HRM Planning Should Be Ashamed

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

It is a tougher topic that often can't be grappled with in Canada, but it's also not necessarily racist to want to conserve something about the place you live in or your culture. "I don't like that I go to the grocery store and nobody speaks English anymore" is a hypothetical valid opinion to have for non-racist reasons and it can be grounded in accurate observation.

Not sure if it could be said to be accurate around the Halifax area anywhere, but that is a question that can be dealt with directly rather than shut down with accusations of racism. In other words, the healthier objection is "the vast majority do speak English", not "shut up you racist".

If you think about other hypothetical scenarios like, an area that was predominantly White sees an increasing number of Black or Indigenous people moving in. So a longer term resident objects saying that they want to conserve the look or culture of the place - not because they're racist or anything, but they don't want the area to change. "I just don't like going to the grocery store and seeing all these people who look and sound different than before". The main focus should be on how healthy our objection should be?

If the staff at the grocery store couldn't speak English preventing the person from getting customer service, then sure. But that's on the grocery store for its hiring policies. If some of the other customers at the grocery store are speaking a different language, it honestly isn't anyone else's business. It's true that most immigrants can speak English, but it's natural for people to speak to one another in the way they're most comfortable. Sure others have the right not to like it, but if they claim that it's a reason people shouldn't be allowed in the country then I'm not sure how that wouldn't qualify as a form of xenophobia. There's no such thing as the right to have other people look, talk, dress, etc. the same as you. But it's true that xenophobia can exist independently of racism, so if the only issue is that word then fine. I tend to avoid accusatory language since most people aren't aware of their biases. But I also wouldn't focus on someone using it rather than on the main issue.

Originally Posted by someone123

One red flag I think is that the government did agree its own immigrant policy was too much but it's still hard to say that the now-reduced prior level of immigration was causing problems such as high housing costs. It's just obviously true that Canada has a certain capacity to absorb newcomers, it also depends on the people who come (like how good their English is and their education/skill level), and there is definitely a level that's "too high". Canada obviously can't support 10 million per year for example. It's not racist to debate 300k vs. 1 million, which is whether Canada should have one of the higher immigration rates in the world or go way above that as an outlier.

But that can still be discussed in terms of general growth policy and targets. Countries have trouble handling too high a rate of natural reproduction too. In fact, China famously instituted the "one child policy" for many years for that very reason. So it's too much growth that's the issue, not immigration specifically. And honestly, not singling out immigration makes the issue easier to discuss rather than harder because then you're not pulling in a lot of people who are biased against anti-immigrants in general so you're able to focus on actual substantive discussions on growth policy.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

If you think about other hypothetical scenarios like, an area that was predominantly White sees an increasing number of Black or Indigenous people moving in. So a longer term resident objects saying that they want to conserve the look or culture of the place - not because they're racist or anything, but they don't want the area to change. "I just don't like going to the grocery store and seeing all these people who look and sound different than before". The main focus should be on how healthy our objection should be?

Well, I think your scenario will tend to raise more alarm bells in people, but it's different in important ways. Canadians are allowed to move where they want, whereas immigration (new or renewed visas) is a live policy decision that should have democratic buy-in. There's also much less of a plausible language or culture gap there, even though there might be some cultural differences, and these are small minorities, not major cultures that utterly dwarf Canada and could produce influxes of millions per year.

I also don't think it is or should be about "race" per se. The issue is more about supportable rates of immigration, not number of people of some race. Historic minority groups like African NSians or Chinese who have been in Vancouver for generations are not immigrants.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

But that can still be discussed in terms of general growth policy and targets. Countries have trouble handling too high a rate of natural reproduction too. In fact, China famously instituted the "one child policy" for many years for that very reason. So it's too much growth that's the issue, not immigration specifically. And honestly, not singling out immigration makes the issue easier to discuss rather than harder because then you're not pulling in a lot of people who are biased against anti-immigrants in general so you're able to focus on actual substantive discussions on growth policy.

It can be the issue but there can be other bottlenecks and it's not the same even for housing, etc. When parents have a baby for example the baby usually lives with the parents, but when immigrants come they tend to form new households immediately. There is also the capacity to absorb immigration and it depends on factors like skills match between the immigrant and the economy. Then yes there are cultural integration aspects (like capacity to learn English and navigate society) which we have historically not worried about because Canada tended to handle this well. But it's not guaranteed to work out.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

Well, I think your scenario will tend to raise more alarm bells in people, but it's different in important ways. Canadians are allowed to move where they want, whereas immigration (new or renewed visas) is a live policy decision that should have democratic buy-in. There's also much less of a plausible language or culture gap there, even though there might be some cultural differences, and these are small minorities, not major cultures that utterly dwarf Canada and could produce influxes of millions per year.

I agree that it's different, but i don't agree that the differences are particularly relevant. I suppose what it comes down to is that i fundamentally reject the idea of governments or majority groups regulating cultural differences beyond areas of functional necessity. Functional necessity as in someone's ability to live peacefully and function within the economy. To me that's not terribly different than how domestically-born children are legally required to attend school to ensure they can be functional citizens. So things like a person's criminal record would speak to their track record of living peacefully, while their work credentials and ability to speak one or more of the official languages relates to their ability to support themselves and engage with governments and institutions. And these aspects are already part of our immigration process.

Plus the thing with language is that a lot (most?) of the people complaining about hearing foreign languages such as in the grocery store example do so on the basis of hearing said languages without even knowing that the people speaking them can speak one of the official languages well enough to get by. With the current points system, it's difficult to impossible to get in without speaking either official language.

Originally Posted by someone123

It can be the issue but there can be other bottlenecks and it's not the same even for housing, etc. When parents have a baby for example the baby usually lives with the parents, but when immigrants come they tend to form new households immediately. There is also the capacity to absorb immigration and it depends on factors like skills match between the immigrant and the economy. Then yes there are cultural integration aspects (like capacity to learn English and navigate society) which we have historically not worried about because Canada tended to handle this well. But it's not guaranteed to work out.

There's certainly some truth to that, but it's overwhelmingly common for people in Canada to need, or at least want, new and usually larger homes when their family grows. So it generally is right away that growth by natural reproduction puts strain on the housing market. And also, it's quite common for new immigrants to be much more willing to either live with previously established family here, or to share spaces with others. Of course it's different when it's a whole family, but a big part of this discussion is around TFWs and foreign students, and both groups tend to skew more toward the single side.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I agree that it's different, but i don't agree that the differences are particularly relevant. I suppose what it comes down to is that i fundamentally reject the idea of governments or majority groups regulating cultural differences beyond areas of functional necessity.

This is okay as a personal position but you're talking about your view, not politics and the plurality of views out there. We are in a democracy and different people will have a different sense of what they're comfortable with. If they get shut down by a technocratic or moralistic view of how their concerns aren't valid, they will tend to find new political outlets. See the US, which violently shifted from Democrats who denied concerns about immigration (some racist, some valid, some not) to a president who actively promotes racist policies for political gain. It would have been better for the Democrats to engage with the concerns.

With the current points system, it's difficult to impossible to get in without speaking either official language.

I think this was falling apart a bit with temporary status ("TFW") and family unification. The explanation that immigration always goes well in Canada so we shouldn't worry about it has weakened somewhat. I think we should separate support for immigration or tolerance of or affinity toward cultural diversity from support for any specific policies.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

This is okay as a personal position but you're talking about your view, not politics and the plurality of views out there. We are in a democracy and different people will have a different sense of what they're comfortable with. If they get shut down by a technocratic or moralistic view of how their concerns aren't valid, they will tend to find new political outlets. See the US, which violently shifted from Democrats who denied concerns about immigration (some racist, some valid, some not) to a president who actively promotes racist policies for political gain. It would have been better for the Democrats to engage with the concerns.

I understand the concept of a utilitarian or pragmatic argument, but I don't think that's what actually happened in the US. In reality, the Right - not specifically the GOP party itself but the wider sphere of influence including media like Fox news and social media influencers - pushed anti-immigrant narratives for the sake of political gain. They cultivated anti-immigrant fervor by lying repeatedly about public safety implications that not only weren't supported by actual evidence but for which the evidence directly contradicted. It wasn't just something that developed organically as a result of democrats not talking enough about real concerns that happened to arise. We can see this in how right wing media focused on such stories so intently in the lead up to major elections and then basically stopped overnight once the election was over. They do the similar things with other issues as well, with the same coordinated talking points, most recently CRT and trans issues.

The moral of the story isn't that when a country with a major propaganda machine tries to set the agenda to something advantageous to the Right that it's better for the Left and Center to go along with it and let them control the conversation. That's the trap they're trying to set as you don't win when playing on their terms and by their rules. The real lesson is to offer a strong affirmative vision that provides real solutions to actual problems like the cost of living. Be proudly for something rather than just against something. When you validate their framing, you're left with the choice of either endorsing the GOP's extreme policy "solutions" or being a weaker alternative to the GOP which voters then reject because you accept the claim that it's an important issue but aren't taking as "strong" of action on it.

Instead, Hilary basically claimed the country was fine as it was and she just offered platitudes rather than meaningful solutions, and Kamala started out well but then just pivoted to basically being the, "Not as bad as Trump, not as senile as Joe" option. And then she campaigned with people like Liz Cheney, an anti-Trump GOPer which says, "I'm not that different from the GOP; I'm just nicer and more sane than the MAGA crazies." Which didn't appeal to most GOP voters who are now MAGA, and didn't generate enthusiasm among the Dem base since they don't want someone cozy with the right and who has few bold policy solutions. She didn't support medicare for all, she didn't support strong measures to reign in the Israeli government and their brutality, stopped talking about the anti-price gouging policy she proposed (after the wealthy donors pushed back) etc.

[someone123]

I don't think illegal immigration to the US from Latin America is or was a fake issue and the Democrats sort of ignored it, referring to "dreamers" and the like, and to my knowledge never simply came out and affirmed that border security and work authorization was a federal responsibility. Justin Trudeau was very similar. I think the main difference is just that Canada is not as desirable as the USA and is harder to get to, so we had fewer illegal immigrants. But there was a bit of a crisis in that place in Quebec, and if it had been bigger we would have had a bigger backlash and I bet we'd have PM Pierre Poilievre right now.

There is also racism and there are fake issues. The "Muslim ban" is a good example of fear mongering led by Trump and it was deeply unfair and illogical.

[Nouvellecosse]

Oh I'm not saying it was fake in the sense that there was no illegal immigration. I'm saying it was fake in that it wasn't the actual cause of most (any?) of the problems the propagandists blamed on it. And that it wouldn't be a major political issue without being made into one by them telling voters over and over again that they were in danger and all their problems were caused by it. It's a pattern we see constantly with the US Right where something polls fairly low as a voter concern in opinion surveys, but rather than the Right choosing to focus on things that poll higher that aren't as politically useful to them, they just drive up the poll numbers for the things they want to talk about by constantly fear-mongering about them.

The main issue is, the problems people are experiencing in the US are overwhelmingly caused by policies the GOP elite want to preserve. Things like them being anti-union leading to low rates of unionization which leads to wage stagnation and poor working conditions. And things like not increasing the federal minimum wage - not even matching inflation - for a whole decade. But that stuff is profitable for the wealthy GOP elites so they need to find other things to blame people's problems on. So they invent things that would make good scapegoats by playing on people's biases, then tell them those things are the cause of their problems. Then, the centrist led Dems (many of whom also benefit from inequality) run against GOP fear mongering and scapegoating by saying how it's really deplorable and stuff which is true. But that's just addressing the problem of the GOP false solutions when they need a platform that addresses the actual initial problems. Then when they lose due to lacking said platform, people say they lost because they didn't play along with the GOP scapegoating enough.

Canada doesn't have as much of that dynamic even though we have stuff like much higher rates of immigration because we don't have the same propaganda machine. The Right wing here mostly just has social media which is pretty effective for them but not to the degree as the US so they struggle to set the agenda as effectively. Trying to connect it to real world differences is mostly a futile game because the propagandists will invent an issue to amplify whether it's reflected in reality or not. So the degree to which something is reflected in reality is mostly irrelevant when it comes to them.

A lot of this falls into the realm of Agenda-setting theory which shows the connection between media coverage and public opinion. While the Wiki page is a bit outdated in that social media and polarization play a much bigger role in the media ecosystem nowadays, it still is a fairly accurate summary.

The agenda-setting by media is driven by the media's bias on things such as politics, economy and culture, etc. Audiences consider an issue to be more significant the more media attention it receives (issue saliency). For instance, even if readers do not have strong feelings about immigration, they will believe that it is a pressing problem at the time if there is consistent journalistic coverage of it over the period of a few months.[4]

I should also point out that the quote above pertains to simple media bias which is often unintentional, but the US Right wing propaganda machine was created specifically for that purpose. Rupert Murdoch created Fox news with the partnership of Roger Ailes who, as a former GOP strategist under with Nixon, had the idea of a GOP propaganda network to shape public opinion. So that's going to have a much stronger effect than unintentional biases.

So yes I have no issue discussing population growth targets or the growing pains that can result from growth. But the idea that we should entertain discriminatory stances out of political necessity I see no evidence of.