Thread by @realChrisBrunet on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island, has become the first to push back against mass immigration. The Indian community in PEI is not taking it very well, threatening ''hunger strikes to the death.'' THREAD 🧵 ...
Prince Edward Island is the most Scottish province, and perhaps the most ethnically Scottish place anywhere in the world outside Scotland. When combined with Irish and Welsh, almost 80% of islanders have some Celtic stock. For centuries, PEI existed as a quiet, isolated Celtic farming community. However, in recent years, it has seen a significant influx of immigrants from India, challenging the very essence of its cultural identity. Before ~2006, international immigration to PEI was virtually nonexistent, but it has recently increased dramatically. This has led to exponential population growth: Which is driven almost entirely by immigrants and non-permanent residents. PEI has a fertility rate of just 1.22 children per women! PEI is not building enough houses for its exploding immigrant population, of course, with only 200-300 new housing starts every quarter. As a predictable result, PEI’s apartment rental vacancy is the worst in the country. Charlottetown’s (PEI’s capital & biggest city) vacancy rate is a mere 0.5% — half of Vancouver’s. This structural housing shortage has led to skyrocketing housing prices. Beyond rent, PEI experienced the most severe broad-based post-Covid inflation spike in Canada, peaking at nearly 12% in 2022... In addition to the worst housing and inflation, PEI ranks dead last in wages. …and has the 2nd highest unemployment rate, at 7.3%... Oh, and PEI also has the fewest doctors per capita. The median wait time from arriving at the ER to being admitted to another hospital unit is 35.6 hours, more than double the national average of 14.7 hours. P.E.I. has the second longest wait time for referral by a general practitioner to treatment, with a median wait of 55 weeks. 55 weeks!...
In February 2024, the Premier of PEI announced a reduction in the number of international nominees for permanent residency in Canada through the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). These PNP permits are ostensibly for temporary foreign workers and students, but in practice, they serve as a backdoor for recipients to worm their way into permanent resident status. With the new changes, the province will now prioritize healthcare, childcare, and construction workers, while deprioritizing food, retail, sales, and service workers. The focus is clear. Essential work comes first... Hundreds of food service workers in PEI will not have their documents renewed, and will either have to leave or be deported... The Indian community in PEI is not taking this 25% reduction very well. On May 9, they began protesting and haven’t stopped since... The protestors have 3 demands. "We have three demands that we are focusing on," said Rupinder Pal Singh, a leader of the protest, who came to Canada from India in 2023. "First, we demand to be grandfathered into the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) system because we were already here, working on valid work permits, before the new rules were implemented. It is only fair that those who were present before the changes be allowed to continue under the old system," Singh said. "Secondly, we call for fair PNP draws without a point system. Recently, sales and services, food sectors, and even truckers have been excluded from the PNP draws, despite our hard work and contributions. We deserve the same opportunities as other sectors, and the current point system, which requires 65 points, is nearly impossible for those under 25 to achieve," he said. "Lastly, we demand an extension of our work permits. Due to the government's changes and economic issues, our work permits were effectively wasted, causing many of us to lose our jobs. It is only fair that our work permits be renewed to compensate for the lost time and opportunities," Singh added. The thing about demands… is that if you have no leverage, they are meaningless. What happens if your demands aren’t met? Oh, you’ll go on a hunger strike to the death? You’ll literally kill yourself? "If any of our demands are not fulfilled by 16th of May, [if] we are not grandfathered, we are going to give this protest another name. This will be hunger strike to death," said Singh.
Toothless threat—I put the chances of anyone starving themselves over PEI’s immigration policy at precisely 0%. Hunger strikes are all fake nowadays, I see headlines about them every week, but can’t remember the last time I actually saw a single person withering away. No Indian UberEats driver in Prince Edward Island is going to starve themself to death for their right to remain an UberEats driver in PEI. They just aren’t. It’s not a serious threat, and even if it were, fuck off, you don’t get to dictate immigration policy this way. They gave the province a deadline of May 16th or else they would starve themselves to death. So? It's May 22nd now, where are all the hunger strikes to the death?... can’t get over the arrogance and entitlement. ‘‘Meet our demands or we will kill ourselves!’’ Following their failed hunger strike, the Indian protests are now suffering a systemic problem with the male protestors harassing the female protestors... It’s worth noting that foreigners who participate in protests in India are promptly deported. For instance, a German student who recently joined a protest was put on a plane and expelled from the country on the same day...
In the first four months of 2024, Canada’s population grew 47% faster than in the same period in 2023. This situation is absurd. This isn't healthy for Canada. It doesn't make any sense for one random country across the world to dominate all other countries as a source of immigration. Even most immigrants agree it is out of control. According to a new Leger poll, Southeast Asians in Canada are the immigrant demographic group most opposed to immigration, with 64% saying it is too high. Southeast Asians, Chinese, South Asians, and Filipinos in Canada each hold more anti-immigration views than white immigrants."
If you're not for open borders, you're a heartless racist xenophobe and not a decent human being. Clearly, it's the fault of capitalism and greedy landlords and business owners
Immigration protest on P.E.I. could turn into hunger strike, organizer warns - "Some immigrant workers are prepared to go on a hunger strike if the P.E.I. government doesn't reverse some recent changes to who gets preference under the Provincial Nominee Program, says one of the people behind the daily protests in Charlottetown. Rupinder Pal Singh said they are giving the province until May 16 to meet their demands, which include extending work permits for immigrants who are already here, working and hoping for permanent residency. "Our province gave us false hopes," said Singh, who came to Canada from India in 2019. "They were giving us wrong information. This is totally an exploitation... "If any of our demands are not fulfilled by 16th of May, [if] we are not grandfathered, we are going to give this protest another name. This will be hunger
strike to death," said Singh. "We are losing our work permits. There are no other places for us to go."... the P.E.I. government announced it would cut the number of people from other countries that it nominates for permanent residency in Canada through the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). The number of nominees will fall by 25 per cent in 2024, partly as a result of pressure on P.E.I.'s health-care system and housing market. The province's new population strategy specified that of the spots that remained, people who work in specific occupations including health care and construction would be given priority. That means hundreds of immigrants in other industries, such as retail sales and service, may not have their work permits extended when they run out in the next few months... "I didn't come here to ruin my life or to ruin my future," said protester Jaspreet Singh Sivia. "I came with great hopes over here that Canada is a successful country. I would be able to succeed and make my life better, much better here. But since these changes, my life have not been progressing towards that way and it's quite the opposite picture that I'm seeing here."... "We are very happy our community is standing with us. We would also like to request our other Black and white brothers and sisters from other communities to join as well, because there's nothing unfair we are demanding… "The other minorities can take a stand for us and we can back up them, as well.""
The level of entitlement is off the charts. Given that the "wrong information" likely came from an Indian company too...
Apparently they can't go back to India
P.E.I.'s new population strategy stifling hopes for permanent residency, foreign workers say - "Their concerns come after the P.E.I. government announced in February that it's cutting the number of people it nominates for permanent residency by 25 per cent in 2024. It's part of the province's new population strategy that aims to ease a strained health-care system and housing market. "It was really earth-shattering," Singh said. "The first few nights I couldn't sleep." He and Dablehar moved to the Island a year ago on open work permits after studying in Ontario, and got jobs at fast food restaurants. Their goal: to get their permanent residency, or PR, and build a life in Canada. Friends and immigration consultants told them P.E.I. was the best place to get nominated for PR by the provincial government. Kelly Hamilton, an immigration consultant in Charlottetown, said it used to be a near sure thing. "It didn't matter whether you were working at McDonald's or Tim Hortons," Hamilton said. "If you had that full-time permanent job, working your minimum 30 hours a week, met the requirements of the [provincial nominee program], you could put your name in the pool and you could pretty much 100 per cent be guaranteed to get that invitation to make an application."
When migrants are open about the "student" to minimum wage worker to permanent resident pipeline
Liberal MP blames P.E.I. immigration changes for accidental fire - "High on dudgeon, but low on fact, Casey went to bat for a group of foreign workers in Charlottetown, PEI, who claimed that a protesters’ tent was deliberately set on fire while people were sleeping inside. In his written tirade, the Charlottetown MP didn’t quite say “this is not who we are” as he vehemently condemned the anonymous arsonists, but he came awfully close to it. As it turned out, it’s not who Canadians are. Contrary to what Casey and the protesters appeared to allege, the fire was not the result of hate-filled Canadians reenacting Mississippi Burning, but an accident caused by a mosquito coil. But such is the rush by some Liberals, including Casey, to show their compassionate and caring side that things like truth, facts and reality are left in the dust... Casey went on that the callous treatment of the province had contributed to online abuse “that has now manifested itself into real danger.” Violence and intimidation had no place in Charlottetown, he said, vowing to stand with the protesters in the face of adversity. It was a lot of hot air, hyperbole and cliches for what police would shortly conclude was an accidental fire. But Casey didn’t wait for the police to investigate, he was more interested in laying blame, on attacking provincial policies, on establishing his compassionate bona fides. This rush to judgement, and the unseemly urgency to showcase perceived Liberal values of tenderness and thoughtfulness, has gotten Trudeau’s government in trouble before. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly were guilty of similar reprehensible behaviour when they basically accused Israel of bombing a hospital before it transpired a misfired rocket from within Gaza actually caused the damage. For both Trudeau and Joly, attacking Israel before the facts were known fitted their purpose: it allowed them to grandstand their so-called Liberal virtues. It mattered not that it added fuel to an antisemitic fire... even in that walk-back statement he couldn’t stop himself from trying to appear morally superior. “The situation still serves as a stark reminder of the challenges and risks faced by those who exercise their right to peaceful protest,” he proclaimed. Absolutely, those damn mosquito coils can be a real challenge to free expression."
No progress with P.E.I. officials, but hate circulating online, immigration protesters say - "Some of the affected newcomers, most of whom are from India, held a news conference Thursday in Charlottetown to share their personal stories and clear up misinformation and hate they say is circulating online. "We have been portrayed [with] the wrong picture online," Jaspreet Singh Sivia said. "It was never our notion to be entitled to [permanent residency] or be demanding. We are in that position where we can only request.""
Seems a hunger strike is a request
PEI Government Rejects Protestors' Work Permit Extensions Following Hate Crime Hoax - "To be clear: these protesters are accusing Canadians of attempted murder, while also insinuating that the Charlottetown police are corrupt, incompetent, and 'low IQ.' After I exposed the hoax, the protesters were silent. They left their camp. They left their tent. They left their litter. They did not clean it up. A couple of days ago, however, the PEI_protest_2024 group triumphantly announced that they are rebranding as the ‘‘United Labour Alliance of Canada,’’ unveiling a sweet new AI-generated bird logo via TikTok... This newly formed ‘‘United Labour Alliance of Canada’’ then sent a public letter to the minister of workforce begging for extensions"
Tasha Kheiriddin: Canada had an immigration system we were proud of. Then Trudeau came along - "When things get this bad, people ask themselves, why? How did this happen? And they start looking around at what else has been going on while this mess was brewing. And what they see is now ripping the very fabric of our country, destroying a consensus that has been a defining feature of our nation, a point of pride, and an example to the world for generations — but is no longer. That something is immigration. Since confederation, immigration has been key to settling this land, farming our fields, building our infrastructure, and more recently, addressing Canada’s aging population, labour shortages, and demographic challenges. Successive governments enacted immigration programs such as points systems, the immigrant investor stream, and generous refugee settlement policies, which were praised around the world as a model for other nations. And Canadians have embraced immigration — until now. Today six in ten Canadians believe there is too much immigration. This represents a 14 percentage point increase since 2023, building on a 17 point increase over the previous year, “the most rapid change over a two-year period since Focus Canada began asking this question in 1977,” according to Environics... in Quebec, the Parti Québécois announced that, if elected, it would drastically limit immigration to protect Quebec’s language, culture, and social services. The PQ would cap permanent immigration at 35,000 per year, reduce temporary residents from 600,000 to 250,000–300,000, and cut international students by more than half. It called on businesses to automate and innovate like those in Japan, which has also experienced demographic decline, but which has not sought to combat low birth rates with immigration. PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon further declared that Quebec’s future autonomy depends on controlling immigration independently of Ottawa, reigniting calls for Quebec’s independence — and setting the stage for the next provincial election. His party has been leading in the polls for over a year, and with the provincial Liberal party now undergoing a leadership race, the old separatist-federalist polarization threatens once again to define Quebec politics and dominate public discourse in the rest of the country as well. The ultimate legacy of the Trudeau government will thus be another debate on separation, and possibly, the breakup of our nation. Diversity will not be our strength, but our undoing."
Tasha Kheiriddin: Canada had an immigration system we were proud of. Then Trudeau came along : r/canada - "He is only admitting it because his Government thinks it will win votes and potentially help raise approval for the Liberal party in the upcoming election. If this was not the case, they would continue with the current immigration policies. In short, and this is just my opinion, Trudeau does not really believe that there is too much immigration, he’s only saying it to raise his approval ratings. He is a narcissistic liar with questionably acquired millions in the bank and he would rather see Canada destroyed for his “plan” than genuinely admit fault."
Tasha Kheiriddin: Canada had an immigration system we were proud of. Then Trudeau came along : r/canada - "Yes Trudeau said that, but he also hasn't done anything meaningful to fix it. This is the strategy they use for every issue. First, try to deny it's existence. If that doesn't work then condemn those voicing the concern as racist. If that doesn't work blame everyone else they can possibly point to. If none of that works, try a token apology with no meaningful change in policy. And here we are."
Tasha Kheiriddin: Canada had an immigration system we were proud of. Then Trudeau came along : r/canada - "Trudeau stated that Canada would be the world’s first post nation state almost ten years ago. He was elected two more times after that announcement. He never hid what his agenda was. The Canadian populace was simply too slow to realize that meant unsustainable levels of immigration."
"Canadians are terrified of 2 things: being called racist, and their real estate investments losing value."
Canada's failed immigration policy has hit food banks hard - "Four in five new food bank clients (about 125,000 people) had only arrived in Canada in the last five years. In addition, the report found that 31 per cent of survey respondents were students — more than half of them international students who visited a food bank for the first time last year... In fact, many things about the current immigration system are broken. For one thing: the government’s issuing of study permits to students at “diploma-mill” colleges, which for many people are a means of skirting the country’s formal immigration rules. Then there is the backlog of 260,142 refugee claims as of October 2024. Anyone already in Canada can submit a claim — even one likely to be rejected — and remain in the country for years until it is adjudicated. That number was just 9,999 when the Liberals took power... Justin Ling, who had a rare interview with Justin Trudeau earlier this year, concluded “the government doesn’t seem to wise up to an emergency until things get really dire.”"
Opinion: I gave up a comfortable life to come to Canada – and my immigrant story is more common than you may think - The Globe and Mail - "I was off to the coastal city of Al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia. Life was good there: I lived in a compound with a chauffeured car provided by my company, and my take-home matched the packages of senior executives of multinationals. I worked in the corporate sector, ultimately becoming the vice-president of a leading Saudi trading and consulting firm... I have appeared on the BBC frequently, and I wrote energy columns for Arab News, the largest Saudi English daily, and later for the Saudi Gazette. That work earned me a global reputation as an energy analyst – the U.S. Department of Energy invited me to Washington, and the International Energy Agency asked me to travel to Paris to deliver my takes. Still, I knew Saudi Arabia couldn’t be my family’s forever home. Even though two of my four children were born there, we would eventually have to move out of the oil kingdom, because as an expat, obtaining Saudi nationality was virtually impossible, at least at the time. At some point, I was going to have to follow in my parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps and write the next chapter of our family’s story elsewhere. I also knew that a reputable university education was important for launching a good career, and the academic possibilities in Saudi Arabia for my children seemed limited at best. I couldn’t send them back to Pakistan, my country of origin; my children were book smart, but they lacked the street smarts that would be needed to adjust to that more hectic society. I knew that the only option was to send them to a reputable institution in the West... My home in Burlington, Ont., where we live today, was built with the money I made in Saudi Arabia. I didn’t need to get a mortgage to build that home, which is fortunate, as I had no earnings and thus no collateral to offer. Even while trying to rent a home in 2018, no landlord was willing to give me a lease; even though I had a considerable sum in my bank account, I had to use my son’s name on the lease, as he had a software engineering job here. I applied for thousands of jobs but failed to elicit more than a few responses. At one point, a company from downtown Toronto called me, telling me they could get me a job – but that I’d have to first pay a fee of $7,500. Reluctantly, I sent them the money. That was a scam, I later realized. And in 2017, a Scarborough tutoring centre offered me a job with a $3000-per-month salary, provided that I advance them a loan of $25,000. My wife encouraged me to take it. I was promised that the loan, which would be put toward a promotional campaign, would be repaid in six months. But I got neither the promised salary, nor the loan paid back in full. I had also tried to tap my energy-industry contacts. That led to a breakfast meeting with a few energy executives at the Calgary Petroleum Club. But those meetings went nowhere. In the meantime, I worked to get in touch with senior bank officials. At one point, I managed to connect with a big bank CEO who referred me to its human resources department. That too was in vain. So I turned to manual labour. I worked in biting, snowy winter conditions at night, standing outside to guide Toronto transit passengers toward the correct gate while subways were under repair. It was a humbling, minimum-wage, hourly job, but I was very grateful for the work. Still, I eventually decided the adjustment was just too difficult after living in 50 C temperatures for almost a quarter-century – at one point, I almost suffered frostbite – and I quit after a few days. Immediately after that, I joined a call centre, but at my age, I was less tech-savvy than my younger colleagues, and I struggled. I also tried my hand at writing for newspapers. But breaking into the Canadian journalism industry was not easy – even spelling has been a challenge, as it is different here than in Britain or the U.S. – and the pay has been meagre. It also required me to understand Canadian politics and culture, and while I am still working to learn, I admit it has been hard to wrap my head around issues involving Indigenous peoples and the history of residential schools, among many others. After all those struggles over five-plus years, I realized a proper job would be almost impossible to get. I used my remaining savings to buy a few properties to ensure a small but regular rental income – smaller, in fact, than my expenses. But these were my only sources of income, until recently."
William Meijer on X - "In 2015, the Canadian government vowed to increase "high-skill immigration." In practice, this meant more Indians. In many regards, the results were catastrophic. Despite 44% of Canadians being 1st or 2nd generation immigrants, 65% of Canadians now want to decrease immigration."
Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "🔥 MAJOR BREAKING - INDIA ALLEGES THAT OVER 100 CANADIAN COLLEGES ARE FRAUDENTLY PROVIDING DOCUMENTS TO INDIAN STUDENTS "Our honour based system is being exploited. There is no oversight" We havent even scratched the surface of these scams, have we?"
Kirk Lubimov on X - "It was explained to me how many immigrants/refugees game the system to get more $ from Canadian tax payers: Mothers with kids will claim that they are single. When they are in Canada they will have more kids to make more $. Ofcourse no one is asking how "single" mothers keep having more kids. They don't have to work and maximizes every single benefit. They make thousands of dollars per month in different benefits. They will bring their partner later or he will be already here as "single" working or living off benefits as well but it's never made official this way the gravy train keeps going."
Clearly, the solution is to "tax" the "rich" to pay for everything
Carlo Corra on X - "My friend has a landscaping business, he interviewed a Nigerian living in surrey. My friend pays a fair wage and benefits with a pension plan… the guy made more money in welfare with his 8 kids, so he didn’t take the job!"
Aarno The Excellent on X - "Sometimes it can be a guy from a culture where they like to have multiple wives so he is married but his mama on the side is single for tax and benefit purposes."
ML🇺🇸🇨🇦 on X - "A lot of Canadians do this as well. Claim single to collect all the benefits while actually in a common law situation. There is major abuse of the system."
Nick P on X - "This has been the nature of Canada. Unemployment & welfare have both been exploited buy natural born Canadians for decades. Immigrants have just adapted to the way of things. Before Trudeau immigrants needed to be vetted before entering students needed to prove they could support themselves. Now Canada print's money for everyone."
Albergraph on X - "It’s been like that in France for decades. I believe that Canada can be extremely arrogant about believing that we can do better when everyone else has failed. Or our government is really stupid and self-destructive."
R D on X - "My partner’s family member works at Social Services office in Peel. Staff know that children are “borrowed” for support and housing applications of single mothers where culturally the mother’s faces are not visible. The staff know that fraud is rampant…but because of “racism” things are not challenged. Husbands have different family names and work under the table for cash in many cases. $1,000 per child per month in allowances plus plus plus (including housing allowance). This is unchecked and basically approved until the children “age out”. Zero checks and balances. I have not verified this, nor can I, but this is reliable third party info."
Canada's welfare state crumbles under the strain of immigration - "In Canada, 2024 may eventually be remembered as the year of Milton Friedman’s revenge. Late in his life, the American sage of free markets said on a couple of different occasions that immigration was good, and the mass immigration to the New World of the early 20th century was especially good, but that radically open borders are incompatible with large contemporary welfare states. This may strike many as an uncontroversial claim, but Friedman has never been totally forgiven by radical open-borders libertarians who otherwise venerate him. As a result, it is rather hard to find any discussion of the Friedman dilemma that isn’t sharply critical. Bryan Caplan, a great admirer of Friedman and an important libertarian economist, for example, attributes Friedman’s warnings to senile “paranoia” and bad math... Under pressure from the COVID pandemic, Liberals had opened the door to an unprecedented (even for Canada) flood of low-wage guest workers, asylum seekers and international students who were hypothetically supposed to be self-supporting. These choices have had obvious first-order effects on semi-official safety-valve parts of our welfare state, like emergency shelters and food banks. They have put crazy pressure on housing construction, which remains constipated by heavy regulation, and have increased demand for health care, which is shielded from ever-suspicious “market forces” and thus cannot react to population growth in the way that shoe stores do. They have also coincided with a period of stagnant labour productivity, disconcerting urban decay and grotesque reversals in per capita GDP — something that open-border advocates wouldn’t predict, didn’t predict and can’t really explain. We have behaved in the 2020s exactly like a welfare state that was determined to test Friedman’s principle, and we found it to be true... After a decade of a Liberal government proclaiming our “post-national” character, and being openly hostile to cultural nationalism and historical traditions, it is beginning to seem like plain madness."
Damian 🇨🇦 🇵🇱 🇺🇦 on X - "The official policy of "ANYthing negative whispered about ANYTHING related to immigration = unCanadian RACISM" only collapsed in the last few MONTHS, not years. It was only this past summer were newspapers were screaming RACIST at Doug Ford for daring to suggest that we dont want violent criminals immigrating to Canada."
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