When Canada needed cheap labour, it was brought in. The immigrants often bore the brunt of racism and discrimination. One of the myths is the suggestion that when unemployment is high, Canada cannot take in immigrants. However, there is no evidence that immigration creates unemployment or makes it worse. In fact, studies show that immigrants create jobs over and above the ones they fill.
Unemployment is an economic problem, a problem of government and corporate policies.
In an era of new-conservatism, this means policies like free trade, privatization, deregulation and high interest rates. Canada's birth rate continues to decline. Canada now has a unique opportunity to respond to an urgent global crisis - the crisis of over 17 million refugees desperately seeking refuge in an increasingly hostile world. Millions of these refugees are fleeing political oppression, but millions are also fleeing economic exploitation. We must pressure our Canadian governments, present and future, to expand the outdated definition of refugee that may have been used in the 40s but which is hopelessly inadequate in the 90s.