June 27, 2024
Safety and prosperity are this nation’s core worth propositions. Here, a child can arrive from wherever on the planet, enter public college and attend a comparatively reasonably priced college. They can graduate as a pharmacist or laptop programmer or another fascinating skilled, geared up to make the most of the various alternatives Canada has to supply.
At least, that’s the way it’s been for many years. How life like is it now? The crushingly excessive price of dwelling makes every little thing more durable. Finding an reasonably priced place to dwell is sort of not possible, particularly in main city areas, particularly for brand spanking new arrivals. And what’s the payoff? Even good incomes now barely cowl dwelling bills.
Last summer time, Canada’s inhabitants reached a milestone: 40 million folks. We opened our doorways to short-term staff, worldwide college students and lots of different newcomers to handle nationwide labour shortages. The sudden inhabitants surge surpassed projections and created a number of unexpected issues.
Canadians are typically professional-immigration, partly as a result of many voters are first- or second-era immigrants themselves. But the consensus has begun to vary, particularly as homeless encampments and overcrowded shelters pop up in communities throughout the nation and wait occasions for medical remedies develop longer.
At Maclean’s, we wished to try the implications of Canada’s current inhabitants surge in a particular immigration-themed problem. Remarkably, within the eight months or so we’ve been engaged on it, the inhabitants grew by one other million: now there are 41 million folks right here. Justin Trudeau has stated that the Liberals will now decelerate the inflow of newcomers.
In this problem, you’ll be able to see why that is perhaps a good suggestion. The author Stephen Maher examines the insurance policies that introduced us to 41 million, and Jordan Michael Smith investigates why asylum seekers typically find yourself sleeping on the streets. Danny Ramadan, an writer and Syrian refugee, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Canada’s pioneering personal sponsorship program, and Alex Cyr visits his residence metropolis of Charlottetown, which has reworked from a sleepy homogenous hamlet right into a multicultural metropolis in lower than a decade. The tales all present, in numerous methods, the numerous challenges Canada is dealing with. Are the difficulties chronicled on this problem simply brief-time period ache for lengthy-time period acquire? Only time will inform.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
