Close Reading

It certainly feels this way at times...

I can't help but think that the phrase 'a country of immigrants' is just a sneaky way of saying 'a country of colonialism'. I dont know that much accountability or reconciliation has happened in Canada over the last 300 years. It began with governments and corporations doing whatever they wanted and could do to make money and extract resources off of this land (regardless of whom it affected), and continues to be just that. The increase of immigrants is largely, as far as I know, being used to a) bring in more revenue and economic stimulus (which is more and more ending up in the hands of a few very wealthy families) and b) fuel the labour force of large corporations that would rather soak the profits up themselves, hire low-wage PR or temporary foreign worker labour, than pay Canadian residents properly to work those jobs. I love immigrants, have many 1st gen immigrants friends, and think they do bring a lot to Canada. We all do, as we were all immigrants at some point. At the same time, the immigration system is very complicit in looking at immigration as a resource in aiding those rich families/ corporations in colonialism, and you could argue that this overreliance is abuse of the immigration system. Certainly, we have seen this with colleges. This feels especially true over the last several years with huge jumps in immigration numbers with growing inequality for long term residents. So the result is a very quickly changing world that is not helping many Canadians feel more secure about their future, which is a recipe for unrest. Am I wrong? Genuinely I am looking to have an open discussion here!