Immigration needs reform, not political posturing and racism
By Lethbridge Herald on August 5, 2025.
Scott Sakatch
Lethbridge Herald Editor
What better time than Heritage Day (okay, technically the day after Heritage Day, when you’re reading this) to talk about immigration in Canada? After all, except for Indigenous folks who measure their genealogy in millennia as opposed to generations, we’re all immigrants here. It doesn’t matter where your ancestors came from, or how long ago it was, the plain truth is that the vast majority of Canadians are descended from people who came here from somewhere else.
For a long time, that stood as a point of pride for most Canadians. This was the promised land, the place where the so-called cultural mosaic encouraged new arrivals to cherish their own culture while becoming part of Canadian society. That’s the reason we have German-Canadian, Italian-Canadian and Hungarian-Canadian clubs, The Sons of Norway, etc. It’s why we have the Netherlands Reformed Church and entire Mennonite and Hutterite communities that speak low German. It’s why there are English, Italian and other European stores in most bigger cities.
We celebrated the fact that, while we loved Canada, we were still connected to our roots in other lands.
But recently, at least online and in political circles, immigration seems to have become a dirty word. A disturbing number of people are acting as if recent arrivals to Canada are the cause of all our economic and social woes. And a lot of those people are trying to blame government for it all.
Whether government is somehow to “blame” is open for debate – yes, certain immigration policies in the last 10 years have allowed a lot more newcomers into Canada than in previous years, in large part to address a labour shortage. Expert critics (as opposed to political ones) rightfully point out that the influx wasn’t properly managed, and led to some abuses of student visas and temporary foreign worker permits. Could it have been handled better? Absolutely. Most things to do with government can, because politicians either stick their non-expert noses into things or they refuse to fund it properly.
But a lot of people are blaming federal policies, and immigrants themselves, for everything from rising rent and housing costs to grocery prices, crime and everything else that’s bad about our current economy.
Apparently people have a short memory, given that it was less than a year ago that the Alberta government under Danielle Smith was spending millions of your taxpayer dollars to recruit new Albertans with billboards and bus ads. Months later, those same politicians are crying foul over federal immigration policies.
Of course, none of our economic problems could possibly have anything to do with greedy corporations raking in record profits and driving up inflation to a rate higher than it’s been in a generation, killing jobs and putting pressure on working people. No, it’s that Indian/African/Filipino guy up the street’s fault.
You know the guy: he works a minimum wage job that your teenager won’t do and lives with seven other people in the house because that’s the only way they can make rent. They’re somehow driving up prices by buying the same groceries and gas that you’re buying. Oh, and they also chose to come here in the midst of the highest inflation in 30-plus years, all so they can somehow take over the country.
Come on.
It seems that the more advanced our communication technology becomes, the more ingnorant of history we become. These nonsense reasons for vilifying immigrants are hardly new. A lot of us know about resistance to Chinese immigration at the beginning of the 20th century, but how many know that Irish, Italian and Hungarian immigrants were also suffering discrimination and scorn at the same time? There was a belief at the time that these immigrant were taking food out of the mouths of Canadians who were smart enough to come here earlier than them (ie: the English, Americans and other anglophones). Immigrants had lower intelligence, or they were dirty, or had questionable morals. Even here in Lethbridge, Hungarians and Ukrainians were often treated as second-class citizens for the better part of two generations.
So who are we, their descendants, to be pointing fingers at anyone?
I’m sure there are plenty of readers who are absolutely apoplectic right now, sputtering at their papers/screens that I’m missing the point, that I’m not taking into account this factor or that factor.
And you know what? Maybe they’re right. But what I am taking into account is the human factor.
About 10 years ago, when I was living in Regina, I was listening to a local radio station on a brutally cold, snowy day. At the time, Regina was one of the top destinations (after Toronto) for newcomers to Canada. “Think about that,” said the guy on the radio. “Look outside your window right now and realize that the vast majority of these people come from places that are a lot warmer than Regina. They’re probably having a really hard time adapting to -35 C and three feet of snow, but they’re still here. Why? Because to them, it’s better than what they left behind.”
When I see the face of a newcomer in Lethbridge, I don’t see someone who came here to take something away from me. I see someone who’s working hard to adjust to an entirely new environment, to make a life for themself and their loved ones, and who aspires to nothing more than what I’m fortunate enough to already have. I bid them all a heartfelt “welcome to Canada.”
Happy day after Heritage Day.
19-18
if one believes in the bible, then everyone is related and we all emigrated to somewhere from the garden of eden (somehow we became different races , despite a heck of a lot of inbreeding, but here we are). if one believes we originated in africa, then we all emigrated from that place, and, somehow, here we are, different races.
the only way any people can say they are the original people of any spot of land is to be able to prove they sprouted out of something there before any other people. but, shucks, given human penchant for greed and superstition and self service and ego and bloodshed (the killer is that so much that has also been in the name of their “god”), what we can say is that pretty much every piece of land has a bloody history to it.
now, if we could get past our worst ways – the ego, the self service, the greed, the superstition – we could see that sharing and cooperation should be the priority, rather than some bloody balance sheet that prioritises profit rather than balance and sustainability.
What is the reader to take away from this jumble of words? What is your point here?