The ballot questions on immigration aim to create conditions that would allow human rights violations and intrusions into federal jurisdiction
Let’s take a look today at some of the “referendum questions” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government plans to put on a ballot next fall.
In addition to its separatist mischief, Ms. Smith’s government has formulated another nine referendum questions for her Oct. 19, 2026, vote.
All nine have been drafted to make it easier for her United Conservative Party Government push radical positions not in the interests of either Alberta or Albertans.
They have been intentionally worded, moreover, to influence voters to vote the way the UCP wants them to. In this sense, they are what would be known in public opinion polling as a “push poll” and their validity could probably be challenged in court.
Be that as it may, while Alberta’s Referendum Act allows the government to introduce votes on constitutional questions, the nine questions put forward by the UCP are quite clearly intended to create a constitutional crisis in Canada, as advocated by authors of the so-called Free Alberta Strategy, one of whom is the premier’s chief of staff.
The questions are also ambiguously worded, and many electors are bound to have trouble understanding the implications of the yes vote the government is fishing for.
In all cases, the five questions dealing with immigration are intended to appeal to a constituency of voters who support the racist and cruel approach to immigration taken by the Trump Administration in the United States.
At their base is the unstated assumption that immigration, especially by people with non-European and non-Christian backgrounds, is de facto bad for Alberta. They aim to create conditions that would allow the government to take actions that violate fundamental human rights and intrude on clear federal jurisdiction. As such, the five questions about immigration are also about the constitution.
As for the remaining four questions on constitutional matters, they are designed to advance a grab-bag of policy goals from a wish list associated with far-right politicians. In some cases, they are deceptively worded to sound more reasonable than they are in fact intended to be.
So, let’s start today with a short analysis of the five questions on immigration. Later this week, I will deal with the four remaining questions directly devoted to constitutional changes sought by Ms. Smith and her inner circle. In each case, I have recommended how I think Albertans should vote. No regular reader of this blog will be shocked by my recommendations.
The Questions on Immigration:
1. Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?
This question is worded in part to disguise the true intention of the UCP Government. Yes, the phrase “more sustainable levels” is partly a shot at the Trudeau Government’s unpopular approach to immigration, which is in the process of being rolled back by the Carney Government. But since the UCP clearly admits Alberta lacks workers in many occupations, such as the skilled trades, “more sustainable” in this context is likely intended to convey the message to the UCP base that too many newcomers are less Christian and less European than their party deems acceptable. As for prioritizing economic migration, aren’t most refugees from the Third World fleeing lack of economic opportunities? The dog-whistled implication, however, is that somehow Albertans are being discriminated against in favour of newcomers, a belief held by a sector of the electorate for which there is little evidence. So, how does the government propose to insure that Albertans have the first crack at jobs that need to be filled? In fact, that’s the way things work now – people with appropriate qualifications who are here and available immediately are most to likely get hired first. So this seems at best intended to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, and, more likely, is coded language for something else. Vote No.
2. Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded programs, such as health care, education and other social services?
On economic, practical and humanitarian grounds, all legal residents regardless of their race, skin colour, religion, immigration status or any other quality should be entitled to access to health care. Indeed, if we are decent people, this should be extended to any human being experiencing a serious health crisis in Alberta, regardless of why they are here. Access to health care is a fundamental human right and should be recognized as such. The same applies to the education of children, regardless of the reasons their parents brought them to our country. The policy sought by this question is un-Canadian and most certainly un-Christian. In practice, it will inevitably be racist and unfair. It is hard to believe it is not intended to be. Vote No.
3. Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs?
This ballot question is clearly intended to justify denying sick newcomers access to medical care and the children of newcomers access to education for a full year. While it is presented as a cost-saving measure, the bureaucracy involved in determining who is who would likely increase costs. But which newcomers? The wording is very murky. Is it directed principally at refugees? In intended practice, it is appears to be designed to discriminate against certain classes of newcomers on racial and religious grounds, but could have the effect of discriminating against any immigrant from anywhere (except perhaps elsewhere in Canada) who does not have a significant bankroll. That would obviously be counterproductive in attracting immigrants with specialized skills needed in Alberta, but since the goal is essentially racist and intended to weed out non-Christians and those of non-European heritage, that may not matter to the government. Vote No.
4. Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their family’s use of the health care and education systems?
This question is intended to sound reasonable and ensure a yes vote. Will whatever fee the UCP comes up with be reasonable? How is reasonable defined? The intention is obviously malicious. One thing you can count on, though, is that if the government gets away with imposing this fee on immigrants, it opens the door to the same thing being applied to the rest us who already reside here, making life for everyone less affordable. Vote No.
5. Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or citizenship card, to vote in an Alberta provincial election?
This is weird, but also obviously intended to achieve a goal other than the one that is implied. Arguably, anyone who lives here legally and permanently or pays taxes other than sales taxes should be entitled to vote after a reasonable period of time. We can argue about what is a reasonable time frame, of course. But the categories suggested are interesting. What passport would prove one is entitled to vote? Not a Canadian passport since, in case the UCP missed it, there are nine other provinces and three territories that also have residents. Under current law, those residents of other provinces are not allowed to vote here. (I have lived in Alberta for decades. My Canadian passport gives another Canadian province as my place of birth. Is this a sly way to enforce the call by some separatists that only people born in Alberta should have the right to be full citizens of the new state they imagine? Or is this rule intended to be grandfathered to apply only to Alberta passports?) Likewise, many Albertans have birth certificates issued by other provinces or countries. Of what utility would they be in determining our status as legal Alberta voters? The only way this question makes sense is if it is a gimmick to justify the UCP’s intention to stamp our citizenship on our driving licenses as a way to make it easier to deny medical care to sick and injured people, education to certain classes of kids, and, of course, to round up the people the UCP’s base would like to deport after “independence.” Vote No.
I will return to the other four questions – those directly related to the UCP’s constitutional wish list – in my next piece on the UCP’s nine referendum questions. DJC
You are good at interpreting these referendum questions that are very confusing. It’s obvious that there is racism here. Personally, I would be very surprised if the courts didn’t strike this referendum down, because it violates the Charter, and the Constitution. Danielle Smith was the one who was barking at Justin Trudeau, two years ago, and was asking him specifically to bolster immigration to Alberta. Also, Danielle Smith openly stated that she wanted a population boost for Alberta in more ways than one, and for more than one reason. Red Deer was to be like Calgary and Edmonton. Alberta was to be like Ontario and Quebec. Danielle Smith thought that Red Deer could be an economic powerhouse like Calgary and Edmonton. She thought that there was an imbalance of power with Ontario and Quebec, and that if Alberta had a population like they did, things would change. At the same time, Danielle Smith was blaming immigrants for things like problems with the public education system, and the public healthcare system in Alberta, which is more racism, or scapegoating, when Ralph Klein’s neoliberal policies, with bad cuts to both, and the UCP compounding those problems are the real culprits.
It is exhausting living in a place fuelled with hatred and division by its own government. Clearly the UCP have stopped caring about the citizens of Alberta. They’ve stopped caring if anyone knows they’re separatists, racists and Christian nationalists, too. Did Rob Anderson cook this up while he was on the trail in a covered wagon?
I agree the referendumb questions are racist.
And I have heard Smith suggest many times that they are designed to constitutionally challenge the federal government. She as explicitly encouraged us to vote for them as a way of empowering Alberta. She has implicitly suggested that previous such constitutional threats have worked.
That they are worded to present inherently bad policy as if it was good is basically expected from the UCP messaging.
I am very concerned that criticizing the questions will insult voters and excuses them from accepting the significance of their vote.
As dogwhistles, criticisms of the questions will be heard as elitist, feeding the UCP tribalism.
At same time, discussions about the questions’ wording allows the racist voter to pretend that their “Yes” votes aren’t entirely evil.
What to do? Well I’m donating my 100 Dani-Dollars to organizations opposed to the UCP and opposed to their referendumb nonsense.
Illogical, deceptive and racist are the cornerstones of UCP policy.
Marlaina uses word salads to hide her contempt for everyone except wealthy white people.
In my view all the questions on the referendum are a total disgrace and tend to reveal the true authoritarian nature of Smith, underscoring her bias and racism. After skimming over the questions when they came out, to me there is only one way to vote on all 9, that is NO! I think it is incumbent on us voters to send a real big message back to Smith and her clapping seal UCP pals, that we do not agree with her and certainly do not like what she is doing.
Alberta’s Maple MAGAs know that the province is deeply racist and are counting on that fact.
You do not want to wish ill of anyone but this world would have been better off had Smith never been born.
Is Smith looking for a fifty percent plus one on this or will she deem even a tiny percent of a yes vote from her most backward, mouth breathing, knuckle dragging supporters as an overwhelming majority in an effort to turn certain newcomers into second class citizens.
How do you wake Albertans up from this UPC Kool-Aid? When are they going to realize, that Smith, with help from dubious characters, is trying to control narrative of everything you read, watch and listen to. This UPC / MAGA government is all about control over Albertans. And these questions are proof of their intent.
Provinces already have jurisdiction when it comes to setting terms for who gets to access to taxpayer funded healthcare, and presumably education services. Those rules effectively eliminate the need for some questions because a person is either eligible, or must carry private insurance, or they can be billed. See: https://legalclarity.org/is-canadian-healthcare-free-for-non-citizens/
Thanks. Shall spread the words.
Do you support the annihilation of the UCP party and its supporters? Vote yes!
Thanks for simplifying my voting experience. Obviously I haven’t seen a ballot but I can check NO several times in a row. But I fear that in matters of immigration and citizenship, it’s the details that count. During the fifties, the law was much more generous. You hate ruskies? Come on down! Did you or your family suffer at the hands of the Nazis? We welcome you.
As long as your application for status didn’t get stuck in a queue, you can pack your bag and get on a plane.
But what will be the status and legitimacy of Alberta’s documents? Hard to tell. A new country or the 51st state? Be on the lookout for a million cases before the Supreme Court. Happy days. Happy days.
Non-UCP Translation:
1) We’re in desperate need of medical staff but we don’t want no Cubans. We’re in dire need of engineers but we don’t want none o’ those Sharia-types that come from Muslim countries where they turn out STEM students, male and female, by the millions. Our infrastructurism is fallin’ apart without tradesmen but we don’t want none of them Mexicans or South ‘Mericans that are willin’ to climb high towers on a bungee cord and a prayer.
2) Whatever im’grants we do get, we ain’t paying for their off-season, their granny or if they fall off a building or get punched by a crazed patient while werking for us. We’ll let ’em work in healthcare but they ain’t gettin’ any.
3) We don’t wanna pay to stop any pandemics or transmissibles even if it affects us, we ain’t payin’ for the arm they busted fixing our car and we want their children to fall far enough behind in school that they’re as dumb as ours, are.
4) We wanna overcharge these poor slobs for all the services so we get some extra money to make up the shortfalls we’re busy stealing from those systems.
5) We haz enuff voters. We don’t want no weirdo outsiders messing with our proppygander because having come from repressive gov’ts we don’t want them to eddymacate our halfwit voters on our shenanigans.
Living in a small town, you tend to notice things. One of the things that I’ve noticed is the number of people I’ve never heard of before joining our Facebook Rant and Rave pages. It’s a small town – we all know each other. So, why would someone born and still living in Hamilton, Ontario be interested in recommendations for auto repairs in town? Or whether someone has some rhubarb they’d like to give away?Anyway, a few weeks ago some interesting posts started to show up. People complaining that their kids couldn’t get jobs at fast food places in town because the owners were only hiring immigrants, specifically brown immigrants. More people piled on, including one who claimed their kids hadn’t been able to find jobs in town for four years because immigrants were only hiring other immigrants. There was talk of boycotting businesses. Then, a fast food franchise holder posted that from now on they would be hiring ‘local’ people only – that being code for white. It got me wondering about how many other small towns in Alberta have their FB Rant and Rave or Roast and Toast pages suddenly attracting the attention of people who clearly don’t live in the area. (There’s one person on our page who lists his location as Hungary!) And then I wondered to myself – how are the folks in the War Room doing these days? Finding enough work to keep themselves busy? Getting back to Question #1 on the list about Alberta taking control of immigration and ‘giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities.’ Wow, what a coincidence!
Hippie: This is what happens when you have a foreign-funded disinformation and misinformation campaign targeting your country. We all need to get used to this, because it isn’t going to stop. DJC
@DJC
This is how FakeBook went south. I had a political page on their for *years* with every political stripe imaginable.
Then someone brought up Palestine.
We got swamped. Every kind of attack you can imagine. We got flooded with fake news articles (even though at that time the page was set to only accept links from members so how did that happen?) bots, astroturfed memes, flaming, insults, adverts for things nobody was talking about…the list was endless. After a few weeks of spending my morning hours deleting content over and over, I finally gave up because I was spending half my day tossing garbage and nobody in our large group could even have a decent discussion, any more.
Enshittification and destruction of civilized conversation isn’t a bug in social platform–it’s the main feature. With AI and foreign bot farms, it’s even worse.
Is it stoppable? Yes. The will is not there because conflict=cash.
I was reading the High River Times (Post Media) a while ago and there was a letter to the editor, saying how great Smith and the UPC were. The letter was from someone in Edmonton. I highly doubt that someone in Edmonton even knows the High River Times even exists. It’s fake, Smith, the UPC and Post Media are all fake.
Hippie:
Too bad there’s no block feature for anyone non-local. A simple solution to cut down the garbage, easily done but FB will never do it.
I hope you told them about the exciting variety “Pembroke Atomic Rhubarb”, and suggested that they seek it out. So worth it, but not available locally.
Here’s a more encouraged observation. I happened to be riding atop the local NDP’s float in Grande Prairie’s Canada Day parade, and from that vantage point I had an unparalleled opportunity to see the crowds that lined the parade route. Those crowded did not match the narrow stereotype of a small Alberta city in the heart of the oilpatch. There were women and girls in hijab alongside Hutterites in their traditional colourful garb, and turbaned Sikhs alongside whites in Canada swag outfits. It was a far more visibly diverse crowd than I think anyone gives us credit for. Oh, and by the way, there was a paucity of catcalls and booing for our prominently displayed NDP branding and Canadian flags. It’s not that there was none, but very very little of that.
When it comes to thinking about access to health care, as far as I know there three categories of people legally in Canada who are not citizens or permanent residents: asylum claimants, international students and temporary foreign workers. Rules for access to health care are already in place by the federal government, so any attempt by Alberta to define its own rules would fly in the face of Canadian law and regulations. For example temporary foreign workers are guaranteed full access to public health insurance, and if it takes a while to set that up, their employer has to pay for private health insurance in the meantime. Certainly this is a dog whistle for people who believe the tale that immigrants in general are freeloaders. But it’s also a deterrent for immigrants in those categories to come to Alberta. If you were a prospective temporary foreign worker, would you choose to come to Alberta?
Good points, Alfredo. DJC
“Arguably, anyone who lives here legally and permanently or pays taxes other than sales taxes should be entitled to vote after a reasonable period of time.” I’m afraid I have to disagree, as a naturalized Canadian citizen. Citizenship is about a lot more than paying taxes.
Bravo, David. You’re spot on when you identify the dog whistles and weasel words (add in the chicken**** and you’ve got a whole barnyard of mendacity).
I also think there’s another dimension. I believe the questions are deliberately worded in a confusing and deceptive way to confuse members of the public. The net effect of this will be to deter some people from voting. Since the “brain trust” at the Alberta Freedom Strategy know full well that their core supporters will turn out to vote for this racist agenda no matter what, they are hoping that on voting day they can achieve a victory by turnout, and part of their strategy is to discourage “no voters” from voting at all.
I’ve lived in this province almost all of my life, and I’ve never been as appalled and ashamed as I am today.
As much as I would also hate to have my citizenship printed on my international waters diving license, I think you meant driving or driver‘s license in the last question.
I can also tell you that most European or South American newcomers to Alberta, whom I know at least, are right pissed at these questions and also feel targeted.
Nine votes for NEIN in my household!
Thanks Bitterböse, your speculation is correct. This typo has been fixed. DJC
It is said the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing again and again and hoping for a different result.
The UCP’s approach to referendum questions is a textbook example of this. They are amazing consistent in that they keep on asking questions about things they do not have the power to do anything about. I suppose it may be a good temporary distraction, but when it leads to nothing like their previous referendum on equalization did just leads to more frustration by the separatist and separatist leaning crowd.
If we are to have referendums in Alberta, perhaps they should be about things like private health care or coal mining in the eastern slopes. However, this is the last thing the UCP wants as they might actually force them to do things the public wants, rather than discuss endlessly things they don’t have any power to change.
The most recent immigrants in my family were my grandfather’s nuclear family who emigrated to Lethbridge, Northwest Territories, Canada, from England in 1904 a year before the region was confederated as the province of Alberta when he was three years old. His two younger siblings were born in Canada (they all moved to Toronto so he could attend the Royal Conservancy of Music of which he soon became director at age 18). He eventually received an Alberta award, as a “native son,” for his work in public radio during WWII. So would he be considered an “old-stock” Albertan in the same way Stephen Harper once controversially defined white, Christian Canadians? One would think so.
Before my great grandparents emigrated to Lethbridge, the next most-recent familial immigrants arrived in the so-called “Hungry Forties”—1840s, that is—, all from the Isles of Western Scotland. Before that, my ancestors who’d lived in the New England colonies for several generations emigrated to Upper Canada as United Empire Loyalists in 1780. I guess that makes me a “old-stock Canadian” the way Harper meant it, although for three generations before confederation my Upper Canada ancestors would have described themselves only as British subjects, as would have my Northwest Territory grandfather for a single year before Alberta confederated—or would have his parents since he was only four in 1905.
From the tone of Danielle Smith’s omnibus referendum I get the impression that I myself might not qualify since, although I’m certainly white and Canadian, there are what she and her ilk might consider devilish details in my pedigree. And although I understand the principles of federalism which, for example, limits my eligibility to vote or get medical coverage or other federally-funded services in any province unless I reside there for a minimum of six months, which is fair enough in any federal context, I do have concerns about how she might prejudice any application to Alberta services I might make.
But of course discriminating criteria get tricky; for example, I myself am no longer a Christian, although raised in the United Church or Canada and still holding to many of its tenets. Am I still an “old stock” Canadian? Is two out of three not too bad? having learned a requisite amount about the Shoa, or Holocaust, I realized that since my Alberta grandfather, scion of a long line of Anglican vicars of Leicester, England, had a mother of Jewish descent which, although he mightn’t have known it, made him Jewish by Halacha (Jewish Law) and , had we lived in Nazi Germany, that would have been enough to get him and his two daughters and their offspring (my three siblings and five cousins) exterminated in a death-camp (re: I Will Bear Witness, an account of Nazism from 1933-45 by Victor Klemperer, a converted Jew to Protestantism—which probably saved him from extermination—, for an excellent account of the perversities of official, race-based discrimination).
I can’t very well blame governments alone. My own father had a visceral enmity towards the Church of Rome (even though his own ancestors had been Catholics for ten centuries before the Protestant Reformation) to the point of denying any Irish (Catholic) ancestry which my subsequent research has disproved in spades. He found my mother’s Anglicanism, renounced after his demise, highly suspect. Many evangelicals today, especially in the USA and, naturally, Alberta don’t consider the RC Church to be truly Christian. My dad finally conceded when both my siblings married into Irish Catholic families, as did his ex-wife, my mother , and my own son, his oldest grandson. About the only reason I could ever thank “heaven” for Alzheimer’s.
Well, I guess that lets me off the hook, eh?—unless my Jewish wife whose Russian ancestors emigrated to Winnipeg at the turn of the 19th century affects eligibility in Smith’s Redoubt. Does it count that they were White Russians? Or that my darling is third-generation atheist? I guess I shouldn’t mention that her parents and grand parents were card-carrying communists too. Since it’s unlikely, at our ages, that we’ll ever move to the Wild Rose province (still one of my favourite), I suppose it won’t hurt to admit she’s also a founding member of the NDP. Like, would that matter if she’s demonstrably a third-generation Canadian, white and—uh— oh, never mind!
I’m among the most blessed demographic: white, male, baby-boomer of Christian heritage. One could say, “privileged.” There should be little reason for me to trouble myself about all this racist bullshit. But I live in BC where bigotry against indigenous nations flares up on a regular basis—like this recent Cowichan Tribes court decision that has the far-right BC “Conservative” party in a wholly unwarranted froth. It only reminds me of the 1997 SCoC decision which found that BC’s confederation did not extinguish sovereign claims of the province’s many First Nations, and of a similar right-wing freakout when it was realized that all BC FNs are still owed treaties they were denied since 1871, and that “meaningful consultation” between effectively ‘co-sovereign’ partners (the Crown and any FN without treaty—virtually all BC FNs) must take place before natural resources are disposed in any FN’s acknowledged traditional territory, interim to treaty settlement. I, like all British Columbians at the time, was eligible to vote in a multi-question referendum in 2002, similar to Smith’s, BC’s concerning treaty negotiations the SCoC confirmed were (and still are) owed BC FNs.
In 2002 far-right BC “Liberal” premier Gordon Campbell held such a referendum which was likewise condemned by pollsters, constitutional lawyers, FNs and many BC voters for being misleading, loaded, ambiguous and, frankly, racist. I’m most reminded that Campbell subsequently had to abjectly apologize to FNs because, I think likely, only one-third of the mail-ins were returned and counted, 80% answering his loaded questions like they were designed to elicit, meaning a significant chunk of his own party supporters rejected the odious exercise; meanwhile, about half of the not-returned ballots were ceremonially burned in the capital in protest. It was, in short, a political and partisan disaster. BC FN organizations graciously accepted Campbell’s apparent contrition.
It’s impossible to equate BC with Alberta (because of the lack of treaties here), or Campbell with Smith (although both perfidious, Campbell at least psephologically smart enough to backtrack), but I offer this as another example of, excuse my english and french, how totally fucked up these racist exercises are. I hope Smith gets the result she deserves.
Be strong, my Alberta friends
Yankee Doodle Dani knows to carry the next election she has to retain both the insane frothing fringe of vaccine refuseniks, racists, and separatists AND the reasonable conservatives who vote that way because it’s how they always have, or their neighbours do or whatever. So here we have four racist, isolationist questions teed up right to the frothing base, with “reasonable” sounding language so we don’t scare the rest of the plebs.
Personally I think catering to the loudest and most extreme sectors of the population, who are a tiny minority even within rural alberta isn’t the wisest strategy. Albertans are very dignified and respectful people for the most part. Just because no one is knocking these chuds out one by one doesn’t mean they have the support of the community, and I think pretty much everyone is sick of their shit at this point.
All the NDP has to do is offer a meaningful alternative to the slate of bigots, carnival barkers and fundies the UCP has proffered and we could see some real movement in this province. Whether or not it happens remains to be seen, I’m not holding my breath.
In addition to your reasons for voting no for all of the above I would add a few more:
1) people who work here pay taxes here, just like us, to support health, education, social services, infrastructure, etc. Why the extra fees applying to them? That’s like the Head Taxes formerly applied to “undesirable foreigners”.
2) Canadian citizenship is already required in order to vote, but the issue usually is proving residency in the riding or ward where you live. This document production is almost certainly about the suppression of votes from people perfectly entitled to vote.
3) They list the people are legally here, and frankly, it comprises the vast, vast majority of people in Alberta – citizens, permanent residents, holders of legal status due to being refugees. The actual size of the population that is not in any of those categories is likely extremely small. So, yes, it’s making up a problem that is way smaller than they’re making it out to be in order to demonize people. It will result in harassment and persecution, furthermore, of people who are here perfectly legally (just like ICE has perpetrated in the US). And even if we don’t get our own version of ICE, it will normalize and enable the people who are already xenophobic to treat people badly on the very often mistaken assumption that they are in the “second class” category – and it will mostly be because of the colour of their skin.
4) They are completely ignoring the support that the federal government provides for refugees, so they are not the exclusive burden of Alberta at all.
I really have to wonder if these questions, apart from the racist dogwhistle aspects, are also designed to support privatizing healthcare and education. Will immigrants be forced to used private health care and education, or will the gov’t set up money collectors in these institutions?
Thank you for doing this, David. I have seen some politicians and pundits dismissing these nine questions as irrelevant, but at least one strategist argues they are soft separatism and need to be campaigned against, along with the specific separatism question.
This website has links to various groups and campaigns for Canada and against separatism:
https://unitedfor.ca/list/
including some that specifically oppose the referendum questions on immigration, like:
https://ouralbertaadvantage.ca/
Yes, and now I know to vote NO!
Will you be doing a part 2 on this with the rest of the referendum questions? I want to spread this to the communities where English is their 2nd language so they understand more of what they are choosing.
Tim: Barring an unexpected big story that requires my pontificating, or at least that I can’t resist pontificating about, I plan to publish Part II tonight (that is, Thursday night) to appear in the wee hours Friday. DJC
Get ready for costly court challenges ’cause there ain’t a snowball’s chance in hell these questions won’t get an overwhelming majority vote in this province!
Firstly, far too many commentators and pontificators on this issue conflate immigrants, with refugees and asylum seekers, and temporary arrivals such as international students and temporary foreign workers.
On immigrants, Canada needs more, not fewer. Our population is declining, and has for the past three quarters, which is unhealthy for the economy. (Canada has never had population declines in our entire history since Confederation).
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901
On refugees & asylum seekers, we have both a legal and an ethical/moral obligation to offer asylum to people from other lands fleeing war, famine, religious or political persecution, and other calamities.The issue is really about distribution and supports for those newcomers when they arrive. We can’t keep cramming them into anlre overcrowded mega-cities like Toronto, Vancouver and — to a lesser extent — Montréal, where there is no place for them to live. We need to resettle them in smaller places, and set them up for success by providing better resettlement programming and supports for them to create new lives in safety and security. Let’s not forget that Section 6(2) of the Charter is limited to citizens and permanent residents:
“(2) Every citizen of Canada and every person who has the status of a permanent resident of Canada has the right
(a) to move to and take up residence in any province; and
(b) to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province.”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html
Finally, there are international students and TFWs. There have undoubtedly been excesses in how many international students have been accepted into Canada, especially in places like Conservative-governed Ontario where they essentially served as “cash cattle” for their commercial private college system. But those excesses were perpetrated by the management of those private colleges and the provincial government officials who enabled them, not by students who applied in good faith to come here to study. And yet it is those students, and not the maleficent actors behind it all, who suffer all the consequences of this crackdown.
On Temporary Foreign Workers, the programme was initially intended to address skilled labour shortages cause by a lack of qualified skill tradespeople in Canada, not to dump newcomers from other, poorer countries into our lower-skilled workforce to suppress wages in the quick-service food and retail industries. But again, the actual bad actors in this are employers and their lobbyists, and government officials at both provincial and federal levels, who bought into their bullcr@p, not the workers themselves — and yet, it’s the workers who suffer.
We do have regional labour shortages in some parts of the country, and yet we have almost 13% youth unemployment . Our problem is largely one of geography: workers available to work, and jobs for them to take, are not close enough to each other for those workers and those jobs to be matched up. People might relocate for upper-middle-class career-level jobs, or maybe even Red Seal trade jobs, but nobody in, say, Gander NL or Mississauga ON is going move to Alberta to flip burgers or sling Timmy’s coffee, or work at Winners or WalMart.
We need to be more creative in how Canadians find jobs, especially those crucial first jobs that help them build experience and a resume, and demonstrate that they have the work ethic that employers look for.
I wonder what would happen if each and every job vacancy at every employer had to, by law, be posted at the nearest EI office, and all applicants processed by Service Canada staff… ?