Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
We're basically going down the same path as the UK. We're now going to get the horrible austerity they've had, which also accomplished nothing for them.
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Funny how the UK has a conservative government that--and this is going to surprise a lot of people here--
doesn't include Trudeau but they have basically
all the same problems. I've already set myself a reminder for two years from now, when the large language model trained on Twitter's most toxic right-wing accounts will have been Canada's PM for a while. Nothing will have changed for the better.
I get that many of you are mad, but projecting your own ideas onto a man who exists purely to own the libs isn't going to make him become anything more than that. Today's problems will still exist, plus hardcore austerity, plus social conservatism. Look for PP to pick up where Harper left off: attempting to pass law after law that violates our charter rights. The difference is, the more he fails, the more vindictive and cruel he'll get.
There have been a couple heartbreaking stories from Europe this week on the migration front. One, the results of an investigation into a massacre in 2022. Moroccan police had been harassing a group of migrants on their way to Melilla (a Spanish exclave in Africa) to claim asylum, and ended up provoking a stampede away from the border checkpoint, into the fence around the Spanish city.
Some people believe that cruelty and pain will dissuade migrants. Some of these people would argue the above tragedy is worth it--a necessary evil, if you will. But since 2022, Europe's own immigration "crisis" has only deepened. Just the other day, a Greek coastguard was caught murdering migrants by throwing them from their boat. Maybe this time the cruelty will stick? How much evil is really necessary?
The whole "let them die trying" argument is an admission that migration is subject to market forces: if the cost is too high, demand will fall. We could argue about whether a high cost for some will dissuade all, or whether we're willing to impose costs as monstrous as the wars, climate disasters and despotism people are fleeing. But the point is that we understand that market forces are at work.
Now, how well does government wand-waving vanish market forces? Maybe for now you've slowed a stream of migrants coming through student visas, but that existed because private business developed a way to meet demand. They aren't going to give up their cash cow, so they'll pivot to find another way to meet demand.
And conservatives will let them. They are, after all, business friendly. This is how you end up with right-wing parties stoking nativism with one side of their mouths while allowing the market to do its thing.
Or, you get governments playing whack-a-mole with every new loophole business can monetize (and whatever monster-of-the-week the right has written into the collective imagination). With time, this will likely settle into a rhythm, stop looking so much like a crisis, and start looking like routine government business.
Effective regulation is possible. I believe it's what most of us want. But regulation is rarely a set-it-and-forget-it thing. Immigration regulations everywhere are currently developing in response to changed market forces. As much as people in every western country want to blame high migration on some single person in their respective country--Trudeau, Biden, Scholz (or, incredibly, Merkel!), Tory-of-the-week, Macron, etc.--that
all these countries have
all these different people to blame, tells you that responsibility doesn't rest with any one of them, or that all of them are inherently incapable of actively and effectively regulating immigration.
By all means, demand better. Just don't expect it
right now and don't expect it at all from your next government.
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