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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

321–330 of 823 posts

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#321
post #8

> Europeans could learn from Canada how to allow immigration in a fashion that the population embraces rather than tolerates Clearly the author is ignorant. Canadians are sick of immigration. Young Canadians doubly so. Racism is becoming more acceptable by the day.

> Young Canadians doubly so Similar situation in Australia and US. And most of it misplaced. One major issue is trying to buy a first home where the blame goes towards immigrants. Instead of towards older generations where the problem really lies. They apply political power across multiple levels of government to affect everything from planning, taxation, inheritance which systemically prevent young people getting in…

In NL the housing shortage is blamed on immigrants whereas the actual reason for said shortage is absolutely the politics of the right-wing cabinets for the last 15 years who did nothing significant to improve the speed of housing construction.

It’s not that strange as one of the political parties basically explicitly protects business interests and oh boy did they profit. It’s political nihilism.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#322
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What of this is not true for the rest of the country then? I haven't visited at all but what the comment above you mentioned (basically the woes of limited social mobility, bad employment terms including tying healthcare to it if you're not rich, insane incarceration, etc.) is the kind of stats and stories I'm familiar with. The country does some things well also, as the commenter above also said, but it's not a plac…

10%?!? That's not grounded in reality - only ignorance, maybe prejudice.

I'm not sure what you're responding to. I'm asking whether there is any bit of the place that is worth differentiating from what was said above, not having a prejudice about any which 10%

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#323
post #8

> Europeans could learn from Canada how to allow immigration in a fashion that the population embraces rather than tolerates Clearly the author is ignorant. Canadians are sick of immigration. Young Canadians doubly so. Racism is becoming more acceptable by the day.

As a millennial Canadian, this. I've never seen this much disdain for immigration, not even close. Definitely can't blame people though, our immigration rate is completely insane, talking multiple times higher than the US rate or the EU rate at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Our GDP per capita has gone down every quarter for what, at least 2 years?

Medical care, cost of living, everything is the worst I've experienced in my lifetime. When I was in university our dollar and average income were both higher than the US', now our dollar is at 70 cents USD and our average income is 40% lower...

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This seems like whataboutism. The treatment of Native Americans isn't really similar to modern voluntary immigration and integration.

Sounds like the integration might be at effective gunpoint (threat of deportation) and not entirely voluntary.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want temporary foreign workers--who immigrated here in unprecedented numbers in recent years--to leave the country, not anyone who has darker skin. No no brought up remigration.

> No no brought up remigration. Not sure how "No no" is, if it is a language barrier or if you meant to write "No one". But the parent comment to mine brought it up. > People want temporary foreign workers--who immigrated here in unprecedented numbers in recent years--to leave the country, not anyone who has darker skin. I'm not very familiar with Canadian immigration. But if they are temporary foreign workers, they…

Yes, that should've been "no one."

I think I understand the disconnect. In Canada, anyone who is living here but is not a citizen is usually considered an immigrant (unless they are a refugee). Once they have their citizenship, they're just Canadian. We don't really make the migrant distinction, at least in my experience.

So when I say that we need to reduce the number of immigrants living in Canada in 2025, I only mean we need to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers. Part of the problem is that many people who came on temporary work visas don't plan to leave, they intend to exploit loopholes in the system to turn what was a temporary visa into permanent residency. So yes, in theory we just need to not extend the visas. In practice things will be messy.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because those immigrants came here because they wanted to be Canadians. These new immigrants have no desire to integrate.

There's a certain amount of people that can adapt to a place, but if too many people of common culture comes in they just hijack the place. In Canada it seems to me they didn't establish the limit properly and people also worked around it by moving within Canada disregarding the agreement that they'd stay in a certain zone that still had some slack of people they could integrate.

Hijacking deprives someone else of their rights. Living differently than your neighbor doesn’t change anything for your neighbor. Nothing is “hijacked”.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely, unequivocally factually correct. Canada is under population-trap growth levels, growing by over 3.2% in a single year. That is absolutely bonkers growth. Canada had more growth in absolute numbers than the US, a country almost 10x the population (and thus ability to absorb). Canada's housing is completely disconnected from reality and has a wide range of reasons, but right now we have a housing cris…

Canada does not have an illegal immigration problem, which is what is implied by the phrase migrant especially in the context of US politics and what American observers of this thread would think of as "migrant" Canada has a massive program of legal immigration, and if you'll note above I did say it plays a part in housing price inflation here, which is bonkers. In particular our legal immigration program targets alm…

A migrant is simply someone who moves from one place to another, in this context from one country to another. The legality of said move is irrelevant, and they are additional people that need housing and services. The number of people who have moved to Canada, through an unending series of special programs and exemptions and visa waivers and programs is colossal.

But if we must talk about illegals, yes Canada has an enormous number of people who technically aren't allowed to be in country. They came here legally -- given that this government is so set on not being racist that they removed virtually all checks and restrictions -- and just...didn't leave, for instance it's incredibly common for legal temporary residents to bring their parents here to "visit", where visit means live here. And anyone thinking the five million with expiring visas are going to leave is deluded.

As to housing, it basically hit peak insanity in 2016 on its natural curve and stagnated through to 2020 (literally - 2020 was slightly below 2016, inflation adjusted). So this government juiced every immigration channel to the max, leading to a massive inflation in housing. Yes, it was immigration that caused that, as something where demand closely matches supply is going to be massively out of balance when suddenly demand vastly exceeds supply over a short period of time.

One of the parent posts lamented people "blaming immigrants". I don't blame immigrants. I do blame immigration, however, and a government that turned a blind eye to the catastrophic effects, buying as much time as they can by just telling everyone that it's racist to dare question mass migration or its effects. All of Africa, South Asia and the Middle East can't just move to Western countries. That isn't rational or sustainable.

"targets almost exclusively wealthier / skilled people"

Have you not updated your priors since 2003? Wealthier/skilled people make up a very small minority of Canada's new residents. An absolutely tiny proportion. Which is a big reason Canada has had multiple years of GDP/capita contraction. We have millions of doordash drivers and Tim Hortons workers imported from abroad.

https://dennisforbes.ca/articles/10000_brainiacs.html

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk the Amish are pretty chill for not integrating. And if immigrants come and integrate into existing gang culture, would you actually be happy? I think it is ok to just say “we don’t want poor immigrants. We want immigrants with something to offer.”

We don't really let "poor" immigrants into Canada. The system here attempts to cherry-pick in people based on a whole points system, with "I have money to buy a house" and "I have a $$ profession" being being points contributors. We actually have the opposite problem, to some degree. Acquiring more skilled talent from abroad has depressed skilled labour compensation here. And acquiring people from abroad with $$ to i…

This isn't true. There are about 1 million international students in Canada and they aren't cherry picked. Basically anyone who gets into any of the strip mall colleges in Ontario gets in, and many of them are basically just diploma mills "selling" Canadian immigration status to anyone willing to pay. There is nominally a requirement to be self sufficient financially but it just requires showing you have 20k CAD in a bank account somewhere. Many people fake this by borrowing 20k to show the sufficient balance and then pay it back, and even if they aren't faking it, having 20k isn't enough to support yourself in Vancouver or Toronto for a year.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And most of it misplaced. I've seen that tactic to try to discredit real, valid concerns with immigration, either by lumping it with racism (which definitely exists, but is not the only argument against unfettered immigration), or by pretending something else is the problem (something else may also be a problem, but that doesn't make the problems that people are worried about with high levels of immigration invalid…

>When you couple that with astronomical housing prices and a stagnant economy When you compare Canada, the US or some of the higher immigration countries in Europe to developed countries without immigration you'd wish you'd have price increase problems. Japan, sometimes hailed as an alternative to immigration is now so poor and old that middle class Westerners travel there like they traveled to a middle income countr…

Oddly enough I am visiting Japan right now. There are lots of foreign workers in service jobs. They speak zone language and don’t jay walk.

Prices feel like a middle income country, but that is just the Yen sucking. Otherwise it feels very first world.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't visited at all > it's not a place [I] would recommend most people to live Your recommendation (or lack thereof) carries little weight, then. But to actually answer your question, there are many places in the US (urban, suburban, and rural) where fear of violent crime is not a major factor in the day-to-day life of most people. I don't know anyone who has been a victim of violent crime, and it does not fea…

Right, exactly! I personally felt much less safe in Paris than anywhere in the US (including Chicago and Oakland), which is not to say "I'm right and you're wrong", it's just entirely subjective and often the result of having not traveled extensively enough or lack of understanding.

I'm not particularly street smart having grown up in a tiny village in England.

But I too have felt no more threatened in numerous US urban and suburban cities than I have in many places in Europe - and the UK...

It's not without its problems but if it was _that_ bad I wouldn't have stayed...

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