[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Jacob]

@Bauer one of the significant sins Trudeau committed was politicizing getting vaccinated.  PP quickly joined in.

My hope is we don't see that with Carney. He is a boring banker, and that may reverse the polarization we are now experiencing.

I find it hard to imagine vaccinations not being politicized given the dynamics in the US and the way it spills over the border.

But maybe Trudeau exacerbated it? Remind me, what did he do?

[crazy canuck]

@Bauer one of the significant sins Trudeau committed was politicizing getting vaccinated.  PP quickly joined in.

My hope is we don't see that with Carney. He is a boring banker, and that may reverse the polarization we are now experiencing.

I find it hard to imagine vaccinations not being politicized given the dynamics in the US and the way it spills over the border.

But maybe Trudeau exacerbated it? Remind me, what did he do?

He made mandatory vaccination for federal workers and an election issue in 21.  Despite the fact that healthcare professionals throughout the country cautioned all politicians not to do that.

By making vaccination a political issue, he politicized what should have remained a medical issue.

He used it cynically as a wedge issue, and that is probably what caused his demise as a politician.

[Bauer]

I'm going to respond to your comment in two separate posts, because I think there are two very different conversations to be had.

Wouldn't it be nice to start political debates with high level statements / agreements then drilling down upon implementation of them.

On immigration i find it hard to believe there are any significant numbers of people who don't respect it.  We can/should be able to agree that it is a valued part of our society while at the same time agreeing there is healthy sustainable number the society can absorb.

Therefore the debate really is about where that healthy number is, which is a totally different conversation.

I agree with your fundamental premise that there's probably an ideal number and mix of immigrants, and probably some number beyond which the strain on society is too much for us to be comfortable with.

My main concern is when "immigration" becomes the scapegoat for the most controversial social issue of the day. Today it's housing (and cost of living, maybe); in the past it's been jobs and crime.

But I'm curious what you think a sustainable number is, or alternately what are the elements that go into arriving at that number.

As for how you'd would arrive at the number, people should be able to create models for that accounting for multiple factors.  Decisions should be made based on information and refining them upon better information in an ideal world.  In a general sense if immigrants are struggling to find housing, struggling to find meaningful employment etc that's clearly neither in their best interest or canadas.

There are also other factors such as skills in demand and being able to fill them.  I read recently about how most construction jobs are learned on the job rather than formal apprenticeships, and that immigration isn't really filling those positions.  Which is interesting because people often think of immigrants as being that kind of labor.

So in summary there's a holistic analysis/ policy that needs to be done. I think the Trudeau government increased the rate without much thought to other factors, which is a certain "all immigration is good immigration" point of view that I think is increasingly untrue in today's world, or at least requires refinement.

[Bauer]

... and this is a reply to the second strand of your post:

But it seems the left extreme calls anything calling for less immigration racist,  and the right extreme hiding real racism behind the conversation.

Maybe I've missed it, but I can't recall coming across anyone be called racist merely for calling for less immigration. As you say, there are elements of the extreme right who are chomping at the bit for disguising their racism and still be listened to and I expect they're being called out on occasion.

What are some of the most high profile examples of the left extreme calling people racist for lowering immigration?

Anecdotally, I've come across a non-trivial amount of straight up racism (usually directed at East Indians these days) which then leads into an attack on immigration; but I don't think that's what you're talking about.

Wasnt thinking of high profile examples,  more like a general sense of the energy surrounding the topic of reducing immigration which some equate with racism.

Straight up racism is a whole different thing, what I was talking about is that racism can be hiding within a conversation about immigration but that doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate discussion.

But on another note passive aggressive racism is far more common.

[Bauer]

@Bauer one of the significant sins Trudeau committed was politicizing getting vaccinated.  PP quickly joined in.

My hope is we don't see that with Carney. He is a boring banker, and that may reverse the polarization we are now experiencing.

I find it hard to imagine vaccinations not being politicized given the dynamics in the US and the way it spills over the border.

But maybe Trudeau exacerbated it? Remind me, what did he do?

He made mandatory vaccination for federal workers and an election issue in 21.  Despite the fact that healthcare professionals throughout the country cautioned all politicians not to do that.

By making vaccination a political issue, he politicized what should have remained a medical issue.

He used it cynically as a wedge issue, and that is probably what caused his demise as a politician.

Yeah it was handled poorly.  Maybe it's just me but I'd rather politicians showed leadership by encouraging everyone to be vaccinated rather than mandating it.  The trouble is that humanity itself isn't uniform and the man animals are stubborn.  The more you try to impose something against their free will the more some will resist, so why fan the flames of that resistance.

Another critical sin of Trudeau was when he tried to shrug off responsibility for rising housing costs, shifting it back on municipalities and provinces.

[crazy canuck]

Agreed, we already had a good medical model for encouraging vaccination and achieving high rates a vaccination.  Trudeau did not have to reinvent the wheel here.

And the act of politicizing a medical issue is still having a negative effect on vaccination rates.

[Josephus]

I don't think there would be as much anti-immigration sentiment if everyone was coming from England, or Sweden.

[HVC]

I don't think there would be as much anti-immigration sentiment if everyone was coming from England, or Sweden.

I don't know we've had plenty of non white immigration for decades. Something has to give beyond just racism. although racism does play some part, I won't deny that.

[Valmy]

Something has to give beyond just racism. although racism does play some part, I won't deny that.

I don't know man. Racism is incredibly fashionable now in a way it hasn't been in my lifetime.

We have had immigration from Latin America for 150 years but only now is it cool to put them in concentration camps.

[HVC]

In my patented simplistic view, patent pending, I blame higher education money grabs.

[crazy canuck]

Something has to give beyond just racism. although racism does play some part, I won't deny that.

I don't know man. Racism is incredibly fashionable now in a way it hasn't been in my lifetime.

We have had immigration from Latin America for 150 years but only now is it cool to put them in concentration camps.

Immigrants from Japan had their property taken away and were put in camps in both our countries during WWII.  Canada had a head tax to keep Chinese immigrants out - I assume the US had something similar.  Sikh immigrants/refugees were turned away from landing in Vancouver in 1914, and the list goes on.

So not in your lifetime, but certainly in living memory. The parents of people I know were directly impacted.

I do not wish to diminish what is happening in your country now, but it would also be wrong to diminish what has happened in the past.

[viper37]

Maybe I've missed it, but I can't recall coming across anyone be called racist merely for calling for less immigration.

There's been a lot of accusations toward Quebec over the years while we suffered the brunt of the refugee crisis and we asked for less.

Only when Ontario began receiving refugees did immigration became a national crisis for Canada.  And that's when the Conservative made it an issue by proposing to reduce the number of admission.  Which really amounted to the same numbers as the Liberals were proposing.

[viper37]

I don't think there would be as much anti-immigration sentiment if everyone was coming from England, or Sweden.

Not so sure.  There used bot a lot of anti-Italian, anti Irish and anti Catholic, even anti-French Canadian rhetoric at one point in history in parts of the US.

https://www.history.com/articles/when-america-despised-the-irish-the-19th-centurys-refugee-crisis


As for Canada, we've discussed this before ad nauseam.

[Valmy]

Something has to give beyond just racism. although racism does play some part, I won't deny that.

I don't know man. Racism is incredibly fashionable now in a way it hasn't been in my lifetime.

We have had immigration from Latin America for 150 years but only now is it cool to put them in concentration camps.

Immigrants from Japan had their property taken away and were put in camps in both our countries during WWII.  Canada had a head tax to keep Chinese immigrants out - I assume the US had something similar.  Sikh immigrants/refugees were turned away from landing in Vancouver in 1914, and the list goes on.

So not in your lifetime, but certainly in living memory. The parents of people I know were directly impacted.

I do not wish to diminish what is happening in your country now, but it would also be wrong to diminish what has happened in the past.

Yes it would be. But there was this false narrative in the west about progress and how we were making it.

That was obviously wishful thinking. We are still the same assholes we always were and the rise of right wing power throughout the western world demonstrate this.

So I find it slightly odd to see HVC giving these people the benefit of the doubt all the sudden after this long track record.

[HVC]

I can only use Canada as an example, because that what I'm most familiar with, but the immigration issue has usually polled favourably (I won't hazard the guess to say always) , but in the last decade, decade and a half it's gone done. This coincides with a marked increase in immigration numbers. Abuse of student loopholes and degree farms exploded. Now it could just be that Canada has gotten more racist. I suppose it's possible. Some blame racism of south East Asians, but I don't know why the general populace would dislike them more than say East Asians or Latin Americans.

Again, to cut off the usual languish avenues of "debate" I'm not saying racism plays no part. If people go off about immigrants pooping on the beach that's a clear indication that their thinking is suspect. But to dismiss all criticism or wish for reform as "those damn racists " seems disingenuous.