Seeing the Other Side

While I have made it quite clear that I believe that Canada should accept far more refugees than what actually happens, I also recognize that not all other share my point of view. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, right? Because of this philosophy, I have decided to explore the possibility that the Canadian refugee system is too lenient on refugees and why. When researching, I have found that the majority of the reasoning behind preventing more refugees from coming to Canada is economic.

People experienced lay-offs all over the world and few
opportunities were available otherwise.

To begin, Canada, along with much of the rest of the world, entered an economic recession in 2008, which “many called the Great Recession” (britannica.com, 2009) and continued for many years. (This nickname is a riff on The Great Depression, the worst recession in history, leaving most in extreme poverty and occurring throughout the 1930’s.) This recession had terrible effects on the economies of countries all over the world and affected almost all sectors of life- “it turned economic growth into contraction in many countries and slowed expansion practically everywhere else. The ripple effects of the financial crisis ranged far beyond the financial. Governments fell in Iceland and Latvia. The Chinese brushed aside pleas for more accommodating human rights and currency valuation policies. European political union was put under strain. Japan proposed only weak measures to combat climate change.” (britannica.com, 2009) As britannica.com indicated, the “Great Recession” had a massive impact all over the world and in many different ways. (If you would like to learn more about the causes and aftermaths of the 2008 recession, as well as economic crash in general, I highly recommend you read the article that the quotations in this paragraph are from, found at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1661642/The-Great-Recession-of-2008-09-Year-In-Review-2009.)

Map of Canada displaying the percentage of Canadians
unemplyed per province/territory in 2013.

Not only was this recession a global disaster but it very close to home for many Canadians as well. In 2011, CTV News reported that 428, 000 people lost their jobs during the recession. Canada has had an extreme comeback and the economy has greatly improved since, however, 7% of the population is unemployed as of April 2014. While this may sound good, the student unemployment rate is 13.40%, the retirement age continues to climb and though many are employed, many educated and skilled workers are stuck in jobs “below” their experience and education, or typical salary, or can only find part-time employment. In other words, many are still hurting financially and earning less money than they were pre-recession. With Canada’s economy still not in great form, many feel that refugees (and immigrants) are taking away jobs from Canadian-born citizens. Believing that those who were born in Canada are entitled to better jobs is, of course, a form of both racism and ethnocentrism, but I digress.

Another reason for some Canadians believing that the refugee policy is too lenient is because many of the refugees who come to Canada are both emotionally and physically damaged (rightfully so, I feel), rendering them unable to work, pay taxes and contribute to society. This can be a drain on the economy, as there are more people to pay services for and less people paying into Canadian services, like free health care and education. This can even increase taxes and fees that the average Canadian must pay, which, considering many Canadians are hurting financially, can cause a huge financial burden on citizens. Increasing the amount of allowed refugees would also create a need for more social programs such as ESL programs, shelters, etc… While increasing the amount of social programs would create jobs, it would also cost taxpayers money to create these programs, which many resent given their financial hardship.

As I explained above, the majority of reasons for Canadians believing that we allow too many refugees are mainly financial and economic- it is a very rough financial time for many Canadians. I did not, however, find enough reasonable problem to change my mind- I still believe that we are far too harsh on refugees and I do not think that the reasons that I explored above sufficiently proved otherwise. In my personal opinion, our financial crisis does not outweigh the horrors that many of the refugees attempting to come to Canada face.

(Please note that I do not support the ideas expressed in this blog- I feel it is important to explore both sides of the issue and the ideas that I have written are ones that I have learned about through research- they are not my views.)