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[HarryKS]

That video from the cbc of the police telling nigerians at the busiest illegal crossing that they are doing something illegal and informing them of the legal process only for them to essentially say "I dont care what you have to say" and cross anyways infuriated the shit out of me.

seriously, please respect our laws, we do not depend on illegal immigrants for labour like the US and we should keep it that way (though we do have something like that with temp workers im aware of but thats legal and accounted for)

also to the posters above, we take in something like 1/4 of a million immigrants a year, which is a lot considering our population

That was on Tuesday night right? The video.

 

[Madness]

So Americans wanting the same thing and/or the current laws that are in place being enforced is bad and/or being uninformed or ashamed? I'm confused.

This guy gets it.

Where did I say America was wrong? I am very hawkish on illegal immigration. Read any of my posts with regards to Germany allowing upto 2 million unchecked migranta and the problems they are going to be creating for the next 50 yeara etc.

My issue with DACA is the US had the ability and means to deport these people quickly. They had the ability to build walls, fences, hire more border security, use E-Verify, a number of things to dissuade illegal immgration for over 30 years. They did nothing but kick the can down the road between successive democratic and republican governments. Now, Nigerian and Somalian refugees that the US brought under Bush and Obama are being asked to leave under Trump so they're fleeing to Canada because the US cannot get their shit together. Haitians you brought into the US during their devastating quake are being asked to leave now. So why should Canada shoulder any of the US stupidity when it comes to immigration.

Don't get it wrong. Now, after kids brought in at 4 years old are now like 22,speak english, don't know anything about Mexico and Guatemala or El Salvadaor are at threat of being deported you're asking why the US is bad? America should have handled this in the 80's, they didn't. Just like Europe is not handling their own migrant crisis as Italy and Greece are flooded with hundreds of thousands of migrants with fences and walls being erected all over creating tent cities and slums.

 

[PdotMichael]

1000% agreed.

bring on the immigrants, we fucken need em.

been seeing more black people in VICTORIA BC of all places lately, makes me feel racist almost just how freaking happy it makes me.

i even met a hispanic man the other day, in VICTORIA!



is it really that many?

i was under the impression / assumption we had some of the strictest immigration laws in the world?

if we're taking in 1/4 mil every year why has our population remained stagnant ever since i was born? [okay, it's gone up 3 million since i first checked at age 10, and i'm 33 now]

Refugees and immigrants aren't the same despite several political groups trying to mix those groups.

 

[PdotMichael]

"Roosevelt and our government's stance has not changed. We continue to take in refugees year over year, but there is a difference between that and people trying to leave Germany because of a situation they brought upon themselves."

Give me a fucking break. A quarter of the country (almost entirely white) voting for Trump does not somehow justify human rights abuses and violence towards everyone else in the country.

I don't know if you just compared Holocaust victims to Americans living in the USA.
Not so fun fact: The USA declined to a large degree of taking refugees from Germany and other states.

Well, talking about giving someone a break.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

Where did I say America was wrong? I am very hawkish on illegal immigration. Read any of my posts with regards to Germany allowing upto 2 million unchecked migranta and the problems they are going to be creating for the next 50 yeara etc.

You said, and I quote, "Yep. They just are ashamed they are the reason FOR these immigrants coming over." I can't speak for other people, but I'm not ashamed at all. And after our presidential election and your PM tweeted he'd welcome everyone with open arms, you'd have to expect some people would take him up on it.

My issue with DACA is the US had the ability and means to deport these people quickly. They had the ability to build walls, fences, hire more border security, use E-Verify, a number of things to dissuade illegal immgration for over 30 years. They did nothing but kick the can down the road between successive democratic and republican governments. Now, Nigerian and Somalian refugees that the US brought under Bush and Obama are being asked to leave under Trump so they're fleeing to Canada because the US cannot get their shit together. Haitians you brought into the US during their devastating quake are being asked to leave now. So why should Canada shoulder any of the US stupidity when it comes to immigration.

Don't get it wrong. Now, after kids brought in at 4 years old are now like 22,speak english, don't know anything about Mexico and Guatemala or El Salvadaor are at threat of being deported you're asking why the US is bad? America should have handled this in the 80's, they didn't. Just like Europe is not handling their own migrant crisis as Italy and Greece are flooded with hundreds of thousands of migrants with fences and walls being erected all over creating tent cities and slums.

I'm not gonna get in the political debate on these issues you mention. I agree with some points, i.e. politicians did nothing but kick the can down the road and this should have been handled back in the 80s, and disagree with most others.

You also misunderstood my post, I never said the US is bad. Other people, including people in this thread, are saying the US is bad or being uninformed/ashamed while wanting rigorous immigration processes in their own countries.

 

[ManDudeChild]

Canada needs more immigrants.

I've always been bothered by how low our population is. Imagine if we had 100 million people, we could probably surpass Japan.

Our carbon footprint is shit with just over 30 million people, and there are already 7.5 billion of us taking up way too much space on this planet. But you want MORE people to live in first world consumption conditions? Yeah, how about no?

 

[killer rin]

My sentiments exactly. I choose to live in South Western Ontario(Windsor/Sarnia/London) because it has a lower population, lots of arable land, beautiful forests and wildlife in addition to the creature comforts of moderately populated urban centres. The last thing we would want is more metropolis. You want more, just keeping building on top of yourself in Toronto, you seem to it.

I'm not some random when it comes to this. I lived in South-western Ontario (particularly the Windsor area) my entire life. Having more population literally wouldn't change anything about there being lots of arable land or beautiful forests/wildlife. You double the population of the city from the current 218,000 and give everybody the same density a within the city and the worst that can happen is both

A) Pushes the city downwards along LaSalle and Amherstburg
B) Pushes the city past Tecumseh more into Lakeshore

For an image example The red areas are what will turn grey with the newly expanded city. You know this because Cities follow the water sources, and the great lakes waterfront is a pretty good waterfront... that we cant use anyways because its already american cottages all the way around the rim.

There would be no crisis of wildlife extermination. It takes an hour and a half to get to wildlife now once you bypass all the corn fields, it will take an hour and a half to get to wildlife afterwards... wildlife defined as anything you can't see within the city itself. You can even build around the forests (dark green areas on google maps) if you want to keep those pockets of life, and we almost assuredly would. But hey, since we are actually using the area and have a higher tax base to justify it, we could spend some money building and maintaining proper trails through them. This is the same with London, but you add a ring 3km to the outside of the city and you have enough land to double population and support it with the required jobs/infrastructure. You double Sarnia, and all that happens is it expands from being the River to Highway27, to the River to Highway26.

Point being. Its a large country and we use so little of it. Worst case scenario is you spend an extra 10 minutes to get to the edge of your city or if where you were going for nature is way outside the city already, the exact same amount of time.

Hell, the main reason I am so gung-ho about this is because I was essentially forced out of the region because of a population issue. The city itself doesn't have much in the way of jobs in my field because there isn't the population and business base to support what I wanted to do. I would have loved to stay within Windsor. Its where my entire family lives, but instead I'm forced outside region 4+ hours away because thats where all the jobs in the area are. Then to make matters worse, outside of an infrequent below high speed 4hr train ride on aging tracks, a single seemingly 20 lane highway and an airport that charges your first born child. I have no way of actually going to visit my family economically in a timely basis. And any attempt of improving that through say High Speed Rail or airport subsidies is met with people correctly throwing up that we don't have the population density or tax base to support it; and that public transit everywhere outside of the GTA terminals would be non-existent.

Our carbon footprint is shit with just over 30 million people, and there are already 7.5 billion of us taking up way too much space on this planet. But you want MORE people to live in first world consumption conditions? Yeah, how about no?

Developing and Undeveloped Nations will become developed eventually. They also tend to burn a lot more carbon in the process as well. So you are stuck with either

A) Somehow stopping their development, either through war or sabotage
B) Depopulating and moving the populations to already built up areas. Thereby skipping that step entirely.
C) Waiting for Undeveloped and Developing Nations to become developed, pumping Carbon into the atmosphere en masse in the process.

In terms of ethics a combination of B and C are the best options. A being basically genocide. But the boat has already sailed on the population levels of the planet.

Doesn't automation make such concerns completely meaningless though? In 60-100 years you will have incredibly hard time to find enough work for even the current population levels.

True, but at that point in our technological progression everybody will have that same technology. The main issue is and has always been that birth rates of developed nations plateau and go downwards. The only reason we are stable is because we have our current levels of immigration. Once automation comes around, it's not crazy to suggest that we will have more developed nations with first world lifestyles. At that point, if you can't bribe people with economic incentives to immigrate, how do you maintain current immigration levels in order to prevent us from going back into the negative?

Sure you can suggest that with automation we'll simply decrease the population of humanity through natural de-escalation because we simply don't need as many people any more. But that takes a long time to happen. Short of War, straight up genocide, natural disasters or even disastrous climate situations or even convincing other countries to take our people (who I might add will also be running into the same problems); it would take several generations to get to a point where we would renormalize. So depopulation simply isn't an option. But even then, we are looking at a scale of 30-40 years before technology will hit the point where every single job will be automated. 20-30 years until we dip into percentages that begin to be worrisome, and the beginning stages of our new technological revolution being 10-20 years away.

But its a huge country and if people continue to incist on living far apart (and they will) we'll only make our situations harder and more expensive because not only will you have to deal with lack of jobs for everybody and the massive increase in government social programs. You'll aso have to deal with the fact that you are maintaining the infrastructure of small towns and cities with ever dwindling populations. it basically becomes the problems facing our aboriginals on a much larger scale.

Basically, there is no simple solution. Right now we have a situation where we simply don't have enough people. In the future no matter what come automation technology we will hit a situation where we have an order of magnitude of more humans than we need. The future is also a tossup on how exactly it will happen. Maybe there will be jobs automation can't do. maybe it can do everything. Chances are there will be a couple things that need humans but 98% will be automated.

Granted, this is starting to go a little off topic. But it is a concern when you start factoring in our future technology. Regardless on where you fall in the camp of bringing in more immigrants or kicking them out. Its all connected

 

[cryptosporidium]

That was on Tuesday night right? The video.

I believe so

Also i havent seen many canadians here argue against refugees or immigration. We just want ppl to follow our process so that our govt can plan accordingly. Why is that so hard to understand.

 

[MotionBlue]

Canada doesn't need more immigration, we are already accepting more than most. Illegal immigration is a burden on our already heavily strained infrastructure, especially in BC and Ontario.

If you want to come here, do it legally.

Canada's population isn't supposed to grow by a whole lot more this century. It's absolutely insane how few people live there. Almost all of the gains must be coming from immigrants, but even then it's supposed to be under 50 million for many decades.

You're right, we should over-populate like everywhere else. Its not like nature conservation is important, or that people hate living in frozen tundra.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Even with automation you need more people to serve as a consumer base contributing to the economy. Immigrant children do well at school as a whole. Here in the UK the best students are Chinese, Indian and Bangladeshi. So yeah, more diversity is a net positive for society.

TBH Canada has a fair and transparent system where you know where you stand when it comes to working towards your permanent residency which you can get immediately after approval and then work towards your citizenship. I'm not surprised desperate people will cross illegally. They aren't likely to have the education or training necessary to make it in through the options available to them. At best they can live there temporarily.

 

[entremet]

Canada’s population isn’t supposed to grow by a whole lot more this century. It’s absolutely insane how few people live there. Almost all of the gains must be coming from immigrants, but even then it’s supposed to be under 50 million for many decades.

This is the story of all Western countries. Immigration is what is driving population growth rates in the Western world.

 

[Rngade85]

I get why you are "gung-ho" about it as you feel slighted for having to move. That comes down to unrealistically high expectations set by yourself and likely baby boomer parents. That is how good it was here. I'm not some random when it comes to this either. I grew up just outside of Windsor and will return as a physician. I feel for you about having to move for your chosen career but that occurs in many overpopulated countries/cities as well. You grew up and received all the advantages small city/town/farm life had to offer. Large population certainly does not equal economic prosperity. The region was hit harder than most due to being so automotive centric. You were dealt a shitty hand timing wise but population is not the main issue here. Ask your parents if they had trouble finding jobs in Windsor when they were young? Jobs were plentiful with a much smaller population.

I think you will find many people from this area don't want it to look like Toronto or New York. Also there is Michigan minutes away with a variety of employment. Plan your career to the region you want to live. Be grateful you didn't have to emigrate from a overpopulated country to find any work at all. If you want to stay in Windsor don't major in marine biology looking to work a seaworld. I think we can all agree there are many worse places to find work. Moving to Toronto is only 3 hours. It's not the end of the world if you want to stay in Canada and enjoy large city life.

I'm also upset there is no quick way to go camping up near Huntsville, Ontario. We should overpopulate the region so I can make that 8 hour trip on a high speed rail. We are one of the few remaining countries with vast land. Enjoy it while it lasts!

I'm not some random when it comes to this. I lived in South-western Ontario (particularly the Windsor area) my entire life. Having more population literally wouldn't change anything about there being lots of arable land or beautiful forests/wildlife. You double the population of the city from the current 218,000 and give everybody the same density a within the city and the worst that can happen is both

A) Pushes the city downwards along LaSalle and Amherstburg
B) Pushes the city past Tecumseh more into Lakeshore

For an image example The red areas are what will turn grey with the newly expanded city. You know this because Cities follow the water sources, and the great lakes waterfront is a pretty good waterfront... that we cant use anyways because its already american cottages all the way around the rim.


There would be no crisis of wildlife extermination. It takes an hour and a half to get to wildlife now once you bypass all the corn fields, it will take an hour and a half to get to wildlife afterwards... wildlife defined as anything you can't see within the city itself. You can even build around the forests (dark green areas on google maps) if you want to keep those pockets of life, and we almost assuredly would. But hey, since we are actually using the area and have a higher tax base to justify it, we could spend some money building and maintaining proper trails through them. This is the same with London, but you add a ring 3km to the outside of the city and you have enough land to double population and support it with the required jobs/infrastructure. You double Sarnia, and all that happens is it expands from being the River to Highway27, to the River to Highway26.

Point being. Its a large country and we use so little of it. Worst case scenario is you spend an extra 10 minutes to get to the edge of your city or if where you were going for nature is way outside the city already, the exact same amount of time.

Hell, the main reason I am so gung-ho about this is because I was essentially forced out of the region because of a population issue. The city itself doesn't have much in the way of jobs in my field because there isn't the population and business base to support what I wanted to do. I would have loved to stay within Windsor. Its where my entire family lives, but instead I'm forced outside region 4+ hours away because thats where all the jobs in the area are. Then to make matters worse, outside of an infrequent below high speed 4hr train ride on aging tracks, a single seemingly 20 lane highway and an airport that charges your first born child. I have no way of actually going to visit my family economically in a timely basis. And any attempt of improving that through say High Speed Rail or airport subsidies is met with people correctly throwing up that we don't have the population density or tax base to support it; and that public transit everywhere outside of the GTA terminals would be non-existent.



Developing and Undeveloped Nations will become developed eventually. They also tend to burn a lot more carbon in the process as well. So you are stuck with either

A) Somehow stopping their development, either through war or sabotage
B) Depopulating and moving the populations to already built up areas. Thereby skipping that step entirely.
C) Waiting for Undeveloped and Developing Nations to become developed, pumping Carbon into the atmosphere en masse in the process.

In terms of ethics a combination of B and C are the best options. A being basically genocide. But the boat has already sailed on the population levels of the planet.



True, but at that point in our technological progression everybody will have that same technology. The main issue is and has always been that birth rates of developed nations plateau and go downwards. The only reason we are stable is because we have our current levels of immigration. Once automation comes around, it's not crazy to suggest that we will have more developed nations with first world lifestyles. At that point, if you can't bribe people with economic incentives to immigrate, how do you maintain current immigration levels in order to prevent us from going back into the negative?

Sure you can suggest that with automation we'll simply decrease the population of humanity through natural de-escalation because we simply don't need as many people any more. But that takes a long time to happen. Short of War, straight up genocide, natural disasters or even disastrous climate situations or even convincing other countries to take our people (who I might add will also be running into the same problems); it would take several generations to get to a point where we would renormalize. So depopulation simply isn't an option. But even then, we are looking at a scale of 30-40 years before technology will hit the point where every single job will be automated. 20-30 years until we dip into percentages that begin to be worrisome, and the beginning stages of our new technological revolution being 10-20 years away.

But its a huge country and if people continue to incist on living far apart (and they will) we'll only make our situations harder and more expensive because not only will you have to deal with lack of jobs for everybody and the massive increase in government social programs. You'll aso have to deal with the fact that you are maintaining the infrastructure of small towns and cities with ever dwindling populations. it basically becomes the problems facing our aboriginals on a much larger scale.

Basically, there is no simple solution. Right now we have a situation where we simply don't have enough people. In the future no matter what come automation technology we will hit a situation where we have an order of magnitude of more humans than we need. The future is also a tossup on how exactly it will happen. Maybe there will be jobs automation can't do. maybe it can do everything. Chances are there will be a couple things that need humans but 98% will be automated.

Granted, this is starting to go a little off topic. But it is a concern when you start factoring in our future technology. Regardless on where you fall in the camp of bringing in more immigrants or kicking them out. Its all connected

 

[freethoughtbubble]

Most people illegally crossing arent going to work....

We need more immigrants but not like this.

I'm sorry but this is a moronic statement. People cross illegally to work. And for shit wages, with shit legal protections, all the while taking shit from entitled racist dipshits. Anecdotal, blah blah, but the hardest working people I've ever known have all been immigrants, my father being first among them, and it's not even close.

/rant over

 

[GSG Flash]

I think the main problem is that a lot of these people are looking to come to Canada as economic migrants, and they are not refugees, but they're trying to essentially bypass the entire immigration process. Anyone doing this should definitely be sent back to their country of origin.

 

[slit]

I think the main problem is that a lot of these people are looking to come to Canada as economic migrants, and they are not refugees, but they're trying to essentially bypass the entire immigration process. Anyone doing this should definitely be sent back to their country of origin.

Trudeau and the Canadian gov't partly brought this on themselves by running their mouths and making it seem that way.

 

[killer rin]

I get why you are "gung-ho" about it as you feel slighted for having to move. That comes down to unrealistically high expectations set by yourself and likely baby boomer parents. That is how good it was here. I'm not some random when it comes to this either. I grew up just outside of Windsor and will return as a physician. I feel for you about having to move for your chosen career but that occurs in many overpopulated countries/cities as well. You grew up and received all the advantages small city/town/farm life had to offer. Large population certainly does not equal economic prosperity. The region was hit harder than most due to being so automotive centric. You were dealt a shitty hand timing wise but population is not the main issue here. Ask your parents if they had trouble finding jobs in Windsor when they were young? Jobs were plentiful with a much smaller population.

I think you will find many people from this area don't want it to look like Toronto or New York. Also there is Michigan minutes away with a variety of employment. Plan your career to the region you want to live. Be grateful you didn't have to emigrate from a overpopulated country to find any work at all. If you want to stay in Windsor don't major in marine biology looking to work a seaworld. I think we can all agree there are many worse places to find work. Moving to Toronto is only 3 hours. It's not the end of the world if you want to stay in Canada and enjoy large city life.

I'm also upset there is no quick way to go camping up near Huntsville, Ontario. We should overpopulate the region so I can make that 8 hour trip on a high speed rail. We are one of the few remaining countries with vast land. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Of course if you wanted to be a marine biologist you would go to the ocean. That's kinda the point of the field. Marine stands for Ocean Life. But when you have industries like Software Development or other forms of skilled White Collar or Scientific work being basically non-existent in the region. Fields that tend to almost always pop up en-masse one there is a population to support it... there is a problem. If the answer to "There is nothing in my field in my area" is to simply tell people to pack up and move away from their entire life up until then there is a problem. It makes sense in a few fields that are location-based. Like Mining, Resource Extraction, Science in a specific region, but if that is the default answer to everything there is a problem.

In addition, in this conversation we are talking about Canada. By suggesting Canadians simply find work in the USA whenever their region is underperforming, aren't you not making this whole situation with the USA worse? The USA is getting this insane over Immigration issues. And yet you state Canadians should simply move to the USA for work. Why not just work to improve Canada instead so that we don't have to rely on mooching off a larger bipolar foreign country whose stances on everyday issues does a 180 every other day.

As for your last paragraph, you are completely ignoring that double the population would have zero actual effect on the underlying environment. Taking Windsor as an example. The culture of the city is centered around everyone having single-detached houses with a backyard, a pool and a boat. This wouldn't change even if you tripled the population because populations like following lakes and rivers. When building out all that happens is it copies the current densities of Windsor and places them in LaSalle, Amherstburg or Lakeshore/Tecumseh. You know, the current "suburbs" of Windsor that you still have to pass through if you wanted to go see nature anyhow.

In today's day and age, you simply have more economic prosperity the more populated the area you live in. To repeat, we are a large country. There is more than than we could possibly ever use. Doubling the population only seems radical because you haven't actually thought about it. You seem to think that it would ruin the environment and make it impossible to go see nature. That is the furthest thing from the truth. Doubling a population in a geographic area doesn't mean that you are doubling the amount of space that those people take up. Taking London for example, you can easily double the population and fit it and the extra industry by going out 2km from the cities edge and drawing a ring around the city. 2km takes about 2 minutes to drive. 4 Minutes total if you are doing the full diameter.

The fears of what would happen to a larger population Canada is just completely far from the truth.

That said, now we are starting to get far off topic. We can easily support a larger population with little no no changes to the everyday lifestyles of Canadians. The fears of a larger population are overblown and in fact they only help to pigeonhole our great country by forcing us into larger taxation rates and lower levels of useful infrastructure (especially in the topics of Public Transit, High Speed Rail and Air Travel which relies on larger populations to thrive) and causes us to overspend on things like Healthcare because we still have to provide high end infrastructure to the smaller sub 10,000pop towns.

Immigration is a good thing. We have proper systems setup to allow in the best of the best people and yet despite the fact that we are extremely selective with who we let in to ensure we only get the people with the most to offer us, we still needlessly add super low limits that harm us in the long run by keeping intelligent individuals out of the country.

Illegal immigration is an iffy thing that can be split into justified and unjustified. Refugees are a humanitarian issue and if you are a stable country like Canada it's simply immoral to not help out the most vulnerable fleeing from war zones. If a young person is dragged across the borders by their parents (Like with DACA) and not caught until years later, they shouldn't be punished for it. Just give them the citizenship and fine the parents, or at least force them to do community service. Don't split up families though because that causes sociological issues that will only harm the country in the long run.

 

[Tuck]

As a Canadian in Ontario, why would I be in favor of letting in as many people as possible? I prefer to have free space, not to mention the benefits of less pollution and a chance for wildlife to thrive. It's what I find least appealing in most other countries and cities. We should be pushing to maintain a healthy sustainable population not looking to use every possible inch.

Ontario is extremely big. And outside of Toronto, population densities are quite low. Your fear is unfounded, especially since I bet 99% of all these migrants want to live near Toronto, not windsor.