Anti-immigrant sentiment is surging in Canada, with politicians and far-right pundits blaming newcomers for crises in housing, health care, and unemployment. But these problems stem from policy failure and inequality, not immigration. Scapegoating immigrants diverts attention from the real causes and fuels racism at a time when solidarity is most needed.
Immigration does not bring wages down. The increase in productivity and consumer demand (ie profit) offset that potential impact and the largest study showed that immigrants have a net neutral or positive effect on locals wages. If wages do go down when immigrants are hired at an organisation, someone is pocketing that difference and they are the source of the problem.
Immigrants do not increase the cost of housing and this can be best conceptualized in the context of local outmigrations. Locals have a tendency to move out of neighbourhoods when immigrants move in, out of a desire to continue living in a homogenous space. There was actually a common phrase for this during less open minded times: “There goes the neighbourhood” implying that property values would drop when people of color or immigrants moved in. Only in the era of housing commodification and artificially perpetuated housing scarcity has this narrative been flipped on its head. Either way, unsurprisingly, the immigrant is the scapegoat.
This is a reiteration from the posted article but immigrants consume healthcare resources at a lower rate for a variety of factors (a major one being age). Despite consuming less, they pay taxes into the system proportional to their income. With that in mind, we are not subsidizing their care. In fact, they are subsidizing our care by paying more into the system than they take out.