Kanada hat es geschafft, die Einwanderung ohne Sündenböcke und ohne Grausamkeit unter Kontrolle zu bringen. Darauf kann man stolz sein. – Spencer Fernando

We haven’t avoided it at all. People have become way more openly racist in the last couple of years, and it’s very much driven by the perception of certain immigrant groups affecting the job and housing markets.

But it’s not their fault. We should be placing blame on the business lobbies that demanded excessive immigration and the politicians who acceded without consideration of the consequences.

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Pretty good article, and it’s an important point.

>Thus, in a relatively short-time, Canada has gone from significant levels of immigration and resulting high population growth, to negative population growth. What makes this notable is that **this shift was in response to changing public sentiment, and it was accomplished without widespread scapegoating of immigrants by prominent politicians, and it was accomplished without government-sponsored cruelty.**

>That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a rise in tension, nor does it mean that there hasn’t been a rise in racism towards some groups. What it does mean is that most Canadians have chosen a ‘middle way’ when it comes to addressing immigration: *Pushing for lower immigration levels without directing hate towards immigrants.*

>*…*

>Canadian politicians across the political spectrum also deserve credit for a relatively responsible approach to discussing immigration. While right-wing leaders in many parts of the world have often used quite brutal language and even spread lies to try and gin up public anger against immigrant communities, that has been left to a few more fringe voices on the far-right in Canada, while the main right-wing party – the Conservatives – have generally framed immigration in economic terms and spoken about Canadian values without directly demonizing specific groups.

>**Similarly, even as the Carney Liberals undertake a significant reorientation of immigration policy, they have done so without demonizing immigrants and have simultaneously maintained Canada’s stance of openness to others.**

>This speaks well of Canada and Canadians. Our nation may not be perfect, but we have built a country where people of all backgrounds can feel included in the Canadian family, and where **the public can be heard, policy errors can be addressed, and immigration can be dialled back without the scapegoating and cruelty that often accompanies immigration restriction in other parts of the world.**

>This is something Canadians can be proud of.

Public frustration over immigration policy, and the resulting policy reversal, mostly played out in the way that it should in a healthy democracy.

Immigration intake reached very high levels in 2022-24, and most Canadians weren’t happy about it. But the response wasn’t anti-immigration riots or violence against immigrant communities. We didn’t even see any of the major political parties try to exploit that public frustration in toxic ways by demonizing immigrants, or demonizing specific ethnic groups.

Instead, the public concerns about immigration were mostly channeled through sharp changes in public opinion polls (e.g. big shifts on questions about immigration, and a turn against the governing Liberal party) and through social media comments (sometimes reasonable and sometimes ugly).

Ultimately the government figured out that the public was unhappy with their policy (whether that was due to reading the polls, hearing from constituents, or reading the economic data), and made a course correction with big cuts to immigration policy, starting in fall 2024, and going further in 2025.

Aside from some of the ugly stuff on social media stuff, this mostly played out how it should in a democracy: public disagreement with a government policy got expressed in non-violent and (mostly) non-hateful ways, and then the government responded by changing its policy to address people’s concerns.

A lot of countries have seen their immigration debates turn completely toxic, and it’s a good thing that we’ve been able to mostly avoid that here.

I think we can have a reasonable and civil discussion about immigration without it devolving into racism or baseless accusations of racism. No matter where you come from, all humans have basic needs (food, water, shelter, healthcare) so the liberal party’s mismanagement of immigration in recent years has brought us into a situation where we have a higher population than our infrastructure can sustain. This naturally leads to increased competition for essential resources which breeds resentment since many Canadians feel like their government isn’t looking out for them. I don’t think it’s unfair to make the statement that a generational Canadian should not have to compete with someone who just moved here from halfway around the world to pick apples off of the tree that their grandparents planted. I think if we eliminate emotionally charged anger from the discussion, we can find civilized and reasonable solutions on this issue.

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