To be clear, I am extremely pro-immigration, but many of the immigration policies as written are tools used to suppress wages. This is the reason we see so many immigrants, often with degrees and training we refuse to recognize in Canada, in low paying, minimum wage jobs. I personally had the pleasure of working with a wonderful woman from the middle east who was a qualified teacher, stuck working 30 hours a week in a grocery store deli because we refused to recognize her degree or decade of experience. She spoke perfect English, was incredibly pleasant, and visibly intelligent and well-mannered, but she’s a brown immigrant, so fuck it, minimum wage for her.

We can take immigrants at the rate we have been while not using them to further wealth inequalities. But as a friend of mine says, the purpose of a system is what it does, and the current iteration is not about creating a multi-cultural nation.

For additional clarity, this isn’t to say that you’re wrong and immigration isn’t being used as a scapegoat. I’d just argue that the problem is more substantial than simply calling the issue a scapegoat suggests. There is a real problem, but it’s not in that we’re accepting immigrants at all; it’s the conditions we’ve agreed to accept them under.