Immigration, decline or robotization? | The Press

The Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette, presented the immigration thresholds and conditions determined by the Quebec government for the next year, and the business community, which hoped for a figure of 60,000 and more, are not very happy.

In Ottawa too, Marc Miller’s threshold of 500,000 immigrants is unleashing passions. A good part of the Canadian English-speaking community, usually very discreet on this subject, now finds this figure too ambitious in relation to Canada’s reception capacities that Justin Trudeau seems to want to shift more quickly into postnationalism.

Why, skeptics ask, opt for such a large migratory flow when the housing crisis is so severe from coast to coast? To answer this question, Minister Marc Miller does not lack intellectual contortions. If Trump wanted to make Mexicans pay for his wall, Miller says the new arrivals will help solve the housing crisis, while media tempers flare.

Immigration is a highly emotional issue that carries economic, political, identity, religious, sociological, racial components and more. Not surprising then that throughout the Western world, it has become an essential subject of electoral platforms.

Everywhere, the discourse is becoming more radical and movements opposed to migratory flows are parading to demand that politicians turn off the tap. Proposals that are much easier said than done, because when the time comes to determine immigration thresholds, politicians rarely have the last word. They speak to mystify the electorate, but it is the economic circles which truly hold the balance of this power.

However, in the capitalist system, the vast majority of these business people have nothing to say about identities, nationalisms and other political projects of integration and social cohesion which emotionally challenge populations. What interests this large cross-border industry is abundant and cheap labor which preferably advances in dispersed waves.

The more the social fabric is fragmented and unable to come together around common demands, the more these employers rub their hands.

That said, this desire of the business community has the merit of being unambiguous whereas, among politicians who talk about immigration, there is very often a gap between declared intentions and hidden objectives. We must therefore analyze their discourse on immigration beyond the thick coating of good feelings that covers it.

For example, in Ottawa, people say they are opening the floodgates to attract talent, fill the labor shortage, ensure Canada’s economic prosperity and help reunify families, etc. But if Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are so ambitious on immigration targets, it is also because immigrants are traditionally more favorable to their political proposals. For them, bringing in 500,000 immigrants is also a way of sowing seeds in the hope of reaping electoral gains later.

This electoralist vision of immigration was also largely at the center of the divisive policies of the Quebec Liberal Party under the reign of Philippe Couillard. Minister Fréchette’s Coalition Avenir Québec also uses immigration in the service of power. The regrettable declaration of Minister Jean Boulet during the last electoral campaign and the regular slip-ups of François Legault on the subject are proof of this.

Fortunately, since the start of his second mandate, François Legault’s tone has softened and his blunders have become rarer on this very divisive subject.

Because of its emotional charge, immigration is a favorite subject of followers of the wedge politics (division policy) used by all formations. We have also seen elected officials from the Conservative Party of Canada, well aware of this fact, avoid falling into the trap by bypassing journalists who asked them to comment on Justin Trudeau’s immigration targets.

They know that staying the course on 500,000 immigrants is also a bait that the Liberals are throwing in the hope that they will take the bait. Indeed, the slightest criticism of this enormous figure will be presented as proof of intolerance and drawn out during the electoral campaign to define Pierre Poilievre as anti-immigration.

Since a return to a high birth rate is not an option in our liberal democracies, we will have to find ways of getting through it, because the globalization of economies and cultures is a big machine that is incapable of going backwards. This harmonious coexistence cannot be achieved without talking about integration, reception capacity, and common values ​​of equality and respect for the rights of all, including women and sexual minorities.

As for this dream of cultural homogeneity which still runs through certain societies, allow me to ironically suggest these few possible solutions which can help achieve it. We can perhaps achieve this by pushing the retirement age to 77, as some Japanese politicians are proposing, a country that still resists immigration.

The other solution, more within everyone’s reach, is to opt for economic decline and to give up some of the comfort and privileges that make our liberal democracies so attractive. Between robotizing production, declining economically, making seniors work full time or opening up to immigration, we will have to choose.