This discussion about a new poll talking about immigration spurred a reminder in my brain about how Canada's immigration policy will need to be obliterated and our borders permanently closed to new arrivals. The rationale for this comes from one J.Trudeau of Montreal. You may be moderately familiar with him.
As you may be dimly aware, levels of government all over the world have broken private enterprise into two basic categories: essential and non-essential. While how they actually break these categories up is almost always hamfisted and illogical, the theory at least is that we have to keep some things open so that people can stay alive. Even if the Wuhan Flu had a 90% death rate, you'd still need to keep grocery stores and power plants open: you can't live without food. Back in March (remember March?) when we were told the shutdown was only going to be two weeks (3 tops!) this rationale made sense.
In the long-run, every business is essential.
Over a long enough timespan, however, there are no unessential businesses: every business is essential. By which I mean that if the company didn't exist to provide people with a good or service that they wanted or needed, it wouldn't be there in the first place. The "wanted" versus "needed" in that previous sentence may have you thinking we're back to essential and nonessential, but remember that in our modern economy the consumer is only half of the equation. The producer (by which I mean both the entrepreneurs and the employees) are the other half of the equation: the importance to this company to them has nothing to do with what the good or service actually is. The only thing producers care about is that the company makes money which can then be redirected to them. To keep their expected lifestyle up, to allow them to be consumers in their own right, put food on the table...doesn't that last one sound awfully, I dunno...essential?
So yes, in the long run every business is indeed "essential". Which brings us back to the words of one J.Trudeau of Montreal: I don't know why it's important to listen to him, but apparently it is:
“This will be the new normal until a vaccine is developed.” He said the reality of Canadians dealing with COVID-19 through the summer was one of the “better” outcomes. “The path we take is up to us. It depends on what each of us does right now. It will take months of continued, determined effort,”Just until there's a vaccine, eh? So mid-2021 then? Or later? Like, much later? Like possibly never?
Well if the "new normal" means businesses can't reopen, then what we're essentially saying is that a huge proportion of the Canadian workforce is not necessary. When you deal with unemployment figures you generally have to balance the inefficiencies of the job market (people who can't be matched up with ideal jobs) and the general health of the economy (there aren't enough jobs for the people who want them). In this case, the latter issue is by far the dominant one. This means immigration must go.
Immigration, from a purely economic standpoint, both brings in new workers that have found ideal jobs to be matched into, and also bring in money and growth for more jobs to be created. However the COVID lockdowns have made both arguments nonsensical: most ideal jobs are nonessential, and so are most jobs that are going to be created. The government has already artificially induced a massive labour surplus, and immigration is not legally allowed to increase the demand that would help bring it down. Once you've already decreed that a large chunk of your population is "useless" (which, frankly, they are when their employers cannot be open) what's your motivation for bringing more people in? From a labour market perspective Canada is now not only full it is in fact overflowing: if only "essential" businesses are required than Canada has far more people than it needs, and as a result the Shiny Pony must ban all immigration until at least 3 months after a vaccine for COVID-19 is widely distributed.
Related "leftist cause disproves need for immigration": This isn't the first time this has come up:
A departing Alberta Liberal senator says opponents of the Kyoto accord never mention the fact that, if there is a loss of jobs in Canada from the environmental deal, it will be suffered by immigrants -- not "blue-eyed" Canadians.
Senator Nick Taylor, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 on Sunday, said the rate of immigration in the country will simply have to be adjusted downward if Kyoto opponents are correct in their predictions that 300,000 to 400,000 jobs will not be created in the next 10 years because of the accord.
"Little blue-eyed Canadian boy is not going to be unemployed by Kyoto. Who may not be employed is his grandchild, or the immigration rate will have to be adapted to the jobs we are creating, as time goes on, which we do now," said the outspoken senator.
