmaid’s Tale here I hope that other countries would reciprocate.
We shouldn’t be taking in more immigrants until we have the infrastructure to deal with it. We should be taking in refugees without question.
I agree, even if I’m an immigrant myself, Canada cannot accept 500k immigrants a year when we have no housing and in some place like Québec, fragile healthcare and education systems… No question for refugees, it’s the thing to do.
Depends on the immigrants. When you’ve got many industries of Canada in critical crisis that’s impacting citizens (eg healthcare and homebuilding), focusing on immigrants with skills that we need more of (eg. nurses and electricians) just makes sense. The problem with that approach is the foot-dragging from certifying bodies in giving these people a pathway to Canadian papers.
I mean, if we don’t have enough food service workers or software developers… well, then more pay for our existing ones (disclaimer: I’m a coder). That mostly impacts the economics of those industries, not public and private services Canadians desperately need.
But if we don’t have enough doctors? Everybody feels that problem very directly.
edit: Personally I’m heavily pro-immigration overall from a human rights & economics perspective (freedom of movement is a good thing! This includes non-refugees!), but when we’re in an ever-deepening crisis about housing that is seriously harming our citizens and refugees it definitely makes sense to start talking about doing it more strategically.
The problem with that approach is the foot-dragging from certifying bodies in giving these people a pathway to Canadian papers.
No, the problem is 40+ years of not expanding training to keep up with population growth.
Every single year the number of residencies is maxed out and doesn’t get increased. We are short of nurses but people with qualifying grades get rejected from nursing programs because there isn’t enough space. And where’s the call to expand schooling capacity? Fucking crickets from all sides.
You see, training people would cost money, which would mean taxing the wealthy to pay for schooling, and paying the people we train once they enter the workforce.
Immigrants we can get, by comparison, for free. And frankly, we get the win-win of depressing wages for everyone.
It bugs me because I’m largely pro-immigration, or at least I was until I saw what the wealthy use it for.
So immigrants are people we let in because their home countries are doing the same things ours is doing, but… worse? What’s that thing we get all mad about when techbros do it - Embrace, Extend, Extinguish?
Dismal assessment. I’d never thought about it that way and now I’m depressed lol.
Reasons like, eg, wage suppression, goosing the housing market, artificially inflating GDP and/or avoiding having to make hard decisions like investing in infrastructure and taxing the wealthy.
Keeping our population reasonably young should be in there, too. And maybe helping them out of non-lethal but bad situations in the third world, if you’re the type of person that’s concerned about the people in question themselves.
The article and caption image make the error of confusion immigrants and refugees
Immigrants are people we let in for strategic reason. Reasons like, eg, wage suppression, goosing the housing market, artificially inflating GDP and/or avoiding having to make hard decisions like investing in infrastructure and taxing the wealthy.
Refugees are people we take in for humanitarian reasons, like an environmental or political crisis in their homeland, or a legitimate fear of persecution and death. Not only is it a decent thing to do and absolutely table-stakes for being a card-carrying member of the human race, but if we ever go all Handsmaid’s Tale here I hope that other countries would reciprocate.
We shouldn’t be taking in more immigrants until we have the infrastructure to deal with it. We should be taking in refugees without question.
I agree, even if I’m an immigrant myself, Canada cannot accept 500k immigrants a year when we have no housing and in some place like Québec, fragile healthcare and education systems… No question for refugees, it’s the thing to do.
Depends on the immigrants. When you’ve got many industries of Canada in critical crisis that’s impacting citizens (eg healthcare and homebuilding), focusing on immigrants with skills that we need more of (eg. nurses and electricians) just makes sense. The problem with that approach is the foot-dragging from certifying bodies in giving these people a pathway to Canadian papers.
I mean, if we don’t have enough food service workers or software developers… well, then more pay for our existing ones (disclaimer: I’m a coder). That mostly impacts the economics of those industries, not public and private services Canadians desperately need.
But if we don’t have enough doctors? Everybody feels that problem very directly.
edit: Personally I’m heavily pro-immigration overall from a human rights & economics perspective (freedom of movement is a good thing! This includes non-refugees!), but when we’re in an ever-deepening crisis about housing that is seriously harming our citizens and refugees it definitely makes sense to start talking about doing it more strategically.
No, the problem is 40+ years of not expanding training to keep up with population growth.
Every single year the number of residencies is maxed out and doesn’t get increased. We are short of nurses but people with qualifying grades get rejected from nursing programs because there isn’t enough space. And where’s the call to expand schooling capacity? Fucking crickets from all sides.
You see, training people would cost money, which would mean taxing the wealthy to pay for schooling, and paying the people we train once they enter the workforce.
Immigrants we can get, by comparison, for free. And frankly, we get the win-win of depressing wages for everyone.
It bugs me because I’m largely pro-immigration, or at least I was until I saw what the wealthy use it for.
So immigrants are people we let in because their home countries are doing the same things ours is doing, but… worse? What’s that thing we get all mad about when techbros do it - Embrace, Extend, Extinguish?
Dismal assessment. I’d never thought about it that way and now I’m depressed lol.
Agreed on the conclusion tho.
Keeping our population reasonably young should be in there, too. And maybe helping them out of non-lethal but bad situations in the third world, if you’re the type of person that’s concerned about the people in question themselves.