There was a lot wrong with the recent billboards promoting anti-immigration sentiments and the new ultra-right-wing People’s Party of Canada. Countering the claim from the leader of the People’s Party of Canada that “the billboard was ‘only controversial for the totalitarian leftist mob who want to censor it,'” experts have pointed out that these billboards were dogwhistles, as “mass immigration” is an inaccurate descriptor of the facts about immigration.
These billboards try to promote a homogenous notion of Canadian nationalism. I hope it is obvious that I think homogenous nationalism is worth challenging. But, is an economic justification for immigration the best response?
The economic defense
I find something lacking with the government’s talking point that immigration is good for jobs. Empirically, this is a sound argument. Immigrants do bolster the Canadian economy. My concern is that another sort of homogenous nationalism lurks under this kind of defense. I’ve mentioned this concern before. It’s not just from the federal government either, as tweets from Nova Scotian politicians demonstrate. If economics operates with the family as the unit of analysis, then what is good for the family/nation becomes good for all.
I’m not an expert at economics. But, the point I want to make is about what values are revealed when we justify what’s good for a family/nation on the sole basis of economic benefit. I think of Amazon workers striking on Amazon’s “Prime Day” (a holiday of sorts?) for fair and safe working conditions. It’s easy, at least for someone positioned as I am, not to think about the workers when searching for the best deal on Amazon. It’s easy to say, “It’s better to shop here, for my family’s financial well-being, because it makes economic sense.”
Precarious work
I do think it is important to recognize that immigrants help bolster the Canadian economy. I also hope they find meaningful employment. As I was reading today, more racialized immigrant women are precariously employed relative to other groups. (The study I read discussed racialized women as a group and immigrant women as a group. There are questions we might ask about more specific groups within these broad categories).
This study discussed ways precarious employment can heave negative health impacts on women and their families. Another point of emphasis was that precarious employment leads to experiences of not belonging in one’s new home. On the other hand, as my friend remarked telling a story of her immigration experience, meaningful work can help give you a sense of public belonging.
Meaningful work
Indeed, Ayten Gündoğdu argues that Arendt does not pay enough attention to the importance of work for fostering the ability of a person to act politically. Work helps ground the individual in a sense of place and belonging that enables action. I hope that the public outrage against the racist billboards, and defenses of immigration as good for the economy, also encourage thinking about what kind of workforces immigrants are being welcomed to.
Credit
The feature photo is by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash.