The importance of integrating immigrants
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185.00294
Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I discuss a new poll on immigration in Canada, Ahmed Hussan's response to it, and what's happening on the ground in Hong Kong right now. I talk about the Hong Kong situation, and how it relates to Canada's immigration policy.
Transcript
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I want to discuss two issues that at first don't seem to have much in common but there's a thread
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between the two of them and that's a new Canadian poll on perspectives on immigration and Ahmed
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Hussein's response to it and what's happening on the ground in Hong Kong right now. So first,
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the poll. This was commissioned by Leger and it asked Canadians do they believe there should be
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more immigration to Canada or should they pause it and decrease it barring changes and approaches to
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integration matters. Two-thirds of Canadians said yes we have some concerns about immigration as it
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relates to integration and a third said no it's it's okay keep increasing the numbers. Now Ahmed
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Hussein he jumped at this opportunity to say he is concerned about all of this and he was implying
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of course that there's some sort of prejudice or racism going on and he jumped at the opportunity
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to use this to vilify conservative leader Andrew Scheer talking about his conspiracy theories and
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alt-right views and all that sort of implication. But hold on a second here it's very important that
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integration was a part of that question. This wasn't Canadians saying oh we don't like immigration we
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don't like immigrants we don't like this group or that group and so forth. It was about whether or
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not one can effectively integrate immigrants into our community or at least the way we're doing it
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now if it is being done effectively. And it's really important that Ahmed Hussein I think stop and
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reflect on that and what it all means. I mean two-thirds of Canadians are saying this.
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You don't want to vilify people for having this perspective. You're a public servant. This is the view of
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the majority of the people you're tasked with serving. So take a moment, a pause, and reflect on
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what all this means. And I've been reflecting on an essay I read written by Francis Fukuyama who is
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one of the most prominent political science professors in the English language and as his name
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should be a dead giveaway for he's no alt-right white supremacist. In fact he's somewhere you know
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centrist, liberal, maybe a bit left and so forth. He's liked by general liberal communities. He wrote an
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essay in foreign affairs magazine, again no you know intellectual right-wing dark web kind of thing
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but one of the most prestigious centrist journals out there for sort of the liberal consensus. He
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wrote an essay in that publication talking about integration issues, why integration matters,
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why there's only a certain number of immigrants a country can absorb in a way that is is sort of
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efficient with integration principles and said if not you're going to fray at the social fabric and you
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might even have security problems. Again this is Professor Fukuyama speaking. I think Ahmed Hussain
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would be wise to reflect on what all that means to strike the balance. Okay so where does the Hong
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Kong thing come into this? Well in recent weeks we have seen hundreds of thousands of people take to
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the streets to protest the communist regime overstepping their reach in Hong Kong, the communist regime
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in Beijing, wanting to bring in that extradition law in Hong Kong that says they can extradite anyone
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for wrong think or wrong speak or what have you. I mean that's not what they're saying but those are
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the people's very valid concerns and given it happens in mainline China, people being disappeared
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for various reasons, you better believe there's good reason to worry it will happen there. It's been
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really inspirational to see all of these people take to the streets. They've been singing songs from
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the musical Les Miserables. They're saying no we don't want to be under this authoritarian regime,
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under this communist regime. Now a similar thing actually happened a couple decades ago in the 90s
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when people in Hong Kong were concerned about the handover from Britain to China and a lot of them
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came to Canada at that time. A couple hundred thousand people said we got to get out of here
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we're heading to Canada. My idea is that we do hashtag welcome to Canada the right way this time and if
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this extradition bill goes through and it looks like Carrie Lam is still kind of keeping it floating
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around they've suspended it but she's not ruling out bringing it in let's welcome people from Hong Kong
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to Canada once again like happened in mass over 20 years ago. The things this will do is send a clear
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signal that Canada's interested in bringing in immigrants for sure not anti-immigrant at all and of course
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we bring in 250, 300,000 people a year but a large amount of that quota for the next few years can be
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filled with bringing in a number of people from Hong Kong welcoming them in because it's pretty clear
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when you look at Hong Kong society you've got people anti-authoritarian, anti-communist, a lot of
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similarities with Canadian society. This is a great sort of harmonious way to actually take those concerns
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that people have in those poll numbers and bring them into action. Canadians are not at all saying
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they have a problem with immigration they just want immigrants I think more consistent with the
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Canadian way of life and Canadian values and if there's anything that is more indicative of
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Canadian values it's people taking to the streets and saying we want liberties, we want freedoms
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just like the people in Hong Kong have been doing.