Considered as a whole, the various widely believed ideas about immigration form a veritable maze. Here is my attempt to navigate it.
‘RECEIVED WISDOM’
One of the metrics by which we can judge the character of a society – and its potential for long term success – is the willingness to accept ideas that counter what was widely believed before. As I have repeated innumerable times on various fora, Canadian society is unfortunately severely lacking in this regard. There are ‘articles of faith’ on a wide range of issues, countering which makes a person a ‘heretic’ in many people’s eyes – perhaps in the eyes of the majority of Canadians. Immigration is one of these issues.
The crucial problem with discussing these issues – whether on a traditional platform or (especially) on social media – is that these discussions tend to be focused on a specific aspect of the issue in question, whereas the issues are multi-dimensional. As a result, while the arguments (from either side) may appear to be logical within the framework of the aspect being discussed, from a broader point of view, they may turn out to be inconsistent with one another. If one zooms out to take a bird’s eye view of the issue, these inconsistencies become visible to the naked eye. Therefore, the objective of the ideologue is to prevent you from discussing the entire picture; this objective is achieved by the tactic of keeping you bogged down in discussing what may (somewhat uncharitably) be called ‘minutiae’.
The result is not dissimilar to trying to go through a maze – there are wrong turns, dead ends and loops that bring you back to where you were a short while ago. In a physical maze, one can possibly find the exit, if only by random chance – but that is because there is no external factor trying to manipulate you into not finding it. But that is manifestly not the case in a partisan debate, where your opponent’s aim is to manipulate your path so as to willfully frustrate your efforts. Another difference between an ideological / partisan maze on one hand and a physical one on the other is that in the case of the former, the shape of the maze can be (and does get) changed in case you are choosing the right path in the direction of the exit.
With this understanding in place, I invite you to join me in entering the maze that is our immigration debate. The juxtaposition of certain points will suffice to draw your attention to the faulty logic, but I will also add in certain places my observation / inference in bold font, within parentheses. Please feel free to add your suggested observations, inferences and ideas.
THE MAZE
- As countries get richer, people tend to prefer having fewer children. This lowers the birth rate in that country.
- Low birth rate causes labour shortages.
- Labour shortages can be filled via immigration (but never via automation).
- Immigrants are more educated than native-born Canadians.
- Immigrants earn less than native-born Canadians.
- We need immigrants so that their taxes can fund the social welfare programs of the government.
- We must increase our social welfare programs for immigrants because they not able to earn well.
- Canada is the most welcoming country for immigrants in the whole world.
- Immigrants to Canada are unable to achieve their potential and to progress in life because Canada has systemic racism.
- Immigration causes shortages of housing and healthcare services.
- We can solve shortages in housing and healthcare via immigration.
- Overseas credentials of workers in construction and healthcare are not valid in Canada because we have much higher standards. (So how will they fill labour shortages in these fields?)
- Extensive studies have shown that each successive wave of immigrants does worse financially compared to immigrants who arrived in earlier waves.
- Each successive wave of immigration improves Canada’s economy.
- Systemic racism is keeping more and more immigrants poor.
- Poor economic prospects are keeping people from starting families, leading to a lowering of the birth rate (contrast this with the first statement that as people become more prosperous, they have fewer children; it seems that there is a sweet spot of economic well-being where people can have more children).
- It is racist to demand lower immigration (but not racist to force them to live in suboptimal housing).
- Diversity is our strength (even if it makes us collectively poorer).
- We need temporary foreign workers because Canadians don’t want to work.
- Governments should subsidize employers hiring newcomers (= those same foreign workers) to help overcome systemic racism in hiring.
- Foreign students subsidize Canadian students’ postsecondary education by paying higher tuition.
- Foreign students should be allowed to work full-time so they can pay their tuition and living expenses.
- Forcing post-secondary institutions to accept fewer foreign students will force the institutions to shut down or fire many staff.
THE EXIT
I wonder if it is possible to find the exit to this maze. Across the political spectrum, all parties are either ideologically wedded to the ‘received wisdom’ about the benefits – real or alleged – of immigration. At the same time, they know perfectly well that this issue is potential dynamite – the slightest mistake can blow up their electoral prospects. On the other side, the special interest groups pushing for ever-high(er) immigration are too deeply interwoven in the political system, and thus enjoy influence that is vastly disproportionate to their numerical strength. These range from the Century Initiative at the high end to various ethno-religious pressure groups at the other end of the spectrum. Maybe we will have to depend on a cataclysm, a.k.a. a ‘black swan event’, to blow up the entire maze. Then the way from the entry to the exist will be straightforward and short.
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