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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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You describe genuine issues. But the question is: Are these really caused by immigration? I mean it, for real. You can have the firmest belief in the perception that these issues are causes by immigration. But reality simply does not care what you believe. What if you seriously entertain the possibility that you could be wrong on this? What if stopping immigration simply doesn't do anything on the above issues?

That is the essence of my point: There is a good chance that the issues in housing and health care that you are experiences are not caused by immigration, and — there are people out there who want to profit from your belief on this matter, that's what my quote by Henry George is about. Trump is such a person.

I mean, to turn the question on it's head - is there any evidence that would persuade you that it is caused (or at least, worsened) by immigration? From my perspective, it doesn't have to be caused solely by it in order for it to be aggrevating the situation.

An important thing to remember is that Canada has had approximately 1/8 of its residents added in the last 5 years (2019 census has 37.5 million population, 2024 has 41.8, but there was also a report that approximately 1 million people had overstayed their visas). During that time, I've seen housing prices go up by around 65%. (The place I'm buying was last listed at 315k in 2019, and is 485 today). The housing market began to get out of control with Harper, who dramatically expanded the TFW program; with Trudeau, who went into overdrive with TFW and international students, it became way worse.

Every province in Canada is currently suffering from this, regardless of their provincial leaders. We've had a dramatic increase in coethnic violence, including marches to support Hamas and similar groups.

We had a fairly big outrage recently over Indian international students raiding food banks for meals - this directly reduces the resources available for our population that uses them (which has gone up to about 20% of the population).

Do you think it's possible that immigration could be making things worse for the average person? I can't find you definitive proof that this is the sole cause of every word, because it isn't - all I can do is show you the ways we can see direct negatives from it.