Amidst the other disingenuous, fear-based campaigns going on in the political sphere right now – Statistics Canada, and the carbon price, in particular – the issue of immigration is also threatening to get worse, in part because the simmering issue around irregular border crossers is being conflated with the government’s announcement of new immigration targets. And we need to drill this into people from the start – immigration and asylum are two very different things, and shouldn’t be treated or conflated. We don’t accept refugees because we think they’ll fill out our workforce – we accept them for humanitarian reasons, which is why the expectations that they’ll find work right away is also problematic, as usually they’re traumatized upon arrival. That’s why it’s especially problematic when you have partisan actors like Michelle Rempel standing up in Question Period to decry the new immigration targets as having some form of equivalency with the irregular border crossers – they’re not the same thing, and conflating them is using one to demonize the other. Even more problematic is the kind of concern trolling language that we’re seeing from other conservatives – that they “support immigration” but are concerned about the “confidence in the system.” There is a certain dogwhistle quality to those “concerns” because it implies that the “confidence” in the system is undermined by all of those bad newcomers arriving. It’s subtle, but the signals are still there.

To that end, the government decided to launch a pro-immigration ad campaign, which the Conservatives have immediately derided as an attempt to paper over the irregular border-crosser issue, despite the fact that they’re separate issues, and they’re actively undermining confidence in the immigration system that they claim to support by conflating it with the asylum seekers they’re demonizing. And this cycle of conflation and demonization gets worse when the federal minister pushed back against the Ontario minister’s politicizing of the issue and attempt to blame asylum seekers for the city’s housing crisis (and more importantly pushed back against her claims that “40 percent” of shelter residents are now irregular border crossers and that they used to be 11 percent as being fabricated because the shelter system doesn’t track that kind of data). The Ontario minister responded by calling Hussen a “name-calling bully” (he didn’t call her any names), and on it goes. Would that we have grown-ups running things.

Meanwhile, The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ checks the government’s claim that they’ve reduced irregular border crossings by 70 percent (it was one month’s year-over-year data), and Justin Ling gives an appropriately salty fact-check of the political memes decrying the planned increase in immigration figures.

Good reads:

• The Chief Statistician warns that the current (way, way overblown) furore over banking data threatens more of the Agency’s work.
• The government announced maintenance contracts for our naval frigates to be distributed to all three major shipyards, which may quell some complaints.
• Scott Brison says he still wants to modernise civil service sick leave benefits, but will do so through negotiation rather than unilateral imposition.
• There are complaints the carbon backstop isn’t really revenue neutral because GST is collected on top of it. Err, because that’s how GST works. This isn’t nefarious.
• Here’s some more background about that NATO Parliamentary Association brouhaha and the removal of Leona Alleslev as chair.
• This year’s Silver Cross Mother‘s son committed suicide post-return from Afghanistan, which is a first for the programme (and a sign of combatting stigma).
• The review of Tori Stafford’s killer’s transfer to an Indigenous healing lodge is expected to be completed in the next few days.
• The Conservatives and NDP are both supporting a bill to ease restrictions on jury secrecy to help them get counselling; the Liberals are contemplating their support.
• The Chief Electoral Officer wants to talk to parties about what to do if they come across damaging information about rivals that was obtained through hacking.
• Likewise, the Privacy Commissioner says that privacy rules need to extend to political parties to prevent personal information from being weaponized.
• Here’s a lengthy profile of Kevin Page as someone who changed political life in Canada – arguably for the better (but I have some reservations).
• There are suggestions that missing Liberal MP Nicola Di Iorio’s absence/non-resignation is due to a fight over his attempt to hand-pick a successor.
• Maxime Bernier says he believes in climate change, yet won’t back off on his CO₂ claims and thinks the private sector should come up with a technology solution.
• Economist Trevor Tombe gives a reality check to some of the numbers floating around the Calgary Olympic bid.
• Robert Hiltz takes a look at Andrew Scheer’s “war” with the media, and what it reveals about his own weaknesses.
• Colby Cosh looks at the birthright citizenship debate in the States, and how it has tactical benefits for Trump.

Odds and ends:

The Liberal government in New Brunswick could fall today, despite getting the support of the three Green MLAs. Stay tuned.

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