Around 75% of immigrant farm workers in Bakersfield, California, ditched their shifts after Trump ramped up his threats by removing protections against ICE raids in “sensitive areas,” including schools and workplaces.
Around 75% of immigrant farm workers in Bakersfield, California, ditched their shifts after Trump ramped up his threats by removing protections against ICE raids in “sensitive areas,” including schools and workplaces.
In Canada too, we just gussie it up as the “temporary foreign workers” program, and bring immigrants over here for a while to do shit jobs we white people don’t want to do, like work in Tim Hortons or drive for Uber, and leave them trying to afford housing and cost of living, and many just come here and move into shelters, or live in extremely large family settings, which makes locals hate them more because of the housing crisis.
I think immigration needs huge reform in Canada, and that the pathways to citizenship through massive tuition fees bumping out citizens from higher education and using diploma mill “colleges” need to be closed, but the temporary worker program is just slightly polished up slavery and nothing more. If we’re going to offer immigration it should be to skilled people who can work in their field here and can afford to live here, and not just dangling scraps in front of vulnerable people because it’s somewhat better than living in an underdeveloped country’s slums so they can be our slaves, while we all fight over housing and resent each other. At least the migrant agricultural worker program doesn’t hide the fact it is farm labour and temporary.
There’s got to be a way to ethically have migrant workers
The agricultural migrant worker program is ok. They come in understanding what the job is and what they will get. The Mexican crew at my SO’s old job have been coming for years, they’re very much part of the family, and good friends with all the staff, and enjoy the season they spend there, and they make some amazing food for the harvest parties. I’m not saying it’s perfect but at least it’s honest about what they will receive, it’s usually pretty friendly, and they’re not handed a Tim Hortons uniform and directed to the nearest shelter while promised a better life, and having Canadians resent them for being there and taking up resources like housing (the migrant agricultural workers live on the farm or surrounding properties in more of a dormitory situation instead of finding their own housing). There is nothing pretentious about it and in my experience they’re very peaceful people.
One thing I think would be better is to create an educational bridging program for doctors who come to Canada and don’t qualify to work here. If we offered training at our standards to internationally trained doctors and made a deal with them they had to take a job in an underserviced area for family medicine in exchange and have a full roster of patients, that would be a better use of resources and would benefit everyone. There are so many who can’t practice here, and I just think they could really be a valuable resource. I know a pediatric cardiologist from Pakistan who works as a cardiovascular testing tech, a geneticist from Brazil who is working as a translator, my own GP was a respirologist in Croatia and went through med school here again to practice in family medicine. Hell I know a German psychiatrist, who actually does have the same level of education and training as Canadian doctors, and they made him go through five more years of residency that he had finished 15 years before. Set them up to have the correct education to be GPs and sign a contract with them that they have to work in an area that is low in family doctors. I bet that would solve a lot.
fuck that. we shouldn’t only be open to one class of immigrant. I don’t pretend to have answers but I know that this idea further a class hierarchy and as such is crap.
I think it should be until housing and services can keep pace with the huge influx of immigrants we got in the last two years. It’s one thing to have a subspecialist physician apply to move here, that’s very needed all the time, but also they’re not going to live off of the social welfare net because they’ll make liveable salaries and be able to buy a home.
“they” are humans who have a far worse life somewhere else just because of the birth lottery. who are you to say they don’t deserve the life you get to have based on pure luck?
But people who are citizens here are living in tents. We have encampments all over my city. We have to take care of people who live here first. And we’re not. Sadly the government let housing and infrastructure lag far behind the capacity needed to take care of everyone who is already here. We can’t take more people when we don’t have space for the ones who are here.