Quote:
Originally Posted by rousseau
But if you think that the arrival of some adherents of Islam into our bigger cities in the 21st century is anywhere remotely close to the cultural and social shockwaves that reverberated through North American small cities and towns when hordes of Germans showed up on these shores, then you're an idiot. It is not the same sort of social dislocation/adjustment at all.
|
Sort of.
Roughly one hundred years ago Canada received the same absolute number of immigrants as today - 250,000/year - but on a population of 7 million, rather than 36 million.
But I would argue that the arrival of 1 immigrant today might place a burden on state resources that is equivalent to the arrival of 5 immigrants back then. I'm not talking about welfare payments to poorer immigrants - that's a red herring. Even if it were true, it's just the tip of the iceberg compared to the public expenditures that go toward supporting a vast state apparatus that follows the life of every Canadian, rich or poor, from cradle to grave.
If a German-trained
Apotheker arrived in Berlin, Ontario in 1916, he would probably just go the registry office, register his business and have his drugstore up and running within a month. He'd hire an assistant by posting a want ad in the paper, and then pay him by taking cash out of the safe at the end of the month.
Needless to say the intricacies of an immigrant with non-Canadian education and certification starting a pharmacy in 2016 are considerably more intricate, and the paperwork required to hire a worker are much more complex.
Of course, the trade off - especially in the example of a pharmacy - is that the massive amount of regulations and certifications that are required probably serve the interests of the public*. Making sure that the pharmacist doesn't leave fentanyl on the shelf beside the Altoids is probably something that requires training, testing, certification and inspection - all on the public dime - but it's probably in our best interest. And the fact that employees aren't just hired off the street and paid in cash but apply with a valid SIN and file income taxes and CPP payments probably supports a safety net that is in their interest as well.
Anyway - TL;DR - this is all to say that the modern state (post-1960) requires every citizen to be managed and accounted for, and that means it is very susceptible to large changes in demographics - driven either by generational fertility changes, or the arrival of newcomers. I personally prefer the modern welfare state over living in the pre-war world, but it is very fragile and requires constant vigilance.
---
*On the other hand, it's possible that the endless certifications and licensing practices that seemingly every profession requires these days is a drag on productivity and stifles the natural growth of the labour market. For example, there is a huge demand for engineers of all stripes, but if you look closely, you'll find that many engineers do work that doesn't require them to solve complex differential equations or calculate the torsional stress on a bridge span, or doing any of the special engineer training that they received while getting their P.Eng. In other words, many engineers are doing jobs that many other people could do, but the requirements for engineers in many jobs limits the supply of people you can hire and drives up engineer salaries/wages relative to similarly-talented people. You could also argue [I would] that the state may have gone too far in using public expenditures to support the public interest when it starts hiring people to do things like write policy reports on public art projects in the public realm that won't actually be implemented and pays them $70,000/year + benefits to do so.
Prev
Linear Mode
