A majority of Canadians want the country to accept fewer immigrants and temporary residents next year, according to a new Nanos Research survey commissioned by CTV News, as the country continues to grapple with immigration levels and their impact on housing, services and the economy.

The survey found that 52.3 per cent of respondents believe Canada should accept fewer immigrants and temporary residents in 2027, compared with 33.5 per cent who want the numbers to remain about the same.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (15 children)

There is a big mix of reasons that is easy to understand.

  1. Racism, of course.
  2. Still a housing crisis going on. The recent downturn in prices only reflects interest rates, not availability and affordability. We've never tied immigration to housing completion rates, so without anywhere new to put new people, the housing crisis gets worse. We got a bit of a wheezy cough of relief with the fraudulent student loophole being closed.
  3. They hinted that millenials and genx were relatively more for lower immigration while older genx and boomers were less so. The most likely reason is people out of the workforce don't have to worry about competition for jobs, and the older groups are more likely to need immigrants for medical nursing and geriatric services as there is an accute shortage.

This poll doesn't bother looking at any of this. CTV is largely a conservative voice (used to be liberal) and they want to group them together to legitimize conservative positions which are based on racism.

  • source
  • hideshow 15 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago (10 children)

    If racism was a significant driver of this, I don't think people would have shiften in opinion so much, especially in correlation with the economic conditions. Racism tends to be stable and change over longer periods. I think it's mostly 2 and 3.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago* (7 children)

    It's never simple and straightforward. People have a mix of 1, 2 and 3 in varying amounts. Those who are mostly 1 didn't change over time. This poling doesn't distinguish them from the other groups who do. It is the 2 and 3 that account for the changes.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    The problem is that until very recently, if you questioned Canada's immigration policy you were called racist. You don't hear as much of that now because the people who used to call those people racist agree.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    But a LOT of it is racism. It's how and why someone questions immigration policy that gets called out.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Racism is a factor but conversations on this topic used to be immediately shut down as racism by default all the time. Not the case as often now.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 day ago

    Precisely.

    Person: "We should slow down our immigration rate."

    Someone else: "Don't be racist."

    That's the conversation, more or less, for most of Trudeau's time in office. Now that Carney's starting to do that, it's not.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    I'm kinda new here so I can't comment on thread locks and overzealous modding. But legitimate arguments should be discussed. Its the bad faith actors, and conservative and Russian trolls who latch on to any real argument to shoehorn in their hate and disinformation. Look at how well it worked in Brexit.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (1 child)

    Canada used to have an excellent immigration program, it was envied by other countries. It was fair, and made sure Canada got decent qualified candidates and at a rate that Canada could easily absorb.

    Justin and the Liberals decided to throw it out and open the flood gates, and mostly from only one particular country. To make matters worse, we also have / had the scam foreign schooling going on here as well as the TFW debacle, and it was / is a recipe for disaster.

    You can’t have that many people from only one country, in the numbers that were done, without uproar. It’s not racism, it’s just common sense.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    You didn't amswer my question. You said "people like me". What did I say that triggered you to lash out at me?

    Also, now I'm starting to see the point. You actually are framing the discussion in a probably racist way. <-feel free to be triggered now. It might not be intentional, I have no idea. But just fyi if you want to know why people say that to you -

    If the immigration system was built on rules and selection criteria, why does it matter where they come from? Qualified is qualified. That you choose to single out Indians is why you are getting called out. It's not common sense at all. It's racist. You aren't pointing that the rules are bent for India, which would be a legitimate complaint. You just say too many of those people.

    It is not odd that India represents by far the single largest immigrant source. Being not only one of the most populous countries, but a commonwealth country with a very high rate of english as a second language and as a developing country with heavy poverty, inequality has a lot who want to leave.

    You can make an argument about the total numbers of people we can absorb. Like my point about a country in a housing crisis not tying immigration numbers to housing completions only adds to the crisis.

    The proverbial floodgates were opened because of our demographic crisis - an aging population won't have enough young workers to support pensions a d healthcare let alone a changing economy. In trying to solve one crisis (demographic), they exacerbated two more (housing) and affordability (labour wage suppression.)

    The abuse of the student loophole with sham "colleges" is a legit complaint. These are people who don't qualify as permanent residents going to false front schools just to live here and work full time at the jobs qualified Canadian youth can't get.

    The abuses of the TFW porgram, where people can't get interviews or jobs while businesses are filing obviously bogus TFW applications claiming that they can't find anyone skilled for high paying jobs is also legit criticism. Nothing racist about that. Brutally bad policy where Trudeau was asleep at the wheel and Carney hasn't yet and likely won't fix.

    The student loopholes are mostly closed and only the TFW abuses and the housing crisis remain.

    Notice how I didn't need to single out any particular group? That's not racist. Picking on Indian immigrants because they're too many from one country? That is indeed clearly racist, even if unintentional.

    Edits for clarity and spelling.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 54 minutes ago*

    Hate for south Asians in particular is very much on the rise. Go on literally any mainstream app and find a video featuring canada you'll find awful racist comments under the video. A lot of those are bots, but the point of those bots are to turn people with neutral opinions on indians into negative opinions. Those who are not careful with their algorithms get pushed channels that exclusively push any antisocial news about immigrants exclusively. Right now if you lurk in conservative spaces you'll see a common narrative that people aren't wearing poppies anymore because immigrants don't understand and the government is going to replace rememberance day with Diwali. Ignore that properganda at your peril, its clearly organized and it's going to have some effect.

    My wife used to get hate because she was Muslim, now she gets hate because she is Indian looking. It's obviously and decidedly worse than it was 10 years ago, especially in the workplace unfortunately.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago

    Okay except immigrants have been serving as a very convenient scapegoat for decades of policy failure around housing, especially in the last few years. So... media coverage linking immigration to the housing crisis could absolutely explain wider shifts in opinion than you might otherwise expect, yes?

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Saying that we want immigration from MORE than just ONE country is not racism, I’m so tired of that shit. We can’t have an homest conversation about immigration because most people like you only see the rest of us as being racists.

    My wife is an immigrant from the Caribbean, there are lots of other places that have people that would like to immigrate here. The problem is Justin opened the flood gates to only India, and with absurd numbers.

    You can’t let in over 20 million Indians in a short time and honestly expect everything to be hunky dory.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    What did I say exactly that triggered you?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments