Global Culture

Immigration is one of the main themes of the Canada in 2020 space, presenting opinions by leading personalities on the issues, events and trends that could transform Canada by the year 2020. With the essay Sao Paulo of the North: The Effects of Mass Immigration, Daniel Stoffman presents a looming picture of the future of major Canadian cities as immigration rates outpace their ability to create the infrastructure required:

In 2020, vast tracts of suburban slums occupy what used to be good farmland on the city’s outskirts. Traffic congestion and air pollution are unbearable. Toronto’s reputation as one of North America’s most liveable cities is a distant memory.

With the most aggressive immigration quota in the world at around 250,000 immigrants per year, is not surprise that many Canadians are feeling their quality of life threatened by the lack of responsiveness to the real issues derived from such an unnatural growth, even questioning whether or not is worth it.

There is no reason why Canada should have far more immigration than any other country. Canada’s existing population is younger than those of most other developed countries and its ratio of working age people to retired ones is higher. If Canada reverted to its traditional, more moderate, immigration program, it could continue to enjoy the benefits of immigration while sparing its cities the problems of unmanageable growth.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Toronto (my city) is sort of a social experiment that will likely give us invaluable information on the type of issues the world will continue to face over the next few decades. It gets almost half of all new immigrants making it one of the most diverse cities in the world, but already suffering the consequences:

Highway 401 across Toronto has become the busiest road in North America, the city can’t find a place to put its garbage, and its public schools can’t afford to provide the English instruction newly arrived children need.

The obsession for growth must be rooted in the fact that Canada is such a young country that adding a few million people seems like the right thing to do,

But London and Paris grew to their current size gradually over hundreds of years and their greatness is the result of the wealth of the empires of which they were the capitals. You don’t build London and Paris by adding millions of bodies over a short period of time. That’s how you build Mumbai and Mexico City.

I’ve lived in Mexico City so I can attest to the kind of chaos that results from desperate people looking for any kind of opportunities when they have none left in their original communities. In the case of Mexico City, the masses of migrants came from the country after years of neglecting farmers. Toronto is not too different: migrants find here the type of opportunities (professional, quality of life, security) that they can’t find in their original countries. It means that a solution to the Canadian immigration problem can not be found without considering the global context.

Suggesting that “closing the doors” will solve the problem is not too far from the U.S. attempting to create a fence throughout their south border. A sense of global duty should reinforce our commitment towards those foreign countries that contribute our immigrants. Nothing will stop them for as long as their original communities fail them.