November 19, 2024
Dueling demonstrations took place yesterday. At the old Nepean City Hall, a small crowd celebrated the proposed construction of a “temporary” welcome center for asylum seekers. Another group protested against the welcome center at its proposed location, the Nepean Sportsplex. Of the one thousand asylum seekers in Ottawa, six hundred find shelter in community centers, like hockey arenas, while others find refuge with volunteer social organizations.
With expectations of a further surge in asylum seekers, the city hired consultants to evaluate the suitability of over a hundred sites for constructing the welcome center. One site in Barrhaven met vociferous opposition, although nobody owned up to NIMBY. The Sportsplex site is a mile from the nearest shopping center and has an infrequent bus service.
I took some time to gain a deeper understanding of the proposal; I discovered that the city plans to erect “Sprung” buildings, a design from the Sprung family company. The company erected over a thousand such buildings globally. I checked out one built on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and found it is an unappealing tent-like building. But it requires simple construction and is economical and fast to erect.
According to city officials, asylum seekers are mostly young single people. The current arrangement is for these people to stay for three months in these welcome centers, receiving help from officials in finding jobs and housing in addition to filling out papers to become residents of Canada.
How did we reach this point with the number of asylum seekers surging during the past couple of years? And would there be more in the future, given President-elect Trump’s intention to deport millions of illegals just south of our border?
Politicians often create and resolve crises to boost their public image. Prime Minister Trudeau has created an immigration crisis in Canada by increasing the inflow of immigration substantially subsequent to the pandemic and is now trying to solve it by reducing the number of arrivals. Naturally, he denies creating a crisis and blames private interests for misusing immigration policies.
The surge in immigration has triggered a housing shortage, a healthcare problem, and a challenge to the education system. The capacity for housing construction in Canada is no more than 250,000 units per year. Over the past couple of years alone, the rate of a million people a year arriving in Canada would require the entire annual production of housing units, assuming four people per unit. Hospital emergency rooms boast a waiting time of over ten hours; people without family doctors visit emergency rooms for consultations. Teachers have struggled with teaching children who speak dozens of different languages at home and bringing with them their cultures.
Statistics indicate there are eight million “permanent residents’ in Canada, waiting to become citizens (it takes three years of residency to qualify for citizenship). Furthermore, there are three million “temporary residents,” which include foreign students, seasonal workers, and immigrants. Asylum seekers are immigrants, numbering 250,000 across Canada today.
Interestingly, eleven million of the forty-one million Canadians—temporary and permanent residents combined—cannot vote; one must be a citizen to vote. It is also noteworthy that although the federal government created the asylum seekers crisis, local levels of government shoulder the burden of welcoming and assisting newcomers to fit into Canadian society.
A ninety-day stay in a shelter for a young newcomer to Canada can be a cheerful affair, especially during the cold Canadian winters. I assume that clothing and food are also provided. But what is most important for a newcomer to Canada? I suggest speaking English is vital unless the newcomer already knows the language. I speak from my lived experience. As a genuine refugee arriving in Canada, learning English was crucial for navigating life, securing employment, and resuming my education.
Now, language training takes more than ninety days. I’m wondering, what experience do government officials have dealing with the current wave of asylum seekers? Are they turfing out people in ninety days from their shelters now? Or do the newcomers stay longer, and how much longer? This thought takes me back to the original concept of city officials claiming that the proposed welcome center would be temporary.
The stated temporariness of the “Sprung” structures energized many people who doubted the buildings would ever be demolished. When not required any further for asylum seekers, the public imagined these buildings would be repurposed to house the homeless. Couple with the challenge of sheltering asylum seekers, Ottawa is facing a significant rise in its homeless population. It has become quite unpleasant to walk in central parts of the city at night, with homeless people sleeping in doorways and on the streets.
The government’s recent announcement lowering immigration targets will reduce the number of asylum seekers, freeing up welcome centers to house the homeless. The most significant impact of this issue for me was that I noticed a shifting public attitude towards immigrants in the news media, questioning immigration’s worth to Canada. I blame the federal government for this snafu for acting without a proper impact study of what a significant increase in immigration to Canada would entail.
andrasthehun.ca 