Canada’s Immigrant Crisis
There’s no crisis, just clickbait. A while ago, the Canadian federal government announced a plan to increase the acceptance rate of immigrants to half a million immigrants a year by 2025. Reviews of this plan were mixed, but mostly negative. Xenophobia aside, the most pressing concern was that the Canadian government didn’t have plans to accommodate these immigrants: training, integration, and jobs were all scarce enough without them. I’m not completely sure where I stand on the entirety of this issue, but I have noticed an alarming trend in big Canadian cities.
China controls how its constituents move from province to province through a system of household registration called 户口, or hukou. Within this system, the province that one is born in is the province that one receives housing rights, healthcare, and education amongst other things. My understanding is that it was originally implemented to prevent rural-to-urban flight, abandonment of the agricultural sector to overpopulate the cities. Despite this, opportunities in big cities wholly outweigh those in the countryside, and so this movement continues despite the 户口 system. Unfortunately for these migrant workers, their lack of rights in Shanghai or Beijing means that the only employment available to them are low skill jobs without worker protection, and more recently, gig economy jobs.
This has led to an underclass of labourers in big cities waiting tables, cutting hair, cleaning residences, and delivering food. They eat as cheaply as possible and live in bunks outside of city limits, but are willing to forgo all creature comforts so they can work. They save up a nest egg after ten, fifteen years of labouring twelve hours a day, and then are able to afford a big house in the countryside. Out of the various employments that are available to these migrant workers, food delivery in particular is something that led me to draw a parallel between Canada and China.
One of my friends lives in the east end of town, in a neighbourhood not entirely subject to the forces of gentrification yet. I was helping him move out of his cockroach-infested apartment when he pointed to the unit across from his, whose door was cracked open, and told me that six South Asian UberEats delivery drivers lived in there, a one-bedroom apartment. The door presumably stayed open because the unit designed for one or two would presumably become too warm for six.
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These men likely came to Canada as students a not long ago, as their family sold the farm to help them afford tuition fees and living expenses abroad. This article I read a few years ago highlights the abuses that are going on with the Southeast Asian, particularly Indian international student community. Very often, these students are motivated to study in Canada because of its ease of entry: all one needs to do was pay for tuition and a consultant who would help apply to schools. After entering Canada to attend overpriced tertiary education in a backwater town to receive a qualification that no employer is seeking, they realize that they are trapped, and have to turn to minimum-wage jobs or gig work to stay afloat. Recall that their family is counting on them to become high earners, and are potentially in serious debt.
Some of my friends who are familiar with these immigration patterns claim that these immigrants know what they’re doing, what they signed up for. They are often richer than portrayed by the article, and enter Canada so they can eventually bring their entire families over. Yet, they still work the same gig-economy jobs. As student-visa holders, they are entitled to twenty hours of labour a week, and they supplement the rest by delivering Tex-Mex to their fellow students. In a way, it’s truly the gig economy that has enabled these students; although cash-only jobs were certainly available previously, a constant stream of labour demand on these applications provide flexibility like never before.
What this has essentially created in Canada, as in China, is an underclass of labourers that do the work that many native residents, who are protected by various social and governmental safety nets, have the privilege of refusing. Certainly, there are those in unfortunate circumstances who work at a McDonald’s to survive, but most of them can live with a relative, get healthcare, and find subsidized housing. There is one striking difference between these Canadian immigrants and Chinese migrant workers: the Chinese migrant workers have a plan to return home. Regardless of why South Asian students come to Canada, whether they were sold a dream or were expecting it, no one comes to Canada to work a minimum-wage job for the rest of their lives. But without substantial Canadian qualifications, and fierce competition for meaningful employment, it can be hard to do better.
So, even though there is no crisis, as a Canadian I don’t want to have a class of people that are effectively trapped within a lower socioeconomic sphere. At the same time, I welcome immigration. I think that for Canada to be a country relevant in the world stage, or to have any economic impact, its population needs to grow at a faster pace than through natural reproduction à la Mulroney. Immigrants can only bring wealth to a country like Canada, increasing its productivity and its consumption; its existing residents shouldn’t be concerned as they already have a leg up on all the newcomers in the share of benefits. For that to happen however, the immigrants have to be integrated, and given opportunities to succeed both socially and financially. I’m not sure what the government has in store for the annual half a million immigrants it has planned, but certainly the underclass of new South Asian labourers does not have the appropriate opportunities.
This socioeconomic divide will not only result in a failure for these immigrants to integrate, but also result in significant opportunity inequality for their children, leading to what effectively can be generational poverty. Opportunities remain available, but are scarce; the question now is if the immigrants knew what they were getting into prior to arriving. It’s one thing if they knew the score, so to speak, and chose to take a risk and come. It’s another if they were conned by immigration and educational consultants. It’s a wholly different and completely unfair situation if the Canadian government is pushing student visas as a pathway to immigration, while not having the infrastructure to help them succeed. If the cracks are already visible in the system today, and the pattern is similar to what I’ve seen in other countries, then the government needs a plan before its too late.
