- donald trump acting as a push factor out of the us
- justin trudeau aggressively welcoming migrants with little understanding of the consequences of what he was doing
this flood of migrants, many from the us, put stress on the healthcare, housing, inflation and social assistance systems. they're not 100% of the problem, but they're 75% of the problems people actually expierence. trudeau didn't acknowledge an error until his last months in office, and our government has made an attempt to adjust by restricting immigration, but it's going to be a long time before the country recalibrates.
i have argued repeatedly that the state either needs to increase social spending or make it harder for refugees to come in. letting refugees flood in and dealing with them when they get here by letting the market sort it out is just driving inflation and clogging everything up. canada isn't a free market society and canadians don't want a free market society. we have a greater need to manage our immigration more carefully than the us, and we historically have managed our immigration more carefully. trudeau's air-headed do-gooding was rooted in ignorance and it took him almost 10 years to get it. no, canada can't be the world's dumping ground for refugees; we don't have the infrastructure, and our social democracy cannot support it.
canada does not have an undocumented migrant worker problem like the us does; canada does the same thing legally through a temporary foreign worker program. canada's illegal immigrants are mostly refugees. the system works by letting them in first (as is consistent with international law) and then working out their status after. historically, canada let almost all refugees that could get here stay, but that has been changing recently. canada is deporting more refugee claimants, many of which enter through the united states, and currently has a wait list of many years to get to court.
this change in law is mostly going to affect refugees on the waitlist, who canada lets into the country and allows due process of law for and either grants status to or deports. a large percentage of these refugees end up on welfare, partly because they aren't allowed to work.
the major entrances are through quebec via vermont or new york, but ontario is a frequent destination once they enter. a law banning access to social assistance might dissuade refugees from moving to ontario. right now, that would help ease the burden of overpopulation being felt in ontario - if it works that way. if they keep coming and have to find other ways to find income, it could generate crime and lead to faster deportation, which is one of the more painful ways to get through the bottleneck.
the question as to what to do with their kids is also real. i don't think my neighbours are here legally. they're clearly on welfare. they have something like 15 kids. they can't speak english well enough to work, whether they have work permits or not. if you take away their check, what's next? are you trying to save money? that might not work out.
this is probably also an illegal policy shift, in the end, and it might get challenged in court. canada tends to uphold international law as domestic law. it might be held to contravene a refugee convention and therefore be illegal, and the court might order the government to reverse it.
if that takes five years, that might be enough time for it to have a short term effect, which is what i'm in support of. i don't support this because i like it. but we have to recalibrate.