My Labour, Your Loss
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At a panel on Canada’s new immigration caps, I attended on Friday, one of the speakers addressed how these new restrictions will make it so that there will be a hindrance to labour in Canada. She spoke of how Canada's new restrictions will minimize the opportunity for immigrants to contribute to the Canadian economy, and that it was a concern as unemployment rates rise in certain sectors. I took her message as an unfiltered truth. My labour is what Canada requires of me. The panel discussion reflected much of what the reading this week was about. Immigration is an economic motivation, desired/needed by companies, and government, but immigration is always coupled with the anxiety of the "encroachment" of another's people and their culture.
Despite public fears about rising unemployment, the Canadian government admitted a significant number of Ugandan Asians, motivated not only by humanitarian concerns (83) but also by a belief that these skilled, educated immigrants would benefit the economy. The decision to prioritize Ismaili expellees, was kept secret (85), emphasizing the government’s awareness that public support of immigrants depended on the perception that immigrants would be economically productive to Canadian society (83).
The speaker at the panel reflected on this historical example, where Canada’s immigration policies continue to be influenced by the perceived economic contributions of immigrants. The value of immigrants is often reduced to their labour, and how their labour can ease the living of the country's existing residents. I wonder about this process of othering, and the shift towards viewing immigrants as the outsider.
Canada is mostly filled with immigrants; it is a relatively young country with a relatively short history of migration, and its population has doubled in the last fifty years. At some point, individuals feel more entitled to this country than those who share the exact same dreams as them. These individuals begin to believe that the entrance of immigrants should only be warranted if their economic contributions outweigh the perception of their otherness.
In A Place Called Persia, I reflected on the practice of Homeland and meditated on the concept of it for myself. Homeland as being accepted when not in servitude, in action or working. Homeland is resting within our bodies, believing that we (diaspora) deserve to be even when we are not creating, doing, trying to live up to expectations, or changing perceptions. Homeland is understanding that the immigrant body is not an economic producer, but limitless, existing in its whole tenderness.