“Mass Immigration – Follow the money”

It is to Canada’s shame that refugees who came here legally with an expectation of a safe harbour are instead cast up on the rocky shore of a tent city in Toronto.

Perhaps I have a solution.

Brian Lilley writes in the Sun : “It’s a different world at the corner of Peter and Richmond Sts. in downtown Toronto, one that doesn’t look like it should exist in this city.

Just steps away from the trendy shops and restaurants of Queen St. W., there’s a homeless encampment for refugee claimants on the sidewalk.

The number of people seeking asylum at Canada’s airports saw a massive spike in June with 4,350 people declaring themselves refugees upon arrival last month. That compares to just 2,750 seeking asylum in May of this year but even that is up dramatically from the 1,195 seeking asylum in the same time period a year earlier.

There’s a long list of reasons for Canada to open its arms to newcomers from around the world – but when you invite half a million new people to the country every year, you better be prepared. And it’s looking more and more like we’re not.

It goes beyond the affordable-housing crunch and whether everyone will have access to primary health care. Now, some of the Calgary agencies that help people get settled in the country say uncertainty about funding from the federal government is leading to long waiting lists and layoffs.

This seems deliberately malign.

Record immigration to affluent countries is sparking bigger backlashes across the world, boosting populist parties and putting pressure on governments to tighten policies to stem the migration wave.

Many places, including Canada and parts of Europe and Asia, have been encouraging more migrants to come to help alleviate labor shortages and offset demographic declines.

But the jump in arrivals, along with increases in illegal immigration to the U.S. and Europe, is making more voters uneasy. The influx since the end of the pandemic is altering societies, with many people blaming immigrants for increases in crime and higher housing costs.

And this from a NYTimes newsletter I get …

… In earlier eras, the political left in the U.S. included many figures who worried about the effects of large-scale immigration. Both labor leaders and civil-rights leaders, for example, argued for moderate levels of immigration to protect the interests of vulnerable workers.

“There is a reason why Wall Street and all of corporate America likes immigration reform, and it is not, in my view, that they’re staying up nights worrying about undocumented workers in this country,” Bernie Sanders said in 2015. “What I think they are interested in is seeing a process by which we can bring low-wage labor of all levels into this country to depress wages for Americans, and I strongly disagree with that.”

… Democrats frequently like to point out the many ways in which Republicans are out of step with public opinion, including on abortion bans, the minimum wage, taxes on the wealthy and background checks for gun owners. Immigration cuts the other way, polls show. It is a subject on which much of the Democratic Party, like the political left in Europe, is in a different place than many voters.

I remember how shocked Progressives were when Bernie’s views on immigration became widely known during his run for the Democrat nomination. I give him credit for being an Old School  Lefty on immigration.