Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
- 52
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Canada
In a surprising turn, the ruling Liberal Party of Canada has announced changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers program that would limit the number of admissions; regions with an unemployment rate of 6% or more will not see any application processed for low-wage positions, companies will not be allowed to have more than 10% of their workforce be staffed through the program, and the validity of the program is reduced from 2 years to 1 year. The Liberal Party of Canada has also expressed, though without any commitment yet, that they might revise down their 500 000 immigrants a year target. This is on the backdrop of abysmal (and persistent) poll results for the LPC forecasting a severe loss in the election expected in 2025.
Critics have already pointed out many flaws in the changes, such as how it does not affect the foreign student pipeline, which is a large part of the migration influx. How the 6% unemployment rate restriction applies to the initial request but workers could be moved between regions after being approved.
Is this a big increase in the annual flow of immigrants in the last few years, or is it that the accumulated stock has reached the point where people complain? Also, are the numbers driven by points-based immigrants or is there another route that is driving things?
I am asking because there is a fairly widespread theory of immigration politics in the UK (and to a lesser extent Australia) that it's the sovereignty, not the numbers, and that the success of the Canadian and Australian points systems was proof of concept that you could have mass legal immigration without a public revolt as long as you the system appeared to be under control, including low illegal immigration and low "obviously undesirable" immigration (criminals, Islamists, dole-bludgers etc). Dominic Cummings even put out a Substack saying that Brexit had successfully detoxified the immigration issue because mass immigration was no longer being imposed on us by foreigners. (Reader, the type of mass immigration that most bothered people was mass Muslim immigration, which never was).
This is beside the points system, it's linked to a temporary worker program and the foreign student program. They have existed for a while, the former being mostly made for seasonal agricultural workers, but it was expended to fix a "labor shortage" during Covid. The temporary workers, if they get a permanent job offer, can then get on a pathway to permanent residence. Foreign students get a pathway too, but many of them are enrolled to diploma mills that don't really expect them to study, and they just come here and start working immediately.
I'm not sure how gradual it was, a lot of people mention they noticed it coming back to their regular stores and restaurants after Covid. Anecdotically, my wife and I got married and she immigrated here (from Spain) during Covid, and the process had little guardrails, just (a lot of) paperwork. We never had to have any interview or anything.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Now as to the commentary... I mostly ignore provincial and national politics as the obliviousness of Québecois and Canadians to their problems was a source of major despair for me. it's quite surprising to me to peek my head out, check what the discourse is now, and see just how much things have changed. The MAIN (!) /r/Canada subreddit is filled, filled with nothing but messages about how the immigration is just too much and how the Liberals have ruined and destroyed the country. That maybe it's not even recoverable from before decades. Particularly shocking to people is how the TFW (and International Students) are used to staff fast food service positions, while youth unemployment is spiking. Most proeminently Tim Hortons, which seems to be all over the country staffed with almost nothing but Indians now. Most surprising to me is how it's now firmly within the Overton window to not just cite economic concerns with the influx of immigrants, but sociocultural ones too. Which is of course the polite way to say people believe we're letting in a lot of immigrants who are not a good fit for our way of life. The people saying such have found a neat little trick to avoid sharing the blame for supporting the LPC all these years; see, it's all big business' fault for corrupting the LPC to bring in all these people to use as quasi slaves to depress wages. They were told they were going to have Change with the Liberals. Of course, the Liberals did precisely what they were promising to do. And none of it is to blame on the narrative-following majority who for all those years treated unchecked immigration as an unalloyed good, something to be celebrated on its own merit and obviously the right thing to do regardless of if it even made sense economically (which they believed it did, despite the fact that only the barest simplest economics education is required to forecast the effect on wages and housing affordability).
On related anecdote, I went to get breakfast and coffee yesterday at the nearest Tim Hortons, and as my order was taking a long time I could observe the staff. As usual, almost the entire staff was south asian, predominantly women, with one middle eastern/northern african looking man acting as a shift manager and one single white teenager/young man. There must have been around 10 people running around behind that counter. The orders for the drive-thru service were coming out but people in the restaurants were piling in and only a trickle would get to give their order and no one was recieving their food. Now the workers all seemed to be working and to be very busy but still nothing was coming out for the clients inside the restaurant. The manager and the teenager appeared to be the only ones with agency in the situation, noticing the customers were starting to get impatient running from worker to worker, telling them what they should be doing so that they could actually complete orders. We're told that service in fast food restaurants is bad now because since COVID they got used to running with skeleton crews, people are underpaid and because the conditions are so bad working in food service now that it's unfair to expect people to work hard in them. But the area behind the counter in that Tim Hortons seemed very well staffed to me. And presumably, if the people there are immigrant workers then the working conditions there would have been appealing enough to move from across the world for. As I waited 20 minutes for a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, I really struggled to see how anyone except employers could have been fooled this was in Canadians interest.
I mentioned a while back that when I visited, I was shocked that basically every person I talked to brought up immigration, unprompted. I wouldn't be at all surprised anymore to see that the conversation has developed even further in that direction in the last year.
What kind of hit me yesterday, though, was that these last several years may legitimately change Canada's demographics in a significant way, effectively forever. The shift was so rapid and so significant in numbers in such a short time, partially masked from public scrutiny by COVID, and now the culture may never be the same again. It's hard to describe how I feel about it except to make comparison to an immigration policy version of a coup d'etat. The facts on the ground changed so fast, partially hidden from view, and now the new reality is a fait accompli. It's a weird feeling.
The way you described that mirrors the perception I have had in a number of countries on a number of social / political evolutions. Things that people might not have minded so much in abstract or in small amounts, being suddenly irreversible, with a sense of both lack of control and a lack of prospects of future control. Some conflate that with 'conservative' thinking, but I've seen the same dynamic in different parts of the political spectrum in different parts of the world, whether it's American liberals uncomfortable with the takeover of progressives of once-liberal institutions, European centrists at the post-financial system collapse of the European political center and rise of the right, older Koreans at the generational collapse of pan-Korean identity, and so on. The loss of a feeling of agency / control, of being replaced, and is unsettling, and normal, as is the sort of compensatory movements to try and re-establish a sense of control whether it can be or not.
For Canada specifically, I suspect the demographic transition will lead to a cultural transition with geopolitical ramifications that will be felt in a generation or two away. A significant part of Candian culture and identity was a distinction from, but also kinship with, the US on various historical / cultural grounds, which helped underpin the general stability of the bilateral relationship. If/as Canadian historical identity shifts away from a sense of kindship, it's hardly impossible to see a rise of a Canadian political identity that not only emphasizes the distinction / separation away from the US far more, but also is more willing to entertain geopolitical alignment separation as well, which introduces the possibility of interesting times that would previously have been inconceivable... or the inverse, a destruction of Canadian cultural identity as distinct but separate from the American cultural identity, and thus lead to an even closer alignment / political integration than would have been previously thinkable.
Regardless of what, with cultural change will come the increased potential for divergence from the previously dominant policies. Whether that's bad or good is a matter of viewpoint on the status quo, but as they say the only inevitabilities are death, taxes, and change.
It is the essence of conservatism on a philosophical, meta level, it's just that not all conservatisms align on the object level, considering they have different things they want to conserve. Conservatism can be left wing. In late Cold War Soviet Union, even though the labels were probably different, the conservative old guard was against capitalism. (I tried really, really hard to turn this into a "In Soviet Russia..." joke as it was literally about Soviet Russia and the expectations being reversed, sorry I failed).
It's what conservatives the world keep trying to tell the excited youth: "This might seem like a good idea now, it might feel like it's going well, but one of the most enduring lessons of history is that by the time you find out all the downstream effects of a change it can be too late to stop or reverse it, so take change slowly"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Wow, you weren't kidding. 11/25 of those posts are directly about immigration.
Also, half the sidebar is in French, c'est trop mignon!
By my count of the current ones on the top page:
Directly related to immigration: 13
Indirectly or debatably related to immigration: 4
Unrelated to immigration: 8
I think it's fair to say the topic dominates the public discourse
Poilievre asks Singh to pull support for Liberal government to prompt fall election - Indirectly about immigration
More Ontario college students are protesting over their failing grades - Wasn't sure, checked the link. "While the plea for support was allegedly directed mostly at the local Punjabi community, hundreds of residents have jumped in to comment on the matter, many of them pointing fingers at "diploma mill" colleges and various levels of government for the state of the nation's international student program." Directly about immigration
Canada’s Conservatives are crushing Justin Trudeau - Pierre Poilievre is even winning over the young and the unionised - Indirectly about immigration
Canadian Immigration Policy Isn’t Helping Anyone: BMO - Directly about immigration
Poilievre says he would set immigration targets based on housing, jobs and health-care trends - Directly...
Canadians split on taking in more Gazan refugees, concerned about screening: Poll - Directly...
NDP support takes a dive in new national poll, as Conservatives maintain sizeable lead - Indirectly
Judge blocks failed refugee claimant’s deportation from Canada, scolds minister for misleading evidence - Directly
Premier Danielle Smith reveals plans to transfer some Alberta hospitals away from AHS | Globalnews.ca - Unrelated
Union alleges abuse of foreign workers, calls for program to be suspended - Directly
Toronto workers have longest commutes in Canada: StatsCan - Debatably indirectly (related to housing affordability)
Canada ends policy of allowing visitors to apply for work permits from within the country - Directly
Justin Trudeau’s legacy will be destroying the Canadian consensus on immigration - Directly
Canada Pension Plan investment board to spend estimated $300 million-plus on its lavish new office at CIBC Square - Unrelated
Trudeau's zombie TFW policy is sucking the life out of Canada's youth - Directly
Rules discourage Canadians from generating more solar power than they use - Unrelated
Spike in ‘open permits’ shows more temporary foreign workers are facing abuse, experts say - Directly
Ottawa needs to abolish the temporary foreign worker program - Directly
Kate O'Brien wins Canada's first medal of Paris Paralympics with track cycling bronze - Unrelated
Canada: Over $2.4 Billion in Legal Marijuana Sold in First Half of 2024 - Unrelated
Canada Post at ‘critical juncture’ due to unsustainable finances: board chair - Unrelated
Toronto terror suspect came to Canada in 2018 and became a citizen last spring - Directly
‘People will die’: Doctors call on Alberta government to save heath care system with urgent action | rdnewsnow.com - Unrelated
As tax breaks drive art donations, Canada’s public galleries overflow with more works than they could ever show - Unrelated
GUNTER: China a threat to our democracy and Trudeau is ignoring it - Was unsure, checked, it's in large part about China exerting pressure on the Chinese diaspora in Canada, so directly related to immigration.
More options
Context Copy link
And many of those that aren't directly about immigration will be indirectly about immigration: talks of polls, elections, of the NDP (the left wing party) keeping the LPC in power, posts about housing (in)affordability are all indirectly about immigration.
I think something broke in Canadians mind recently and seeing so, so, so many brown faces around them they've stopped feeling guilty. Not hateful, mind you, but not guilty enough to just roll over and give sanction to unrestricted immigration. And especially since it's now within the Overton window to notice that there is a price to pay for immigration. I'm not sure how it happened, but I remember going to Toronto for work about 6-7 years ago and I noticed once that at a busy intersection in the downtown, financial center, I was literally the only white person I could see around me. It was an eerie feeling, maybe not as strong for me as for locals since being Québecois Toronto has never felt to me like "my people's clay". From what I hear, it got much worse since. I imagine a lot of Canadians, especially those in cities, have now had such experiences, of looking around and suddenly feeling like they've become the minority. Maybe that's what did it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
We’re told the same thing down here, but it doesn’t seem to be true. I blame an increase in drug use/decline in testing driven by the labor shortage.
Here I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with it; it's never rough looking people staffing fast food restaurants. Proper looking immigrant women, student-age immigrants, or the odd elderly people. None of these I can imagine taking drugs.
For the women, I would suggest the theory that many of them (particularly those of traditional societies) weren't brought up with the expectation of doing serious work outside the home, but having moved here with their husbands, taking into account cost of life here, they find themselves forced to work and are unprepared for it, which could explain why they make for inefficient employees. It's just the intangible, hard to notice things that we learn from school and other preparation for work that make the difference.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link