I’m a current American bio student planning to go into healthcare, can confirm I’m planning to go to grad school abroad to hopefully escape the US. I’m not planning to go to Canada though, I’m planning to go to Australia. I decided not to look into Canada after hearing of it’s rising far-right and anti-immigrant sentiment. If Canada wants US brain drain Canadians would have to be willing to accept American immigrants, even with how poorly many Canadians view Americans right now
And it’s a problem there too. Both Australia and Canada need to cool it with the anti-immigrant scapegoating unless they want to end up like America. Ultimately the main reason I chose Australia over Canada was due to it’s further distance from the US making it less likely to get embridled in geopolitical conflicts with the US, like Canada already is with these tariff wars
Sure, but not to the same degree. I don’t know much about Canadian politics but for a time my social media was filled with post after post bashing Trudeau and favoring more far-right politicians just over immigration policy. It was enough to turn me off of your country as a whole, if immigrants are so hated there.
Sounds like propaganda got to you. Maybe don’t make big life decisions if you “don’t know much” about a topic? Educating yourself is free, just hard to do if your source of education is “post after post”.
The funny thing about immigration is that it turns out I don’t need to research every single ‘might be good, might be bad’ country out there. I only needed to find a single country that had lenient immigration laws and would be accepting of me. Australia was that country for me, though it has it’s own issues as all countries do. Personally, I don’t think I should need to have some degree in foreign politics to be able to decide which countries would/wouldn’t be welcoming to me. If anything, if Canada has some massive propaganda problem where allsearchablemetrics (58% Trudeau disapproval ratings, 58% think too much immigration, 41% anxious immigrant rights get too much attention), then perhaps “too much propaganda” is yet another reason to avoid Canada.
That’s because Trudeau is wildly unpopular. So unpopular he was finally asked to resign (and agreed to do so) by his own party.
And furthermore if you want to understand the reasons behind anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada you should study our housing policies and issues. Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis which I believe is the main contributor to anti-immigrant sentiment.
Now you might say (and would be fair to do so) that immigrants are not to blame for bad housing policy. That is true, however it’s entirely fair for Trudeau to receive his share of the blame for the housing crisis, especially given his many promises to address the issue.
And if you’re wondering about Australia: its housing crisis is as bad or worse than Canada’s. Anti-immigration sentiment and far-right politics is even more prevalent there.
I’m well aware of the Australian housing crisis, and of it’s far-right politicians like Dutton. I was also aware that there were other reasons for Trudeau being unpopular besides immigration (hence why it wasn’t the sole statistic I provided, I used Trudeau’s approval ratings as somewhat of a general metric for Canada turning against left-leaning politicians, and I used the other two statistics to try to show Canada’s anti-immigrant attitudes. Without spending exorbitant amounts of time studying Canadian politics this was the quickest summary statistics I choose to look at).
I criticized Canada for having poor attitudes towards immigration, and I would criticize Australia for the same, these two opinions aren’t mutually exclusive. Ultimately my personal decision to attempt to immigrate to Australia rather than Canada came down to choosing ‘the lesser of two evils’ (which as an American I am very practiced in doing. ha. ha.)
Specifically, I thought Australia’s further distance from the US would make it safer geopolitically, it’s higher foreign-born population would make it so that way ‘anti-immigration’ sentiment didn’t become ‘anti-immigrant’ sentiment, and it’s compulsory voting laws would make it harder for far-right politicians to gain and/or maintain a foothold. I truly did not intend for my personal decision to go to Australia over Canada to be some kind of dig at Canada, though I did get defensive at the dismissive claim that the limited research I have done was just “propaganda getting to me.” Apologies if I was a bit aggressive in my critique of Canadian attitudes towards immigration
It’s a matter of degree. Australia has a housing crisis and many want to lower immigration, but their starting level of immigration was already incredibly high, for instance 30% of the population is foreign born, as compared to Canada’s 21%. A marginal difference, but it still contributes to a culture more accepting of immigrants.
You know, I think somehow the rhetoric has gotten mixed up here though. I have said ‘As a victim currently being forced to flee my fascist home country, I think Canada could stand to be more accepting of immigrants’ and you have heard ‘Canada sucks so hard I won’t go there even though I’m American (and thus an uninformed idiot).’
I think it’s part of an overarching narrative I’ve seen, of people from non-US countries hating on Americans for not voting/volunteering/working hard enough to stop Trump from being elected, that ‘America = Bad’ and ‘[Insert My Country Here] = Good, and we would never be like Bad America.’ It goes without saying that I voted Harris & phone banked often. I don’t think Canada is a bad country, I think it’s amazing, even! But I also find the sheer amount of nationalistic rhetoric I’ve seen both around and directly here in this thread deeply worrying.
Like, you do realize that you’re essentially responding to a trans person, a potential victim of genocide, with ‘Haha, you’re such an idiot! Don’t you realize nowhere is safe for you? Don’t you realize everywhere has rising far-right politics and hatred of immigrants? Have fun immigrating to a country that hates you to escape a dictatorship you tried to stop but ultimately had no control over!’
I’m very aware that Australia also has an upswing in anti-immigrant rhetoric. I find it deeply unempathetic of you to try and use it as some sort of ‘gotcha’ to prove that your country is amazing (or that other countries are just as bad). I’m currently having to flee the country I’ve called home my entire life due to political persecution. I think it would be helpful if people could remember that I’m an actual person and not just another ‘stupid American’
I wasn’t reading news articles so much as I as reading Reddit comments (back when I still used Reddit), which is certainly still not a completely comprehensive read of the whole Canadian population, but it’s about as close as I can get without being in Canada myself. To be honest though, having most of the media controlled by right wing groups is another concern, though I do hope your elections go well
I think it’s important to remember immigration isn’t just some lever you can turn on and off: “oh we’re having issues with quality of life so let’s stop letting immigrants in,” “oh but we want highly educated people like doctors so lets let them in.” Prospective immigrants will remember at best the wishy-washy stance on whether or not immigrants should be let in, at worst the outright xenophobic sentiment they had heard. This especially goes for people in highly educated professions like doctors, who are desirable immigrants in any countries, and thus have options to pick and choose where they want to go.
I know when my parents (who are both doctors) started looking into investing a bit in other countries, Canada wasn’t even considered, they went straight to investing in Europe. When I told them I was looking into foreign colleges, they suggested schools in New Zealand, in Germany, in Sweden… they didn’t once recommend Canada. Well, this is just anecdotal evidence, and I’m sure many many American doctors will flee to Canada. But I wouldn’t assume just because doctors are leaving the US necessarily means they’re going to Canada
I’m a current American bio student planning to go into healthcare, can confirm I’m planning to go to grad school abroad to hopefully escape the US. I’m not planning to go to Canada though, I’m planning to go to Australia. I decided not to look into Canada after hearing of it’s rising far-right and anti-immigrant sentiment. If Canada wants US brain drain Canadians would have to be willing to accept American immigrants, even with how poorly many Canadians view Americans right now
My bro, or sis, if you’re not going to Canada because of righties and anti-immigration, I got some bad news for you about Aus…
Got a bio friend fleeing to NZ rn
Australia has the same problems as Canada
And it’s a problem there too. Both Australia and Canada need to cool it with the anti-immigrant scapegoating unless they want to end up like America. Ultimately the main reason I chose Australia over Canada was due to it’s further distance from the US making it less likely to get embridled in geopolitical conflicts with the US, like Canada already is with these tariff wars
Is this not happening everywhere?
Sure, but not to the same degree. I don’t know much about Canadian politics but for a time my social media was filled with post after post bashing Trudeau and favoring more far-right politicians just over immigration policy. It was enough to turn me off of your country as a whole, if immigrants are so hated there.
Sounds like propaganda got to you. Maybe don’t make big life decisions if you “don’t know much” about a topic? Educating yourself is free, just hard to do if your source of education is “post after post”.
The funny thing about immigration is that it turns out I don’t need to research every single ‘might be good, might be bad’ country out there. I only needed to find a single country that had lenient immigration laws and would be accepting of me. Australia was that country for me, though it has it’s own issues as all countries do. Personally, I don’t think I should need to have some degree in foreign politics to be able to decide which countries would/wouldn’t be welcoming to me. If anything, if Canada has some massive propaganda problem where all searchable metrics (58% Trudeau disapproval ratings, 58% think too much immigration, 41% anxious immigrant rights get too much attention), then perhaps “too much propaganda” is yet another reason to avoid Canada.
That’s because Trudeau is wildly unpopular. So unpopular he was finally asked to resign (and agreed to do so) by his own party.
And furthermore if you want to understand the reasons behind anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada you should study our housing policies and issues. Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis which I believe is the main contributor to anti-immigrant sentiment.
Now you might say (and would be fair to do so) that immigrants are not to blame for bad housing policy. That is true, however it’s entirely fair for Trudeau to receive his share of the blame for the housing crisis, especially given his many promises to address the issue.
And if you’re wondering about Australia: its housing crisis is as bad or worse than Canada’s. Anti-immigration sentiment and far-right politics is even more prevalent there.
I’m well aware of the Australian housing crisis, and of it’s far-right politicians like Dutton. I was also aware that there were other reasons for Trudeau being unpopular besides immigration (hence why it wasn’t the sole statistic I provided, I used Trudeau’s approval ratings as somewhat of a general metric for Canada turning against left-leaning politicians, and I used the other two statistics to try to show Canada’s anti-immigrant attitudes. Without spending exorbitant amounts of time studying Canadian politics this was the quickest summary statistics I choose to look at).
I criticized Canada for having poor attitudes towards immigration, and I would criticize Australia for the same, these two opinions aren’t mutually exclusive. Ultimately my personal decision to attempt to immigrate to Australia rather than Canada came down to choosing ‘the lesser of two evils’ (which as an American I am very practiced in doing. ha. ha.)
Specifically, I thought Australia’s further distance from the US would make it safer geopolitically, it’s higher foreign-born population would make it so that way ‘anti-immigration’ sentiment didn’t become ‘anti-immigrant’ sentiment, and it’s compulsory voting laws would make it harder for far-right politicians to gain and/or maintain a foothold. I truly did not intend for my personal decision to go to Australia over Canada to be some kind of dig at Canada, though I did get defensive at the dismissive claim that the limited research I have done was just “propaganda getting to me.” Apologies if I was a bit aggressive in my critique of Canadian attitudes towards immigration
Australia hates immigrants too so have fun with that
It’s a matter of degree. Australia has a housing crisis and many want to lower immigration, but their starting level of immigration was already incredibly high, for instance 30% of the population is foreign born, as compared to Canada’s 21%. A marginal difference, but it still contributes to a culture more accepting of immigrants.
You know, I think somehow the rhetoric has gotten mixed up here though. I have said ‘As a victim currently being forced to flee my fascist home country, I think Canada could stand to be more accepting of immigrants’ and you have heard ‘Canada sucks so hard I won’t go there even though I’m American (and thus an uninformed idiot).’
I think it’s part of an overarching narrative I’ve seen, of people from non-US countries hating on Americans for not voting/volunteering/working hard enough to stop Trump from being elected, that ‘America = Bad’ and ‘[Insert My Country Here] = Good, and we would never be like Bad America.’ It goes without saying that I voted Harris & phone banked often. I don’t think Canada is a bad country, I think it’s amazing, even! But I also find the sheer amount of nationalistic rhetoric I’ve seen both around and directly here in this thread deeply worrying.
Like, you do realize that you’re essentially responding to a trans person, a potential victim of genocide, with ‘Haha, you’re such an idiot! Don’t you realize nowhere is safe for you? Don’t you realize everywhere has rising far-right politics and hatred of immigrants? Have fun immigrating to a country that hates you to escape a dictatorship you tried to stop but ultimately had no control over!’
I’m very aware that Australia also has an upswing in anti-immigrant rhetoric. I find it deeply unempathetic of you to try and use it as some sort of ‘gotcha’ to prove that your country is amazing (or that other countries are just as bad). I’m currently having to flee the country I’ve called home my entire life due to political persecution. I think it would be helpful if people could remember that I’m an actual person and not just another ‘stupid American’
I’m not sure why you’re talking if you already have all the answers buddy.
They got their impression of Canada from reddit
All our media is controlled by right wing groups. I wouldn’t take that as a representation of the overall sentiment of the population.
We are looking at an election soon however so hesitation makes sense.
I wasn’t reading news articles so much as I as reading Reddit comments (back when I still used Reddit), which is certainly still not a completely comprehensive read of the whole Canadian population, but it’s about as close as I can get without being in Canada myself. To be honest though, having most of the media controlled by right wing groups is another concern, though I do hope your elections go well
I think it’s important to remember immigration isn’t just some lever you can turn on and off: “oh we’re having issues with quality of life so let’s stop letting immigrants in,” “oh but we want highly educated people like doctors so lets let them in.” Prospective immigrants will remember at best the wishy-washy stance on whether or not immigrants should be let in, at worst the outright xenophobic sentiment they had heard. This especially goes for people in highly educated professions like doctors, who are desirable immigrants in any countries, and thus have options to pick and choose where they want to go.
I know when my parents (who are both doctors) started looking into investing a bit in other countries, Canada wasn’t even considered, they went straight to investing in Europe. When I told them I was looking into foreign colleges, they suggested schools in New Zealand, in Germany, in Sweden… they didn’t once recommend Canada. Well, this is just anecdotal evidence, and I’m sure many many American doctors will flee to Canada. But I wouldn’t assume just because doctors are leaving the US necessarily means they’re going to Canada
/r/Canada was taken over by right wing groups too. The rest of us migrated to /r/onguardforthee (before coming here).
Onguardforthee is trash. Echo chamber.
No more than /r/canada
At least a few years ago. Who knows how they’ve both devolved since.
Yea there aren’t really any good canadian subreddits