10-03-2023, 11:17 AM
(10-03-2023, 09:51 AM)bravado Wrote: I think hard times are really hitting the population in general and it’s all too easy to point at a relatively new phenomenon, huge amounts of international students in a short period, and assign every possible problem to it when times are getting tough. The internet and social media makes it easier to say this out loud and get more ears.
Well put! That said, there are actually some legitimate concerns hidden under the racist undertones which I think we are ignoring to our peril. For instance, should we be accepting so many foreign students when we have a housing crisis? Should we be accepting so many foreign students from just one area of the world, namely India? Should we permit foreign students to be working in Canada up to 40 hours per week? I'll show my cards and say my view is that the answer is a varying level of "no" to all of these questions. However, I think it's critical to clarify that I definitely don't blame the students coming here. We've allowed this situation to develop through our policies and it's up to us to solve it through policies, not by blaming foreign students (after all, it's our government and a number of our institutions that have been encouraging them to come). However, the average citizen doesn't follow policy so their natural reaction is to blame the symptom, not the cause. So coming full circle, that's where I believe the increased racism - which I have anecdotally noticed as well - is coming from: economic anxiety channeled toward one easily visible result of our recent economic/social policies. I really can't offer solutions beyond increased civic engagement to hold politicians accountable and create better policies, but in the end I think that's where the solution lies.