Immigrants are continuing to get accepted to Canada despite that there are housing shortages across the country, with many Canadians struggling to find affordable and adequate housing. So many immigrants have no option but overcrowding and living in such tight spaces; nobody should want that for themselves. Immigrants also happen to be taking up jobs that would otherwise go to Canadians by accepting less pay. Let us prioritize Canadians first and foremost, then once everything is under control, then let us start opening the doors for more immigrants to come. How does that sound?
Well, the above sounded good enough for at least one European media outlet to interview some Canadian voices for an article on how anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise in Canda. However, no effort was made to challenge assumptions like “Canada is broken”, “the Canadian Dream is marketed really well,” “they shall not steal our future,” or “immigration is the primary cause of our economic and social problems,” and meet them with facts. Then, around the same time, some pollsters went viral with reports that their polling process showed that most Canadians believed that Canada’s immigration policies were harmful, or so they say.
Other voices also took the opportunity to blame immigration for depressing wages (stagflation), raising the cost of living (inflation), and creating job scarcity (recession), despite that these issues can be easily explainable with standard economic theory without immigration effects. But referencing filter-free economic theory and connecting it with the fallout from COVID-19 instead of catfishing the masses by blaming immigrants is far less sexy picture and will not cause people to swipe far right.
COVID-19 was responsible for bringing the whole world to a complete stop. Arguably the two biggest drivers behind today’s global recession were the impact that COVID-19 had on supply chains and the stock market. As it relates to supply chains, critical supply chains were shut down for multiple months, then “back to work” changes reduced their output, and an outbreak of COVID-19 had the potential to shut down an entire production floor. As for the stock market, after the initial frenzy and selling off of stocks, the masses realized that people who bought when stocks dipped 80% multiplied their money many times over. Now, nobody wants to sell their stocks, even when there will be no similar rebound, and that is artificially inflating the price for many stocks. But it sent the whole financial system out of whack because nothing was certain anymore.
A better explanation for today’s sentiment around immigration can be described by referencing the term “social dynamite”, popularized in 1961 by Harvard’s President Emeritus, James B. Conant. Back then, President Conant was speaking on the fallout from segregation and how a buildup of “social dynamite” was occurring in many of the US’ cities with high populations because of the legacy left behind from slavery – a lack of opportunities and high unemployment rates.
A lack of opportunities and high employment rates also happens to be what troubles today’s society. The concept of “opportunity”, however, looks a lot different now than it did 50 years ago. Automation and robotics have all but eliminated the high-paying, superb-benefit jobs that were available for Baby Boomers. Entire industries are seeing multinational corporations that were once unrivalled global brands getting supplanted by tech startups that have shifted the paradigms across those industries. Everything from how business is done to the products that are sold to how profits are generated is affected. That shift from general work to demands for higher skilled work has also contributed to an ever-growing wealth disparity gap.
By going after immigrants, we give a pass to the structural limitations that were exposed by COVID-19 and ignore how society has changed due to the advancement of different technologies. Coming to terms with the reality that new times have arrived, that our institutions were never failproof, and that the lay of the land has changed is likely more unsettling than simply blaming immigration and “othering” people.
Squeezing into tight living spaces beats out the confines of war and famine.
When my family and I arrived in Canada (in Ottawa) in 1994, we were welcomed to an “immigration house”, a place for newcomers with no connection to Canada who struggled to speak English and for whom money was tight. After getting acquainted with the “new country” and maxing out our stay at the single-bedroom space in the “immigration house”, we were rehoused into a one-bedroom apartment. That building had an indoor pool, an indoor gym, and we were in the “clouds” with a great view of Ottawa from our balcony.
About a year after our arrival to Ottawa, my maternal grandparents followed suit, thanks to more rooted Serbian-Canadian families deciding to take a chance on us after seeing us show up to the Serbian Church in Ottawa with nothing. They signed papers to sponsor my grandparents, the single-most impactful outcome on my life’s trajectory. When my grandparents arrived, they joined us in that tiny single-bedroom apartment.
After being separated for so long and living under the confines of civil war, hunger, and famine, there was more than enough space for all of us to be together. That one-bedroom apartment became quite spacious. It was going to be home for the foreseeable future until we figured things out: getting better at English and taking any kind of work for over a year. Even after, there was no guarantee our family would be able to satisfy the renting criteria, even if we could afford to pay the monthly rent. Yet we were lucky and did not have to worry about those criteria, because a more rooted Serbian-Canadian family took a chance on us and cosigned for us. So within a year we were living in a more spacious apartment.
Not having a lot of money or having to live in tight living spaces, there is nothing wrong with making the best of situation and doing what one can to better their situation as a newcomer to Canada. The secret recipe behind experiencing success in Canada remains the same. It takes hard work. It takes dedication. It takes time. And by trending in that direction, situations are guaranteed to improve.
The Emotional Impact of a New Country
One of my childhood friends whose family also emigrated to Canada during the Balkan civil wars, recently shared their own newcomer experience during a chat about immigration. That newcomer experience centered on their reflections on the hardships of their family’s early years in Canada. For them, it was not hard to imagine how their middle-aged parents, with two children to provide for, cried and felt like failures for not being able to speak English well and sometimes not having money for essentials. But the privilege of “crying” and feeling sad was exclusive to nighttime and in bed, when the children were asleep. Because once the sun rose that meant it was time to doing whatever work was available; the idea of having a “bad day” was a privilege.
Nothing about this newcomer experience is limited to place of origin, race, ethnicity, gender, or any other line of difference, rather it is a part of the Canadian identity, for every newcomer with humble beginnings.
The Untruths We Tell Ourselves
On practically every occasion that people decided to take a giant leap across the ocean and make the trip to Canada, money would have been tight. Beginning a new life in Canada and crowding into tight living spaces has always been the norm for newcomers, until they were able to get on their feet. So, squeezing into tight living spaces has never been a living practice that was exclusive to black or brown newcomers, which is where the narratives have shifted, nor is there anything wrong with it.
Up until recently, newcomers were predominantly fair-skinned individuals who were arriving to Canada in masses, fleeing dictatorships, communist regimes, war, and famine. Even back then, Canada was not equipped to handle all those waves of newcomers, but we managed to figure it out somehow.
Believe it or not, but the most common shared similarity between all Canadians might be a story of humble beginnings, despite that more rooted Canadian families are less likely to be able to recall their family’s early-day experiences. Not because they want to forget about them, but because of how far removed they are from those first steps now, waiting for the ship dock then taking their first steps on unfamiliar land.