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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

#21

Post by Analemma_ »

dade_ wrote: post #18
canadiantim wrote: post #3

Easy 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...

It's simple: I want cheap houses, food, goods and child care built, picked, manufactured and done with expensive domestic labor, and I want home prices to be low but home values to increase without bound forever. I don't understand what's so hard about this. /s

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#22

Post by asdfasdfasdf222 »

The real issue is Canada's demographic decline. Immigrants were brought in to fill that gap and pay for pensions and other goodies that expect a growing base of tax paying productive workers. We're not getting rid of these people, they will become citizens if they choose to. Personally, I doubt that any announcement by the government will be anything but a temporary hold, to be returned to high levels post-Liberal election victory. All of these people have already been educated (to varying levels of quality) so on paper, they fill out the population pyramid.

The problem is the policy driving it is bad. Rather than high-skilled workers, we're letting in low-to-mid-skilled young people. On paper, this plugs the demographic hole. But a lack of planning on infrastructure (housing, etc.) means that prices of those assets has gone through the roof. This has created poor economic incentives to invest in labour intensive industries and housing rather than the innovative, productive part of the economy. What happens when you want to open a software company but can't find workers? Maybe you open a house painting company instead, if the money on offer is high enough.

We shouldn't blame the immigrant -- they are trying to improve their lives. But you definitely can blame poor policy.

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#23

Post by lainga »

kzz102 wrote: post #6

This looks like the result of an abuse of the foreign students visa as work visas, partly due to leftover pandemic era policy. In a typical government response, instead of actually fixing the loophole, they use the blunt weapon of cutting visa quotas, and then make generalized comments against foreign labor.

Possibly someone has just got ahold of internal poll figs and are making moves (inter alia the said generalized comments against foreign labor) to appease swing voters

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#24

Post by biotopia »

maxglute wrote: post #9

500k -> 1.1M foreign students since end of covid. Truely absurd. I hope this is 5th dimension chess to con Indians on false hope of PR to inject a few years of expensive international tuition to pay for covid response. Doesn't make sense to let them work and possibly send remittances back home (as if cost of living is not high enough) because that's what you get when you start brain draining more than those who can a…

I see you're trying to drive a wedge between India and Canada, dirtyid, or Chinese citizen who lives in Canada who loves China and hates western world. It really doesn't matter what you're doing you know, China is a Great Depression and will stay there for 20 years.

Also proving the point that Canada and US should not be importing more Chinese pinkies into the country

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#25

Post by nacho2sweet »

codeisawesome wrote: post #15

I’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…

If you are a 19 year old Canadian who is priced out of everything and is in a line at the local movie theater 100 long with desperate foreign students trying to get your first job you're going to feel cheated and pissed off.

If you are a 37 yo millennial who still doesn't own a house, can't afford to have kids moving back into the shitty style of apartment you lived in your early 20's but now it costs $2700 a month, you are going to be fucking pissed off.

If you are a new parent waiting 9 hours overnight in an packed emergency room, you are going to feel pissed off.

It is hard to tell Canadians this is good for them when everything has gotten worse.

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#27

Post by IlikeMadison »

codeisawesome wrote: post #15

I’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 think this is because immigration is mostly pushed by people with heavy ideological reasons (far left, no border militants, etc.) but also rich employers who just want cheap and malleable workers.

Now you have the common people to whom you never asked their opinion about mass immigration: they now understand that instead of increasing wages, giving better benefits and improve working conditions to attract potential workers where it is lacking (supply and demand), the rich employers cheated the game with the help of elected politicians, by bringing hundreds of thousands of people who are willing to do it for less.

Add to this difficulties to buy a home, wages stagnation, rent going up, general inflation... The rich get richer, the rest gets poorer. This is how hatred is born unfortunately.

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#28

Post by gosub100 »

badcppdev wrote: post #2

The world must end reliance on cheap labour or we're always going to have slums next to the factories that make our clothes. Can you have a population of 8 billion humans with something close to a modern lifestyle... we can try I guess

I'm more concerned about the people in Canada being shafted out of entry-level jobs. Who do their government represent, Indians or Candians?

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#29

Post by office_drone »

asdfasdfasdf222 wrote: post #22

The real issue is Canada's demographic decline. Immigrants were brought in to fill that gap and pay for pensions and other goodies that expect a growing base of tax paying productive workers. We're not getting rid of these people, they will become citizens if they choose to. Personally, I doubt that any announcement by the government will be anything but a temporary hold, to be returned to high levels post-Liberal el…

> Immigrants were brought in to fill that gap and pay for pensions and other goodies that expect a growing base of tax paying productive workers.

This is not true.

1) Immigrants are not brought in with the goal of topping up the numbers to the existing level, immigrants are being brought in with the intent of tripling the population. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Initiative whose founders are advisors to the federal government.

2) Canada does not need immigrants to pay for its pensions. CPP and other pension in Canada are well run, invest their money, and don't just route money from young people to old. Rather, they pay the money out from the money already put in.

Re: Canada Must End Reliance on Cheap Foreign Labor, Minister Says

#30

Post by llm_nerd »

ikesau wrote: post #20
codeisawesome wrote: post #15

I’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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQkzE9PsAv4

That video gets cited regarding every discussion about the current Canadian immigration disaster. It pushes two basic ideas-

1) If Canada had housing, services and infrastructure that met any growth in population, there would be no problem!

2) Look at all these problems occurring, isn't it wonderful‽‽‽ It's going to force a revelation and everything will be super fixed and it'll be better than ever! The future is now! Things that don't kill you make you stronger or something.

That covers 100% of the video, and the delusional, pie in the sky notion pushed by the creator. If that video were presented as farce it would actually be funny. Instead it's depressing and sounds like the dope-fueled meanderings of someone absolutely decoupled from any semblance of reality.

Nothing is being fixed. Housing starts have dropped. Housing projects are moving slower than they did before this influx (but wait, isn't the video holding that there has been some amazing, wonderful transformation? Where?). The health system is in shambles. Demographics ghettos grow. A whole generation are going to be living in their parent's basements indefinitely, and anyone looking for a future is moving out of Canada.

Canada is poised for a very unfortunate hard turn to the right due to the policies of the very minister quoted and his peers who pushed the same "no problem here!" dismissals to growing concern. Busy making excuses as problem because disaster became catastrophe.

It is very unfortunate that some of the anger and outrage about government policy is reflected in racist or xenophobic outbursts as described in the root post, but it was basically inevitable: This government basically declared war on a demographic of Canadians and they're "fighting back". I'm lucky to work in a high skill position and live in an affluent area, but I can recognize the absolute disaster that is occurring: When coffee shop chains are buying up apartments and evicting the residents to bring in an army of TFWs, something has gone profoundly awry. When international students don't actually go to classes, get a worthless diploma, and are buying a work permit and a path to residency, something has gone wrong.

Canada needs immigration. Canada was built on immigration. Canada is a multicultural nation. What has been happening is a perversion of that and has put a country on edge.

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