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Culture War nexuses
This isn't exactly some thought-out post, more just a culture war observation. Every now and then there happens an event that feels like a CW "nexus" where it is the intersection of like five different hot topics in one moment. I had this thought while walking yesterday and wondered if someone else had any other examples. Here's two of mine:
A couple of weeks ago in Toronto a group of Indian immigrants, presumably in a gang of some sort, robbed a government-owned liquor store. They pulled a knife on an off-duty cop there. When they left, they were pursued by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and regional cops. In a rented van the thieves went the wrong way down the 401, the busiest highway in the world; the OPP stopped pursuit and told the regional cops to do the same, but they continued to follow. The getaway van hit a car going the opposite way. The other car's inhabitants was also a family of Indian immigrants: new parents, a baby, and their newly-arrived grandparents (via family reunification presumably). The getaway driver, the grandparents, and the baby were killed. The getaway driver was out on bail on weapon's charges, had a suspended license, and was under court order not to drive.
If you've been paying attention to any political issues in Canada you can see how this neatly ties together a bunch of hot topics into one incident. I have another:
In late 2022 a cement mixer in Berlin hit a female cyclist. The driver got out of his truck to check on the cyclist and was stabbed by a mentally ill homeless refugee. An ambulance arrived to transport the critically injured woman to the hospital, but on the way was stopped by climate protestors who had glued themselves to the road. The cyclist died but the truck driver survived.
It's insane to me that this is allowed. The justification for immigration is that these are net contributors and we need them to prop up the social safety net but instead actually we're letting in people who will never work again (or not for long) and will almost immediately start collecting benefits. There was a similar deal a while back in the US when a Pakistani Uber driver was killed after his car was hijacked by a couple of, um, youths. The guy was 66 years old and driving for Uber. He had only immigrated a few years previously. The citizens who fund this stuff in the US and Canada are getting fleeced. You work for 40 years and instead of getting to leave it to your kids it all gets sucked away to pay for people who just showed up and never contributed a dime.
Family reunification in Canada requires that the sponsor vouches that they can financially support the sponsored immigrant and that they will not need to ask for social assistance for 3 years. They check that the sponsor is in good enough financial health to support them. If they do ask for social assistance, the government can ask the sponsor to reimburse it.
I mean, it's not perfect, but it's not like no one though of this problem.
This is all sensible, except:
3 is wildly low. If I had to make up a number I'd go for at least as long as it would take for them to qualify for citizenship. I'd start around 15 years.
That's for a spouse, the situation I'm familiar with. I checked again, and for parents and grandparents, the sponsor vouches for 20 years (except in Quebec where it's 10 years).
The number would be 3 years then. The requirement to qualify is being a permanent resident and having lived in Canada for 3 years in the last 5 years.
Okay. 3 years to be eligible for permanent residency and then Google says 5 more to be further eligible for citizenship. So 8 years from stepping foot in Canada to possibly getting citizenship.
I would have gone with 8 then. But they went with the time to permanent residency.
No, how long before you get permanent residency is dependent on what pathway you're using. My wife visited as a tourist before we started the permanent residency process, but she never actually lived here officially until she got it. Technically you don't even need to have been in Canada. You're eligible for citizenship 3 years after having started living in Canada, and once you are a permanent resident. So you could even count, for instance, years spent as a temporary resident with a student or work visa before you got permanent residency.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/become-canadian-citizen.html
I see. That's not quite what Google told me, but Google is only approximately accurate.
So that means someone could become a Canadian citizen with a grand total of 3 years in Canada. Which sounds really, really low. It's five years in the US after attaining permanent residency. Which is also rather low in my opinion.
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