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[Laevateinn]

Ruthlessly smart immigration policy, huh? Over here we call it facism.

I don't think Canada's policy cares what your face looks like.

 

[Trumplestiltskin]

No thank you. The US policy suffers from bloat and execution, but not in concept. I would rather have doors open regardless of economic standpoint, than the Canada version of we'll let you in only if you meet economic criteria.

Then I think you're going to start running out of other people's money.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Maybe, but then that creates the clear distinct separation of class which will undoubtedly lead to political tension between those who think EVERYONE should be able to travel somewhere and those who want to separate the poor and the rich.

And then there's the fact that a 'wealthy' country isn't equally wealthy amongs all its denizens. For example, can't really lump the 'USA' and 'Canada' as wealthy nations with free travel with each other, since both countries are hugely diverse and the wealth isn't 1:1 across each country.

Sure you can start doing things like 'California can free travel with Canada because Californians will probably be most likely have more money than someone in Idaho', but that has it's own issues.

Basically, even the richest countries still have their poor that would make this hard to implement. Unless you discriminate based on wealth, and well...class wars aren't fun.

I'd rather open it up to all the citizens of said wealthy countries though. Free movement in the EU mostly works fine and is on the whole an excellent thing, only issue is that all the jobs suck in the new Eastern European members so everyone moves to other richer ones for work. But a poor UK/German/Dutch etc. citizen should have the choice to move to each other's countries if they want if they have the resources to do so. The barrier to moving within the EU is mostly professional qualification differences+ how much money you have saved up.

 

[Nabbis]

Create a country buttfuck nowhere in relation to geopolitics and snipe foreign citizens that are judged to be productive. Everyone is shocked it works and hail multiculturalism as a success. Meanwhile the rest of the world does not have it so cozy but is still judged by this success.

 

[grumble]

I've been familiarizing myself with immigration because of a friend, and it's not that "ruthless".

If you have a visa or permit and manage to stay in Canada for 2 years and work on your English skills to pass some English evaluation tests, you're good to go for Permanent Residency.

After 3-5 years (forgot how many) of Permanent Residency, you can apply for Citizenship. A that point, you can sponsor family to immigrate to Canada as well.

Yep, and a lot of the family reunification is to move elderly people over who will contribute nothing and be a ridiculously expensive drain on the healthcare and social services system. Would have few issues relatively if anyone immigrating over 60 had to pay a healthcare surplus tax.

Beyond that, the large influx of population, combined with an abysmal urban planning culture, has squeezed existing citizens immensely. Housing has gone vertical in the last couple of years, shutting out citizens. Not thrilled about an immigration increase beyond already very high levels.

The process can also be circumvented fairly easily via temporary foreign worker programs or investor programs, and the country has tried to amend the citizenship act to grant PR and citizenship to people who mostly don't reside in Canada. Immigration has been wonderful to Canada but there are real issues with the manner and extent to which it's done.

 

[JoeBoy101]

Then I think you're going to start running out of other people's money.

As I said, our current policy has issues and I think they are fixable. Throwing it out in favor of Canada's system on the other hand kinda flies in the face of, 'give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.'

 

[Rayis]

I'm torn on this, while it's nice that they have a policy that ignores race and/or national origin. not everyone can afford to have a career or a college degree, especially if they're coming from a war torn country, either way it's not Canada's responsibility to accept any immigrant who wants to live in the country but it's still a policy that favors people who already have it pretty good.


I also want people to realize that being born in a developed country is an insurmountable privilege that should not be taken for granted and many people in the world would love to experience..

 

[BreezyLimbo]

I'd rather open it up to all the citizens of said wealthy countries though. Free movement in the EU mostly works fine and is on the whole an excellent thing, only issue is that all the jobs suck in the new Eastern European members so everyone moves to other richer ones for work. But a poor UK/German/Dutch etc. citizen should have the choice to move to each other's countries if they want if they have the resources to do so. The barrier to moving within the EU is mostly professional qualification differences+ how much money you have saved up.

Like you mentioned, yeah jobs suck in Eastern Europe so you end up seeing migration to the western parts of the EU more.

Now(Again with the US), let's say US, Germany, and Canada decide to allow free movement within each other(For Germany, citizens outside the US and Canada are restricted from moving around the EU until X number of years living in Germany).

The US is bigger than EU, so it'd be unfair to Germany because they would probably get an influx of people moving there for their social services. Between US and Canada, Canada is mainly a wilderness with most of the habitual areas concentrated near the south side of it. If someone from the US wants to find jobs, they would probably move to a place with alot of commerce, like Ontario. However Ontario is already the most populous province in Canada, thus the housing prices will undoubtedly go up and you will get growing dissent from the population that already lived there.

For the US, you would see people coming to move into California, New York, Washington, etc. Basically places that already have high populations and high cost of living. Nobody wants to move to Idaho or Ohio.

So let's say you limit it to the rich and to those who have money. Again there will be dissent from the denizens of the countries that are opening up. Not only that, but then there's the issue of being able to move money more easier because of this, not paying their taxes, gentrification of areas because the wealthy denizens are able to outspend the citizens that live there....

....It just wouldn't work. Even if we were one World Government, you'd have the richest concentrating to 'rich' areas, the poor being separated, and well, class wars.

 

[Trumplestiltskin]

As I said, our current policy has issues and I think they are fixable. Throwing it out in favor of Canada's system on the other hand kinda flies in the face of, 'give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.'

Immigration policy is more complicated than a motto on a statue constructed 130 years ago.

 

[GameAddict411]

I wouldn't call it ruthlessly smart as it only lets in the people who are already rich/privileged. The Canadian government know that these immigrants will never be a liability when they immigrate to Canada. The reason why immigrants immigrate is to look for educational and employment opportunities. Something that people are already privileged enough to know multiple languages or have high education tend to not think about moving out of their countries.

 

[Twig and Berries]

But it’s a lousy basis for government policy, since it lets dumb luck — that is, whether some relative of yours had the good fortune to get here before you — shape the immigrant population.

The result? Well, contrary to popular myth (and Mr. Trump’s rhetoric), immigrants to the United States also outperform native-born Americans in some ways, including business creation and obedience to the law.

I don't agree with how this is phrased. It's not just appealing to feel good platitudes, it's both an ethical and rational platform for immigration. Having a relative stateside that you can use as a point of contact is not "dumb luck," it's practical. However, it shouldn't be the sole basis for immigration. I'm all for immigration reform but Trump would rather ban immigrants altogether which is one of the most un-American things about the asshole.

 

[Trumplestiltskin]

I don't agree with how this is phrased. It's not just appealing to feel good platitudes, it's both an ethical and rational platform for immigration. Having a relative stateside that you can use as a point of contact is not "dumb luck," it's practical. However, it shouldn't be the sole basis for immigration. I'm all for immigration reform but Trump would rather ban immigrants altogether which is one of the most un-American things about the asshole.

Canada also does significant family-class immigration. It doesn't have to be either/or.

But if you are of the belief that immigration is a good thing, but that there is a limit your country can absorb at any one time, it is obviously better to take those with language skills, employment potential, degrees, etc. than to take a random sampling.

I wouldn't call it ruthlessly smart as it only lets in the people who are already rich/privileged. The Canadian government know that these immigrants will never be a liability when they immigrate to Canada.

The problem being? The Canadian government is responsible to its citizens, it should not be taking in people as liabilities! Immigration is successful in Canada because it clearly generates benefits to the economy, and as a result the social programs most Canadians cherish. How do you think universal healthcare would work if Canada took on hundreds of thousands of enrollees a year and only a small fraction paid into it?

 

[JoeBoy101]

Immigration policy is more complicated than a motto on a statue constructed 130 years ago.

Sure is. Its also more complicated than, "Oh look, we should do what they are doing!"

 

[Trumplestiltskin]

Sure is. Its also more complicated than, "Oh look, we should do what they are doing!"

Except you're intentionally ignoring that there is a successful immigration policy with a clear system that both 1) encourages skilled workers and 2) doesn't discriminate on national origin. This system works in both Australia and Canada, and has been implemented in other countries as well.

On one side you've got a functioning model with policies, on the other you've got "I like the statue poem".

 

[JoeBoy101]

Except you're intentionally ignoring that there is a successful immigration policy with a clear system that both 1) encourages skilled workers and 2) doesn't discriminate on national origin. This system works in both Australia and Canada, and has been implemented in other countries as well.

On one side you've got a functioning model with policies, on the other you've got "I like the statue poem".

But your analogy is flawed due to geography. Canada doesn't have a large influx of immigrants via land that the US does on its Southern border. And, shocker of shockers, neither does Australia. They can pick and choose because they have a much smaller amount of applicants than the US does, to the tune of a quarter of the amount. And that is without any factoring of illegal immigration. If you replace the US model with that one, all you get is a push for people to adopt illegal immigration instead of a legal method.

So just because you've got a functioning model there, doesn't mean it will work well here. But hey, keep humping that statue poem line for all it's worth.

 

[Trumplestiltskin]

But your analogy is flawed due to geography. Canada doesn't have a large influx of immigrants via land that the US does on its Southern border. And, shocker of shockers, neither does Australia. They can pick and choose because they have a much smaller amount of applicants than the US does, to the tune of a quarter of the amount. And that is without any factoring of illegal immigration. If you replace the US model with that one, all you get is a push for people to adopt illegal immigration instead of a legal method.

So just because you've got a functioning model there, doesn't mean it will work well here. But hey, keep humping that statue poem line for all it's worth.

That's all you offered. Canada has 1/10th the US population, Australia even less. As for illegal immigration - I'll agree that is a problem, but you can't use the argument that people will try to break the law as an excuse for maintaining a poor one. If neighboring countries have such flippant disregard for international borders then heavy deportation, visa limits, fortification and employer crackdowns/fines are far better solutions than rolling over on your immigration standards.

 

[KernelPanic]

Growing up in Canada, teachers called us a "cultural mosaic" vs the US melting point. Some of my teachers didn't hide the fact they thought our approach was better than the US. Multiculturalism was sort of taught in school here.

Harper wanted to lock it down even more.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

It's easier to move to Canada than it is to move to the US, just saying

 

[Kurdel]

Godwin's Law strikes again

My biggest peeve is people calling out Godwin's law.

 

[JoeBoy101]

That's all you offered. Canada has 1/10th the US population, Australia even less. As for illegal immigration - I'll agree that is a problem, but you can't use the argument that people will try to break the law as an excuse for maintaining a poor one. If neighboring countries have such flippant disregard for international borders then heavy deportation, visa limits, fortification and employer crackdowns/fines are far better solutions than rolling over on your immigration standards.

Well, if you want my alternative, I'll happily give it. As I said, nothing wrong conceptually, its the execution. People follow the path of least resistance, and currently jumping the US border is the logical choice given the complexity and cost involved with becoming a legal immigrant in the US, as this poster helpfully points out:

It's easier to move to Canada than it is to move to the US, just saying

My suggestion is raising border security significantly while, at the same time, cutting the process of immigration substantially so that the process of becoming a legal immigrant would take no longer than a year and no more than $1000. That would the government plenty of time to do a criminal background check and any other work that would need to be done. A similar amount of resources poured into the border security would go to streamlining the naturalization process.

This would not eliminate illegal immigration, but substantially reduce it while involving and counting more people in the governmental process for census, tax, and electoral purposes.

 

[jimmypython]

it's much much harder to get a job in Canada as an international personnel so the lowered barrier of becoming an immigrant kinda balances this out.

it's the opposite in the US, at least in my job market (university faculty/researcher).

 

[NetMapel]

The way I see is that the conventional immigration to Canada is through merit points. You can get through if you meet enough of those points. That ensures a certain standard when the immigrants come in. We also have family immigration system too and a separate refugee system. I am shock to hear US doesn't have a similar system. Not sure what the problem is with the Canadian immigration system is here. The only thing I think should be improved would be maybe have certain industry-specific training to help foreign professionals earn the Canadian equivalence of their professional designation. For example, doctors, nurses, scientists, engineers and whatnot. Maybe provide a year-long training to aquaint these professionals with Canadian standards.

 

[cameron]

Growing up in Canada, teachers called us a "cultural mosaic" vs the US melting point. Some of my teachers didn't hide the fact they thought our approach was better than the US. Multiculturalism was sort of taught in school here.

Never really put much thought into the distinction, but read this yesterday. NYT: Canada's Secret to Resisting the West's Populist Wave

A Different Kind of Identity

In other Western countries, right-wing populism has emerged as a politics of us-versus-them. It pits members of white majorities against immigrants and minorities, driven by a sense that cohesive national identities are under threat. In France, for instance, it is common to hear that immigration dilutes French identity, and that allowing minority groups to keep their own cultures erodes vital elements of Frenchness.

Identity works differently in Canada. Both whites and nonwhites see Canadian identity as something that not only can accommodate outsiders, but is enhanced by the inclusion of many different kinds of people.

Canada is a mosaic rather than a melting pot, several people told me — a place that celebrates different backgrounds rather than demanding assimilation.

”Lots of immigrants, they come with their culture, and Canadians like that," said Ilya Bolotine, an information technology worker from Russia, whom I met at a large park on the Lake Ontario waterfront. ”They like variety. They like diversity."

Identity rarely works this way. Around the world, people tend to identify with their race, religion or at least language. Even in the United States, an immigrant nation, politics have long clustered around demographic in-groups.

Canada's multicultural identity is largely the result of political maneuvering.

In 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau faced a crisis amid the rise of French Canadian separatism in Quebec. His party was losing support, and his country seemed at risk of splitting in two.

Mr. Trudeau's solution was a policy of official multiculturalism and widespread immigration. This would resolve the conflict over whether Canadian identity was more Anglophone or Francophone — it would be neither, with a range of diversity wide enough to trivialize the old divisions.

It would also provide a base of immigrant voters to shore up Mr. Trudeau's Liberal Party.

Then, in the early 2000s, another politician's shrewd calculation changed the dynamics of ethnic politics, cementing multiculturalism across all parties.

Jason Kenney, then a Conservative member of Parliament, convinced Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the party should court immigrants, who — thanks to Mr. Trudeau's efforts — had long backed the Liberal Party.

”I said the only way we'd ever build a governing coalition was with the support of new Canadians, given changing demography," Mr. Kenney said.

He succeeded. In the 2011 and 2015 elections, the Conservatives won a higher share of the vote among immigrants than it did among native-born citizens.

The result is a broad political consensus around immigrants' place in Canada's national identity.

That creates a virtuous cycle. All parties rely on and compete for minority voters, so none has an incentive to cater to anti-immigrant backlash. That, in turn, keeps anti-immigrant sentiment from becoming a point of political conflict, which makes it less important to voters.

In Britain, among white voters who say they want less immigration, about 40 percent also say that limiting immigration is the most important issue to them. In the United States, that figure is about 20 percent. In Canada, according to a 2011 study, it was only 0.34 percent.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Never really put much thought into the distinction, but read this yesterday. NYT: Canada’s Secret to Resisting the West’s Populist Wave

All parties rely on and compete for minority voters, so none has an incentive to cater to anti-immigrant backlash.

In the run up to the election that Harper lost in 2015, he in fact did very much cater to xenophobia and racism, using the same campaign manager as had run the same sort of campaigns in Australia and the UK.

But yes, they did court conservative immigrant groups, and as best they could talked out of both sides of their mouth up until the end.