Somehow blaming Immigrants for our problems has become more common than cold winter days in Canada

When in doubt, blame the immigrants

As our provincial, federal, and municipal governments continue to fail us Canadians, these same politicians who caused the problems are trying to shift the blame elsewhere. And of course, when in doubt, blame the immigrants.

Unlike our counter-parts down south, Canadians have always been relatively receptive to immigrants, at least according to surveys. Despite this, in recent months the lack luster Canadian media machine has begun pumping out articles discussing Canada’s high immigration levels, and unsurprisingly they aren’t exactly singing their praises.

The “media company” that I have seen heading this latest campaign is non-other than the National Post. Now whether it confusing breast reductions with gender affirming care for trans kids or calling Rebel News employees “journalists”, they always have the worst take on every issue. Most recently the National Post published an article stating “Canada's high immigration is driving down per-capita GDP: report”, well they didn’t bury the lead I guess. Of course they give a bit more context in the article itself, but let’s not kid ourselves here, everyone knows that 99% of the people who see this article will just see the title. So the intention behind said title was really the sole intention.

The report that the post is referring to states that high population growth has resulted in a rise in rental costs, which is effecting the Canadian economy. But what the article fails to mention is the fact that the report itself states that a bigger issue effecting GDP (gross domestic production) is “Domestic-Demand”. In other words, ain’t nobody got money to fucking spend up in this bitch.

Of course the National Post is no stranger to some less than unbias reporting. Especially when the reporting just happens to fall right in line with the whatever the latest political talking point is. I guess being owned by Conrad Black tends to do this to you.

2020, the year we all realized we were underpaid

To understand the recent uptick in immigration we have to look back at the year that nearly halted all immigration, 2020. For many, the pandemic was the first significant time-off people had since, well high school honestly. And besides the fact that we couldn’t go anywhere and people were sick and dying all around us, many in the working class experienced what it was like to have some free time.

Parts of the working class, specifically those in the lowest paid sectors were able to experience what it was like to ““...to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, [and] criticise after dinner...” (Some guy). Now of course it was not all fun and games, especially as funds were running out for everyone. But then came the stimulus checks.

The stimulus checks, as much as libertarian pundits disagree, were a good thing. But when that $2000 came rolling in with the idea that this was the bare minimum needed to survive, it opened a lot of eyes across the working class. Why would servers, cooks, delivery drivers, maids, lab technicians, janitors, retail workers, fast-food workers, and every other low pay, high stress job be interested in going back to said job if they are paid barely above what is considered the bare minimum to survive?

This change, along with the pandemic halting life and fundamentally changing the job market with the long-overdue change to remote work allowed for many (the most privileged of the under-privileged) to shift to new careers, careers that did not involve being yelled at by some man who is mad that his “spicy nachos are too spicy” and says “did one of you fuckers put ghost peppers in this!”, “no sir, you are just white”.

Workers began pursuing jobs that offered more flexibility, lower stress, and of course greater benefits/ payment for their labour. Companies of course, did not like this one bit. Industries that relied on cheap and controllable labour were suddenly down employees and unable to recruit new ones. I feel like we all know where this is going.

Immigration and labour

Immigrants and labour have long been a staple in modern political discussions. This is of course because of the inherent connection between immigrants — or for the purpose of this discussion, people who move to find better work or life in general — and capitals ever persistent need for cheaper and less organized labour.

It is no secret that companies, small-businesses and every other employer across North America are looking for the cheapest labour possible. In the past at least some employers would value the longtime employee who knows the business like the back of their hand and pay them what they deserve, somewhat. But as the need to always make more money — especially for any investors — becomes increasingly harder to fulfill, the cheap, controllable, and easily replaceable labour begins to tantalize the capitalist urge.

In Sruti Chaganti’s Creation of a Third Wolrd in the First, Struit explains how companies further their profit through immigrant labour and states, “the best ways of achieving this is by hiring the least organised and most vulnerable labour available, new immigrants, most favourably, undocumented ones who have no protection at all. Governments enforce immigration laws ambivalently, in order to appease capital's need for cheap labour”. And this right here, is exactly why Canada has increased its immigration.

The ultimate swindle

Alright, let me set the scene here, it’s late 2020 and industries across Canada (and the world quite frankly) are struggling. Cheap labour has become impossible to find and businesses are not happy about it. So, the government has to act, but bringing in immigrants to work minimum wage jobs is a) illegal and b) not exactly a popular political position. So what, oh what can Mr. Trudeau do?

Well luckily for Mr. Trudeau it just so happens that post-secondary institutions across Canada were facing financial issues due to a lack of funding from governments, a tuition freeze (based), the pandemic which caused a whole myriad of issues, the fact that everyone is slowly realizing it is a complete scam and everyone who was in charge of these schools graduated from them and well that about sums it up. This created a perfect opportunity for Mr. Trudeau and every other slimy politician this great country has to offer (looking at you Doug). They all could suddenly increase cheap labour without actually doing anything.

All they had to do (or not do) is continue the underfunding of these schools until they were forced to find a new source of revenue. And that new source of revenue ended up being international students. In turn Canada’s international student population skyrocketed to levels never before seen. And for those who are unaware, post-secondary schools charge at least three times the tuition, so tuition goes from 10 grand to 30 grand. So win, win, unless you are an international student that is.

The pitch for international students to come to Canada is, on the surface, a pretty good one. You get a path into a country that offers better education, with generally speaking less competition for jobs and money in general. Plus Canada has diverse population already, so finding strong communities for them to become apart of when they get here is possible. This makes the most daunting part of leaving your home country a little less daunting.

Ultimately the thing that makes it the most clear as to why many Indian citizens are moving to Canada is the fact that the population of India is 1.48 billion people, in a country that is three times smaller than Canada. Also it is important to note that the people recruiting this cheap labour, I mean immigrant students, say that once they finish school they can apply for an extended study permit and ultimately can citizenship after while. In reality, it is not quite as easy as they describe.

But once they get here, it is a much different reality than they are told. First there is of course the living situation. If you think renting is hard as a born Canadian, imagine renting as a non-Canadian (legally at least). Many international students live with 5 or even 6 other students. And if you have rented at all within the last year or so you know they are paying a grand or more for these “premium” living conditions.

When it comes to finding work for immigrant students it is let’s say, limited. Off the bat they are at a disadvantage as they do not have experience (in Canada at least) and English is often not their first language. Often they end up being limited to businesses already owned or managed by Indian people, or they are stuck taking whatever minimum wage job that will hire them.

The issues international students face only begins here. Once they are hired they face some of the worst working conditions of any workers in Canada. As mentioned before, businesses love workers who are unorganized and vulnerable. And who is more vulnerable than a 18 year old kid who is in a country they have never been before without family and with very little to no money?

This results in stolen wages, abusive working conditions (getting cussed out, threatened, and some cases even hit by managers), and anything you could imagine a manager making you do if you could not quit and did not know the laws. Keep in mind this is all at a shitty minimum wage job. A job that, until recently they couldn’t get paid for more than 20 hours (I say paid because there are many cases of them being forced to work more than 20 hours), so imagine trying to make it in Canada with only 20 hours worth of minimum wage pay. Good fucking luck.

All this does is create third world conditions in the first world for these students. Honestly, I haven’t even got into have the shit that makes it so these International students have comparable if not worse conditions when compared to their home country, especially when factoring in being away from family.

A third world in the first

Currently Canada is selling hopes of peace and prosperity to individuals to subsequently turnaround and punish them for pursuing the false hope that they sold them. And on top of that we then blame them for issues that were already present in this country, and they are the same issues that disproportionally effect them.

Canada acts as nothing more than an abusive partner to its immigrants (the ones who aren’t white of course). We bring them in with hopes of nothing but love and support from the country of Canada, and when we finally trick them into coming we force them to work the jobs we didn’t want whilst being thrown into our broken system with the handicap of not knowing any of the laws, regulations, norms, or short cuts to making it as a working class citizen in Canada. We throw them to the wolves, or coyotes I guess, since we killed off most our wolves.

Get’em on the way in and on the way out

So, why did the National Post present it as if immigration is the number one problem? Well, because it is much easier to blame Indian people (not all immigrants are Indian, obviously, but vast majority in recent years have been) who are just trying to find a better life in Canada than criticizing the people who pay their salary.

What is so sickening about this manufacturing of distain for immigrants is the fact that these same immigrants are currently being used and abused by the government, business owners, post-secondary institutions and the ruling class as a whole in order to keep the fire away from their feet.

First, we charge them out the fucking gills to go to our mediocre at bests schools, then resign them to being rideshare drivers, fast-food workers, and whatever other minimum wage gig we need filled. Then we use them as our scapegoats to avoid addressing the consequences of our piss-poor planning and overall economy.

If you have made it to the end of this rambling I ask you of just one thing. When you get mad about the shitty conditions we all currently live in, don’t blame the Indian kids just trying to get a better life for themselves and their families. Blame the the rat fucks in office for continuously funneling money away from the public and into private corporations and hedge funds that buy up all our housing to turn into some shitty short term rental.

Even that economic study the National Post used to blame International students hints at the above statement. It says that a lack of domestic demand is the primary concern behind why an increase in sales or production is not possible. This means that Canadians do not have enough spending money to actually produce enough demand within the Canadian economy. If anything International students should have helped this slightly since they are increasing demand for stuff by just living here. It is no secret that everyday working class Canadians cannot afford to buy more stuff because a majority of us have not had a pay increase that matches inflation during our lifetime. But pay no mind to the record profits by corporations and businesses in Canada, blame the immigrants.

Resources on the conditions International Students face and the housing crisis in general:

Wage theft: https://www.newcanadianmedia.ca/international-students-shame-wage-thieves/

Lack of Employment: https://capitalcurrent.ca/graduating-as-an-international-student-in-canada-struggle-and-heartbreak-amid-unfair-obstacles/

Financialization of Housing: https://herongatetenants.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-financialization-of-Canadian-multi-family-rental-housing-From-trailer-to-tower.pdf

My own piece on the housing crisis:

A note in retrospect:

When writing this I wanted to shed whatever light I could on the struggle of the live of an immigrant in Canada.

One night in the retched town of Brampton Ontario, I was attending the private closing of a bar in some plaza containing nail salons and insurance companies. I found myself outside, looking at the suburban sprawl filtered night sky while smoking a cigarette with a line cook from Tibet. After connecting with him over our shared occupations I began to ask him what he thought of Canada, and he just said “well I am poor here too”.

I hope to communicate the fact that immigrants are working class people just like every other poor soul in this joke of a country.