It’s like Canadians are playing a cruel joke on the immigrants. First they welcome them into a kinder, gentler version of Canada where everybody is super stoked to see them, the Prime Minister rushes to embrace them, the helpful bureaucrats show up of their own free will to facilitate the paperwork acquisition, there are free pre-paid international phone cards, toys, clothes, beautifully appointed rest areas, etc.
So the immigrants understandably think, “Ah, this is what Canada is like!”
But after Canadians decide that they’ve derived all the value they could from this new toy, they toss it and move on. And the immigrants get to emigrate for the second time. This time, they arrive in the real Canada, a capitalist society that is harsh, unforgiving, with a bureaucracy that is anything but helpful, locals who are not that welcoming or eager to have them there, and a realization that free cheese in this society can only be found in mousetraps.
And it’s like, “Ta-da! Gotcha, you fools! Did you really think that the fake Canada constructed for the sake of making the Prime Minister look good is real?”
One positive thing is that most refugees are not active on Canadian social media and don’t read the Canadian press so they have no exposure just yet to the avalanche of smug, self-congratulatory writing Canadians engage in on the subject of their arrival.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is shameful and hypocritical, this is why I have more respect for openly racist people who hate everyone instead of these hypocrites who pretend to be nice to immigrants but secretly despise them.
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As you appropriately point out, social media / rampant communications make this type of “do-gooderism” and “moral superiority” very easy to take off.
Although obviously in a different magnitude and scale, it honestly feels like any cause (left or right, social or economic etc.) is taking part in propaganda. I think the only real answer is for people to individually take everything they see in the media / social media with a huge grain of salt and actively ask, “what is the other side to this issue, and am I being misled”. Repeat the process until you reach an underlying view of the situation which is close to the truth.
Not sure how realistic it is, but that is often what I try to do, and what I think is the only way to get over the false, temporary demonstrations.
To be sure the right does this too with some of their tough on terror verbalizations, where they aren’t realistic about the magnitude of the threat or the required resources to really deal with a certain action.
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“I think the only real answer is for people to individually take everything they see in the media / social media with a huge grain of salt and actively ask, “what is the other side to this issue, and am I being misled”. ”
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When I think about it, this is a perfect way to create angry failures who’ll pass that anger on to their kids.
Well done Trudeau! In about 30 years this should be paying off!
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People tend to hate it when their expectations are betrayed. And here expectations are manufactured on both sides that will be betrayed for an absolute sure. And for what? So that the rich boy Trudeau can pose for the cameras a few more times?
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\ And here expectations are manufactured on both sides that will be betrayed for an absolute sure.
What are Canadians expecting from the refugees?
Will the refugees get some monetary help for a certain amount of time and special free courses to learn English and/or professional courses, like immigrants to Israel are getting? Or they will get a small sum of money and then be let alone to fail without sufficient help to succeed?
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Canadian welfare system offers unimited support to everybody but people who come through professional immigration programs. As Canadians explained to me, “We believe that if there is somebody who doesn’t want to work, their basic necessities have to be covered by society.” Immigrants who want to be on welfare for the next 40 years can easily do that. Obviously, this eliminates any chance at integration.
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\ Immigrants who want to be on welfare for the next 40 years can easily do that.
VS
your claim that immigrants’ expectations will be betrayed by capitalist society in Canada.
I see a contradiction between the two claims.
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People who remain on welfare for decades are not part of society. They are completely marginalized. And the longer they stay on welfare, the more distant the hope of integrating becomes. I’ve seen such people, and believe me, it’s not a nice life.
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\ When I think about it, this is a perfect way to create angry failures who’ll pass that anger on to their kids.
May be those people will turn into angry failures, but I am 100% sure it won’t be because of how they were met and a little additional help they got upon arrival.
If they truly are Syrian refugees, they have known enough hardship not be broken by Canadian bureaucracy. Regarding capitalist system, a person with a normal IQ expects that and it is not as if Syrian society from where they come had a developed welfare system.
If they are broken by Canadian realities in the future, they would fail without PM welcoming them too.
When my family immigrated to Israel, we were helped (most likely much) more than those refugees and didn’t fail because of the help. On the contrary, getting opportunity not to work for a long time let my mother learn Hebrew, compete a special course for teachers and succeed professionally and socially in Israel. Without huge help from Israel, she could have failed.
And many others like her have succeeded only because of getting help from Israel: money, special professional courses letting people continue working in their former profession (teachers, doctors, programmers, etc.) I know many such Israeli immigrants’ stories. Getting some help does not usually cripple people, but it is not a guarantee of success either.
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The balance of power in any relationship is set early and is incredibly difficult to change. A relationship that is framed as “I shower you with charity and admire my own beneficence” from the start doesn’t have a lot of chance to transform into “We are equal partners in a shared enterprise.”
As for Russian speaking immigrants, those who enter Canada through the JIAS program and get “help” in my experience do not integrate at all. Ever. Not even 30 years later. Those who enter through professional emigration program and get zero “help” still find it very difficult to integrate but mostly manage to do it after 10-15 years.
I have literally not met a single adult person who entered Canada through JIAS and is even marginally integrated.
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I will just put this here.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/13/world/asia/ap-as-indonesia-obit-benedict-anderson.html?_r=0
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It’s an end of an era. 😦
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Oh… Immagined Communities was 1) the first academic text that I read that made me realize that an undergraduate degree was just not enough for my intellectual ambitions, and 2) the first academic text I read in English. Sad.
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Same here on point 1! What a beautiful experience that was.
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It was the end of the 90s. Everybody in the Hispanic study department was reading and quoting Anderson. Anyways, Imagined Communities boosted my brain, and it still stirs discussions among my students.
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“… they arrive in the real Canada, a capitalist society that is harsh, unforgiving, with a bureaucracy that is anything but helpful, locals who are not that welcoming or eager to have them there …”
I wasn’t in Canada for “free cheese”, but this is an accurate description of the Canada I refuse to set foot in again.
I especially loved it when an advocate I’d hired for legal advice introduced me to the phrase, “the process is the punishment” …
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You do seem to have had a nasty experience in Canada. I’m very sorry it was that bad!
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