According to Fraser Institute, an independent Canadian Public policy research and educational institute, Canada welcomes 6 times more immigrants as compared to the United States of America. This makes Canada one of the top destinations for immigrants, majority of which are from China, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Hong Kong.
Now most of these immigrants, especially from Southeast Asia are highly educated professionals such as doctors, engineers, managers, directors and managing directors, HR specialists, pharmacists, professors etc. But there is a catch, though that they are allowed or chosen under those categories, the Canadian government doesn’t recognize outside experience in those professions and neither do the Canadian employers. For certain degrees, like medical, engineering and pharmacy you must start from scratch to become a Canadian institute certified doctor, pharmacist or engineer to be eligible to practice.
I have come across many such folks, especially who are from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where they are doctors, engineers, pharmacists, professors and other major professionals carrying many years of experience doing odd jobs like taxi drivers, Uber drivers, cashiers, warehouse workers and similar blue collar jobs because their experience and degrees are not recognized in Canada which raises the question, “How did they get to Canada then? How were they declared qualified to immigrate to Canada?”. So, there is this flaw in the Canadian immigration system where if you show a certain amount of money in your bank account and show the intention that you intend to buy property there for investment or residential purposes, you are in the game then.
This policy was used and abused by the Liberal party whose government came into power under their leader Justin Trudeau on November 4th, 2015, where Trudeau took office as the Prime Minister. Though he promised the sky and stars to the Canadians, their major focus was getting as many immigrants to Canada as possible. That is for two reasons, one, immigrants bring in money as they move here with all their savings with the intention to buy a home the moment they get here, this fuels the Real Estate and the industries related to it.
Two, more voters for Liberals, as they can boast that they were the ones who made it possible for “families” to be united. As of September 19th, 2019, according to Reuters, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was accused of multiple scandals related to abuse of power, policies, especially immigration policy and corruption, to which he denied and still denies any connection despite plausible proof. There is also another problem, as immigrants reach Canada, the majority lands in two major provinces, British Columbia on the West side, and Ontario in the Mid East. The two primary cities are Vancouver in British Columbia and Toronto in Ontario, no attention was paid towards this by the policy makers, and this resulted with overcrowding these two cities, pushing housing prices out of reach, shortage of rental units as well as cost of living since the supply could not catch up with demand.
Outcries started reaching out to the government and its responsible minister who paid no heed as the situation spiraled out of control. The came COVID, resulting in lockdowns and restricted movement within cities which gave birth to a stagnant economy and that lead to first small businesses closing and eventually big businesses sizing down creating unemployment. The Liberal government, under the direction of their Prime Minister, started giving out unemployment benefit payments to all those who were unemployed due to COVID measures. For this of course they had to print money in the form of billions of dollars. At that time this seemed fun but later it gave rise to inflation which, to this day, runs rampant.
The economy is on the verge of destruction, where cost of living is becoming out of reach for ordinary Canadians, especially new immigrants. Housing prices have skyrocketed putting them out of reach of the new immigrants and every working class Canadian. To top it off the Prime Minister is hell bent on imposing a Carbon Tax on the price of fuel which has further triggered a rise in the price of everything. Daily life has become so bad in major Canadian cities that now there is news on every channel in Canada and almost every channel in the USA, claiming that immigrants are leaving Canada in droves due to deteriorating living conditions and unaffordability.
The government, instead of addressing this issue, is trying their best to suppress such news and introduce censorship laws to control Social Media and news outlets from reporting anything negative against the Liberal government and its blunders, giving the impression to the rest of the world democracies as a civil dictatorship. Long story short, the Liberal government does not see the voter sentiment and as always is trying to give “some” relief to the common Canadian by taking selective steps for selective provinces and regions as elections lurk closer.
However, according to several private and government surveys, the Liberal government has lost its credibility and support. It only stood due to a coalition with the National Democratic Party which had a small number of seats, enough to move the balance of power in the favor of Liberals. That is no longer a viable option for NDP as well since the voter sentiment has shifted in great numbers to the opposition party known as The Conservatives, who are most likely to win the upcoming election in October of 2024 and clearly the Liberals are trying their level best to win the voters by hook or by crook. We will just have to wait and see.
