Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:08 on 2024-11-06 Permalink Reply  

• DeWolf 13:12 on 2024-11-06 Permalink

  Batten the hatches! God forbid we’d have any sympathy for people in dire straits.

• Chris 18:28 on 2024-11-06 Permalink

  Hard to do when so many of we ourselves are in dire straits.

• dwgs 19:31 on 2024-11-06 Permalink

  If there’s a bad take to be had Chris will find it.

• Kate 08:45 on 2024-11-07 Permalink

  What amazes me is that we’ve got a declining birthrate and we need workers, but Legault can’t see this as an opportunity, at least partly. Yes, it’s a challenge to provide housing and services, but Quebec is big! We’ve got room!

  People would not be coming here expecting to loaf, they’d know they have to work. Some of them might even be able to construct housing.

• walkerp 10:08 on 2024-11-07 Permalink

  My upstairs neighbour surprised me last night by saying that he was excited about the prospect of tons of immigrants coming here in response to Trump’s mass deportation threats. His thesis is that Canada has tons of room and that we could build 10 new major cities here, increase our manufacturing and consumer base and be less dependent on the US and world for exports. Many issues there obviously, but as you point out Kate, if you are a capitalist and into growth, this seems like a positive vision. We definitely have the space.

• Chris 10:28 on 2024-11-07 Permalink

  dwgs, how is it a bad take? It’s a comment on human psychology. When oneself is suffering, it’s harder to be sympathetic/empathetic/generous to others. There are of course levels of ‘dire straits’. But just because the average Canadian is not as bad off as, say, a North Korean, he’s worse off than he was years ago. To then tell him “there may be an influx of millions, have sympathy!” is not going to be well received by many.

  I am reminded of David Frum’s quote “If liberals insist that only fascists will enforce borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals refuse to do.”.

  But go on, keep your head in the sand. Even after Trump’s second win.

  >Yes, it’s a challenge to provide housing and services, but Quebec is big! We’ve got room!

  Agreed! But you have to put the cart *behind* the horse. Or at least beside it. Not in front of it.

• walkerp 11:45 on 2024-11-07 Permalink

  Is he worse off, though?

• Meezly 12:52 on 2024-11-07 Permalink

  When so-called lefties say we should help refugees and open up our borders, there’s always those who whine “but what about our homeless and our unemployed?”. We know these people don’t volunteer in soup kitchens or donate to charities. They’re the kind who more often than not are quick to blame others for their misfortune.

  The thing with human psychology is that it has quite a wide-range. On a more positive note, I’m reminded of the story of how the Choctaw tribe collected money to help the Irish during the great famine. It’s important to note that the Choctaw were displaced, homeless, dirt poor and faring just as bad if not worse than the Irish, yet they managed to scrounge up money to help strangers during a time of crisis to a country far, far away. Ever since the. mid 1800s, the two nations have been helping other out and continue to have a long-standing relationship to this day.

  “The Choctaw donating to Irish was not just philanthropic, it was also a critique of imperialism in the United States… These were nations that were victims of the Anglo-Protestant imperial project.”

  Trump returning to office can be seen as a time of crisis and it’s gonna have global implications. During the next 4 years, it’s more important than ever to forge alliances. No matter where we stand personally, it’s important to remember that unity and diversity is our greatest strength.

• Joey 14:47 on 2024-11-07 Permalink

  @walkerp except that we are literally turning off international education because we have inadequate housing. Yes, Canada is big and empty, except for tour cities, which are full (and new housing is not exactly coming on like wildfire).

  @chris and yet the fact that Biden made serious progress on the border (and all the other issues that ostensibly propelled trump to the presidency this time): https://jabberwocking.com/the-working-class-rears-its-electoral-head-yet-again/ The issue isn’t about policies or numbers or details, it’s about being perceived as xenophobic enough to mollify the right-wing rage machine, and the Democrats by definition will always come up short.

• DeWolf 00:06 on 2024-11-08 Permalink

  Part of the xenophobic propaganda we are seeing from right-wing populists like Orban, Trump and Pollievre is a deliberate obfuscation of the different types of migrants. Temporary foreign workers, permanent residents, asylum seekers, refugees — they all get thrown into the same bucket as far as public perception goes.

  Migration to Canada has clearly become imbalanced and untenable in many ways. As Joey said, when the vast majority of Canadians live in a few big cities, it’s not sustainable to have so many international students and temporary foreign workers coming in. It’s bad for citizens as well as those newcomers themselves. But people seeking asylum can’t be treated as “illegal immigrants.” That’s a toxic way of looking at things because it basically denies the very existence of refugees as a category of migrants. It suggests that nobody is actually fleeing for their lives, they’re just liars and cheats who are making things up.

  But we’re not seeing any sort of nuanced discussion of this because the anti-immigrant leaders don’t care. They’re just exploiting people’s basest, most xenophobic and most bigoted instincts to score political points. It’s not too much to expect politicians not to pander to the crudest sensibilities of their voters.