ok this explains why 90% of college age kids in my neighborhood are in canada now.
Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
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Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#12Easy fix. Simply increase immigration to a million+ people per year thereby driving down domestic wages and now voila we have cheap domestic labour.
We already have cheap domestic labour, we fly in Mexicans and South Americans and squeeze them in share houses to do cheap and dangerous migrant labour work on a seasonal basis.
But you're suppose to keep that unsightliness away from cities / urban dwellers. People start to question when one bedrooms become unaffordable and basements are housing 8 students / food couriers whose bike just exploded in the subway and now no one can bring ebikes on transit. Cheap labour is suppose to make us feel richer and be invisible.
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obligatory Neal Stephenson: “When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zea…
Since AI can do three of those better now, I see a lot of pizza in our future.
I would vote for this future.
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#14[flagged]
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#15I’m an immigrant. I’ll be the first in line to agree that all the demands (and the specifics of those demands: personal space, hygiene, clothing, noise etc) for assimilation by western societies that I’ve ever heard re: immigrants, are reasonable - assuming such luxuries can be afforded (nobody crams themselves 8 to a room by choice).
But, people aren’t robots whose movements are controlled by an on-off switch. The government introduced the means for people to arrive and work, and so the people arrived. They are continuing to arrive because the policies have not been updated yet. How is it the immigrants’ fault? Why the hate and the attacks on their dignity & humanity?
The nonstop online vitriol hurts me deeply to read - nowhere is “safe” - Reddit, HN, Instagram… the hate spewers seemingly spend all their time spewing on these platforms to manipulate opinions and tap into the fundamental atavistic psychological flaws of the human mind.
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#16[flagged]
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#17The root causes of all this is the fact that way back in like the 1990s in order to balance the budget the Fed Liberals under Chretien did big time austerity and cut transfers to the Provinces, and then the Provinces reacted by doing big time austerity and cutting budgets to post secondary education. Then post secondary education reacted to that budget hole by increasing the amount of foreign students they brought in to cover the shortfall.
This continued on and on and at some point folks really started to realize these high foreign student tuitions were an exploitable, profitable business, and we started seeing more and more private for-profit diploma mill style schools bringing in foreign students. The students paid a high price for useless hotel management degrees but in exchange got a boosted chance at permanent residency.
At some point the current government realized that they had a labour shortage and that all these foreign students milling about getting useless degrees were a source of cheap labour. Accordingly they relaxed rules and allowed them to work more hours.
Really poor and gross decision making all around dating back decades.
In 2014 the current PM, when he was in third place in the polls, wrote a scathing op-ed against the related Temporary Foreign Worker program but after being elected did nothing but make everything worse.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/justin-trudeau-...
Given that the Conservatives were the ones that kick started the abuses of the TFW program. It's hard to believe either Liberals or Conservatives are credible on this file.
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#18Easy fix. Simply increase immigration to a million+ people per year thereby driving down domestic wages and now voila we have cheap domestic labour.
Except we are also complaining about a housing crisis. Homeless shelters that were already full of the homeless, are now joined with refugees, and apparently international students that also can't find a home to share with 24 other people.
https://www.blogto.com/city/2024/01/25-international-student...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mayor-refugees-shelte...
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#19> He will announce further changes soon to restrict students’ off-campus work hours He just extended the “temporary” increase to the weekly hours limit 2 months ago… And expanded it to a larger group of study visa students. https://www.cicnews.com/2023/12/canada-extending-internation... He doesn’t even need to start by changing anything, he could have started by doing nothing and let his own department’s exemptions e…
The current government is filled with a very special kind of person
Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says
#20I’m an immigrant. I’ll be the first in line to agree that all the demands (and the specifics of those demands: personal space, hygiene, clothing, noise etc) for assimilation by western societies that I’ve ever heard re: immigrants, are reasonable - assuming such luxuries can be afforded (nobody crams themselves 8 to a room by choice ). But, people aren’t robots whose movements are controlled by an on-off switch. The…
i recently saw a refreshing perspective on canadian immigration that addressed these issues at their origins: failures in housing policy and complacent governance. it's the perspective i wish more canadians held so we could steer the government towards policy that's better for all. maybe nativist nimbyism isn't inevitable.