Comment by uv-depression
1 month ago
> A lot of people who have never had issues with immigration policy before have become very anti Indian immigration as a result.
So we just let racists determine national policy now? I wonder how that's working out in the US.
Questioning immigration policy is not racism. Anti-Indian sentiment in Canada is relatively recent and happened after a decade of mass immigration that is now widely agreed has contributed to a noticeable decline in the quality of life for all.
"Widely agreed" meaning the National Post and other foreign owned conservative press banged the drum on the issue endlessly for years and years and now people are thoughtlessly repeating the talking point.
This is undoubtedly happening (and we need to do something about foreign owned press in this country), but I think this is too convenient a story. I am a socialist and I have become extremely concerned about immigration in recent years. I want to talk about those concerns and work towards solutions that are amiable for our country, Canadians, and immigrants. Unfortunately, a lot of people who otherwise share my beliefs, don't seem willing to acknowledge that people like me (who strongly oppose the National Post propaganda organ) exist.
> Questioning immigration policy is not racism. Anti-Indian sentiment [ justification for said sentiment ]
Wild sequence of sentences.
> is now widely agreed has contributed to a noticeable decline in the quality of life for all.
Citation very much needed.
If you can't agree that questioning immigration policy is not racism, there is nothing to discuss here.
1 reply →
You don't understand, and your unwillingness to approach this issue with the nuance it deserves will only drive people towards right-wing extremists. These people are not racists! The federal government increased immigration (largely of TFWs and students) by far too much, and that has put an enormous strain on Canada's housing and job market. Canadians are turning against broken immigration policy, which has naturally become associated with its most visible aspect--the recently arrived, unskilled Indian worker. You must understand the negative sentiment is driven by association with bad government policy, not naive racism towards Indians. Of course, none of this is the fault of individual immigrants or TFWs, but they are part of the problem, because they are symptoms of it.
Racism is a serious allegation. Let's not cry wolf when there is a reasonable explanation here.
How else am I to interpret someone seeing a group of people working low wage jobs and concluding that everyone from their country is a bad influence?
> will only drive people towards right-wing extremists
The right talks a big game about personal responsibility, but somehow their worst beliefs are always someone else's fault. Funny, that.
> naturally become associated
Now see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's _not_ natural or inevitable.
No one said "everyone from their country is a bad influence." Indians were viewed as model immigrants in Canada for decades. Again, their good name is being tarred due to bad government policy.
My point is is that if leftists cannot talk about immigration policy in a nuanced way, right-wing extremists (for there are no other kinds of right wingers these days) will be the only game in town, and people who want to talk about immigration policy will therefore be drawn towards them.
Humans see patterns in everything, that's how we work. You can be a naive idealist all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that people will inevitably associate the effects of a bad policy with the policy itself.
2 replies →
US immigration policy was explicitly racist from its founding up until the Hart Cellar act of 1965. Assuming that the 2016 election of Donald Trump is your benchmark for when immigration policy became determined by racists again, then the US's immigration policy was non-racist for 51 of the last 251 (and counting) years, or 20% of its history.
Safe to say that the 1990s "End of History" theory has been proven wrong. It may be that the ~1960s-2010s "post-national" political consensus was actually just a historical aberration that is still in the process of being unwound.