We all have agency and thus should not pretend that giving in to hate is an inevitability. It’s within our capability to fix Canada’s immigration system without empowering those who act in bad faith.
I would like to draw your attention to the following posts from two Conservative MPs:
Now, you’ll notice that there is nothing out of the ordinary about these Tweets. As MPs usually do, they are repeating the message being shared by their party leader, in this case, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. The Conservatives are currently focused on building support for the abolishment of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and are talking about public safety, so it’s unsurprising that Conservative MPs are promoting those messages. Many Conservative MPs are doing so.
A torrent of hate
However, if you click on MP Gill & MP Khanna’s Tweets, you’ll notice something in the comments: A brutal torrent of hate. Comment after comment attacks Gill and Khanna, calls for mass deportations, ‘remigration’ (a term often used by extremist groups to promote the expulsion of citizens who don’t fit into an idea of European-only Canada), and an array of other insults.
Despite being Canadian Citizens, being elected MPs, criticizing the TFW, and being Conservatives, Khanna and Gill are being targeted because their backgrounds can be traced back to India. You’ll note that many of the comments completely dismiss Khanna and Gill as individuals and seek to demonize them solely based on their backgrounds.
It’s textbook racism and hate, and it’s a deeply un-Canadian attitude given our history of welcoming newcomers and bringing new people into the broader Canadian family.
Extremists get a ‘foot in the door’
What we are seeing is that extremists acting in bad faith are getting a ‘foot in the door’. By taking advantage of legitimate public anger about an immigration system that the previous Trudeau government significantly mismanaged, those who push ethnic nationalism and exclusionary politics are trying to smuggle those ideas in under the guise of alignment with the broader public mood.
What makes this dangerous is that extremists don’t actually want immigration to be addressed reasonably. The last thing they want to see is for the government to reduce immigration to practical levels focused more on economic immigration and for the public to acknowledge and welcome those changes, because the extremists want more public anger, not less. This is why they will deny positive changes even when the facts demonstrate that those changes are taking place, and why they will shift the goalposts from lowering immigration to using aggressive state power (deportations of law-abiding immigrants and citizens) to enforce some predetermined ethnic composition of the country.
Reasonable Canadians must speak up
There is a widespread consensus in Canada that immigration needs to be reduced, and this is already underway. Debates around the new immigration floor, the composition of immigration based on economic priority and family reunification, and the TFW Program will continue. Canadians on the centre-left, centre, and centre-right will have different ideas on those issues, and those ideas will meet in the marketplace of ideas.
However, even as we debate, there should be a sense of unity among all reasonable Canadians to speak out and push back against the kind of hate we are increasingly seeing expressed by those on the extremes, particularly by the far-right. We should not normalize the idea that MPs like Arpan Khanna and Harjit Singh Gill face a barrage of hate simply for sharing their perspective, nor should we pretend that legitimate concerns about immigration justify a descent into ethnic nationalism and exclusionary ideas.
We all have agency. We have control over how we respond to events. And with that agency comes responsibility. Giving in to hate is not inevitable. We can fix our immigration system without scapegoating and demonizing others, and we can hold on to our values as Canadians even as we address the errors of the previous government.
Spencer Fernando
SpencerFernando.com is a reader-supported publication. If you would like to support my perspective, consider becoming a subscriber for $6 a month or $72 a year. Subscribing gives you full access to all content. Subscribe here: https://spencerfernando.com/plans/pricing/
I am 100% Independent. I don't take government media subsidies, and I never will. My work is funded entirely by readers — no grants, no strings, no obligations to anyone but you.
If you find value in my independent perspective, consider making a donation:
If you want to support my work on a monthly basis and access all of my long-form writing, you can subscribe to my Patreon for $20/month or $216/year.