Federal NDP candidate Avi Lewis says Canada’s immigration system is broken and promises sweeping reforms
Federal NDP candidate Avi Lewis says Canada’s immigration system is broken and promises sweeping reforms
14 Comments
One of the very few areas in which I disagree with Mark Carney’s government so far is the immigration cuts he has imposed.
With our country experiencing a catastrophic demographic emergency via alarmingly declining birth rates and ballooning Old Age Dependency Ratio, it is absolutely imperative that immigration levels be increased to compensate, likely to at least 3 to 5 percent per annum.
Moreover, to compete and thrive in a more dangerous world going forward, Canada needs a tremendously strong military, which can only be achieved via a large population to support it.
Avi Lewis is certainly on the right track here, and I commend him for it.
Dunno what Lewis is thinking here. Ramping immigration back up has got to be one of the most unpopular policy positions right now.
Maybe old white retired NDP boomers will like it? and it could help the leadership race, but then what
Ok so Lewis wants to run on drastically cutting back military spending and massively increased immigration (and giving up a lot of control over immigration by cancelling the safe third country agreement with the US, meaning that everyone who walks across that border immediately gets to stay in Canada)Â
Buddy. Wtf.Â
I’m not sure I agree with him here but I largely support as much immigration as our public infrastructure allows for. If Lewis’ policies build public infrastructure like Healthcare and other services (which I am optimistic that it will) maybe this can be done.
If Lewis is serious about laboir reform and makes that the cornerstone of immigration policy it could work. But as it stands now his comments prick up the ears of the corporate elite – more wage slaves, you say?
Maybe they will throw their support behind Lewis haha
I like his principled stance that immigrants are being scapegoated for the wider wealth inequalities that have riven our society in two. It’s true, and the hateful and ugly side of Canada has been on full display these last couple of years.
But the flip side of that is that immigrants are indeed used by the people with wealth, to suppress Canadian wages and erode the ability of the average Canadian to get ahead. This is also a core left-wing position, or was, once. He needs to reconcile the two, and it isn’t an easy political needle to thread.
We’ve reached a point quite some time ago in politics where people hate brown people more than they care about the results of a shrinking population. We’re just going to have to deal with that reality. If you show anything but utter disdain for immigrants you’re treated like the crazy one even on this sub now.
Avi Lewis’s stance on immigration, which advocates for Status for all, will cost NDP another election because it does not resonate with most Canadians.
Unfortunately, the NDP caucus will continue to vote in such leaders.
We need a true federal party for the working class.
Too much too soon isn’t fair to the immigrant either who is ultimately lied to about the prospects, affordability, and accessibility of Canada.
The Liberals broke the Canadian consensus on immigration (we often forget that Harper had record immigration too in his later years) and it’s going to take a while to build back that consensus.
Wish I read this before voting in the leadership race. I believe immigrants are being scapegoated but a system like this will only make that worse. I believe they should have more worker protections to close the gaps with corporations choosing them to exploit over Canadian workers for cheap labour but we also need to end the TFWP and cut back on legal immigration excluding necessary industries like healthcare and construction until more infrastructure is built and Canadians recognize it’s the billionaires not the immigrants. He’s getting compared to Bernie Sanders but this isn’t a Bernie position.
I’m so frustrated with my party. Rob Ashton was promising until his AI fumble. Tony McQuail barely ran a campaign and McPherson is just a pro-oil Singh.
Holy shit, I was going to quote the most important parts of what he said, but every word of this interview is true. Maybe Lewis is more based than I thought.
Too bad people won’t actually read it and just knee-jerk react about immigrants existing.
This is one of his ideas that makes me seriously question whether his team has done any research (i.e, focus groups, polling, etc) to examine the popularity or desirability of their policies. It feels like a position that is born out of ideology than any sort of practical examination of the facts, including public opinion, the poor state of infrastructure, and our general incapacity to take in new people without further straining the already strained systems. There’s evidence that his team has done poor research in other areas: despite saying poll after poll shows support for a wealth tax, his sole evidence for support of that proposal is a poll from 2021. (Side note: If he was reading poll after poll, he’d know Canadians have soured on immigration). Regardless, I am really curious where they got around to thinking it was a good idea to promote this; it wasn’t because there’s evidence Canadians want it.
I think there’s a way to communicate a “we shouldn’t have BS temporary migration, and have much smaller streams of PR migration that aren’t designed to benefit corporations with a cheap workforce”, but this ain’t it. I do agree with the idea that your immigration system shouldn’t be designed in a way that it’s going to lead to abuse of the people in that system, but you absolutely have to couple that with a message that that system also often hurts Canadian workers and students, and Lewis has completely failed to do that here.
Might not be the absolute worst idea if he pursues “Expand Sectoral Bargaining” first, but there’s something disappointing about how the solution to exploitation is acknowledging we cannot enforce our rules so we need to change those rules to be more accommodating.
Similar to how the student hours were changed from 20 to 40 as a harm reduction effort. A perfectly reasonable rule, students are suppose to be here to learn after all not work, but we’re forced to lose that rule because importing a vulnerable population creates bad incentives and outcomes.
This is still a gift to business owners, vulnerability is relative and fresh vulnerable labour, with status, is still vulnerable.
Oh boy this is not the type of tone to take in this type of climate.
I like a decent % of what Lewis has said for his policies so fair, however this seems like they dont care on being electable to the non NDP base which is their own choice.