Look at the demographics. Understand WHY Canada is hoovering up young professionals like it’s Coke at MaraLago:

1. our population is ageing.
2. we’re a tax n’ spend economy, because it saves money
3. we need people to support an ageing population near or over retirement
4. rental barons are rakin’ it in on the house prices
5. we can’t kill the oldies
6. we can’t back off on services, or the cost to the taxpayer (without consolidation and the reverse monopoly) is gonna be cruel and horrible like America but they’re not cognitively dissonant about it and will be in shock
7. we can’t adjust the retirement age*

so.

Immigrants, excluding refugees

• are young
• are professionals
• are healthy and so need little healthcare
• pay lots of delicious taxes
• are sometimes doctors (yay!)
• need somewhere to live

Okay, too much information to be hit with all at once, but those are the predicates. So it follows:

The problem isn’t immigration, despite what the russian bots and conservatives will tell you: it’s that we have an ageing population not working - as mentioned - who needs more care to stay alive and whom we want to stay alive; and all the indolent hillbillies high on russian-anti-vax hate and rejecting basic social responsibility made the experienced doctors fucking quit by being dickheads. But it’s the imm’grints’ fault? Housing is an issue because rental barons are raking it in and voting for the guys who promise no services, no taxes, because hoarding greenspace and greenbacks is the American way; and imm’grints are the issue?

Look. We can’t kill Nana, and she’s done with work anyway, so we can’t send her back to work as the only job she’ll score at her age is stocking shelves at the loblaws and I know that for a familial fact. We can’t claw back a bunch of years of retirement and hope Uncle Bob will reopen his bait shop happily and pay more taxes. And we have to keep them alive because we don’t have that loophole where the poors and retirees and soldiers die from being poor like in America because we don’t do that (and we like them because she makes good cookies and he tells us all the dumb things Dad did as a kid).

We need:

• more young pros to immigrate because if we have to suffer population growth it needs to be earners.
• more housing density because Nana and Uncle Bob both still have their homed and we’ve already eaten too much farmland for bungalows and we’ve cut down our version of the rainforest for bungalows while telling Brazil not to do the same - what hypocrites. So we need to revert more land back for food and forest, and have to bulldoze in the urban centers and consolidate people there into shared space that happens to also cost munis waayyy less to serve anyway because bungalow sprawl doesn’t even pay for itself at these rates… So it’s towers, not fucking laneway tryhard housing outside fucking bungalows, and it’s shared parks and not hoarded greenspace lawns, and we’re gonna do all property taxes by distance from city hall and square feet divided by density so Chad and Alicia can pay more of their rightful share or give up their mansion in the hills so we can stop maintaining all that pipe and wiring. Right. We also need …
• the knowledge that angry voters choose trumps and polievres even though it’s a horrible idea for everyone not rich. It’s a fact borne out by study after study.
• the understanding that fucking immigrants are the best chance we have of not becoming the states and losing our EI and Healthcare and other things that make us happy and awesome.
• the maturity to thank immigrants for helping us in our journey to not suck like the parts of America we fear the most, and hope they stay a long time but maybe go back home (as they often do) when they’re no longer young. Because thanks!
• the courage to tell Billy-joe-Bob to get back in his Dodge RAM and go find another city to blockade, but just leave our earners the hell alone aside from a heartfelt thanks for saving his kids’ asses.

Sadly, we’re gonna have to raise retirement. But let’s do it slowly, like a half-a-year each year or so, so Uncle Bob can stay retired and a few people to near the age can fulfill that wish and the rest who are almost as close can still accomplish it sooner just not right away, etc, etc, just stay in the job they have a little longer and use their experience. We’re all living longer, and that’s awesome. Let’s still be Canadian and try to care for one another if we still can.

(If you own a dodge ram and no cowboy hats, this is probably not about you, but your downvote will be lost among the people who don’t know better, so a flash of spite on the mouse-click is all good)