By Kader Belaouni
In recent days, the leader of the Quebec Party made deeply troubling remarks linking immigration to crime—a familiar but dangerous strategy in the playbook of right-wing politics. This tactic is not new. It seeks to construct the image of the immigrant as a threat, laying the groundwork for their exclusion and criminalization. Yet the data speaks clearly: immigrants do not commit more crimes than native-born citizens. In fact, multiple studies show that crime often decreases in neighborhoods where immigrants settle. Still, facts are of little use when the goal is not truth but fear.
These kinds of statements serve a precise political function—to normalize the criminalization of migration. When fear takes over, even the most blatant rights violations—like detaining migrants without charges simply for their status—begin to appear reasonable. Calling this out is urgent, especially as the far right gains strength across the Western world. Because what we’re witnessing is not just an isolated campaign—it is part of a broader effort to create an internal enemy, a strategy that ultimately prepares the ground for stripping away rights not just from migrants, but from anyone who becomes “too much” for the dominant order.
Immigration, today, has become a political football—kicked around by politicians looking for easy wins while real people bear the cost. This month, a group of 23 Quebec business owners launched a $300 million lawsuit against the federal government, claiming they are on the brink of bankruptcy if Ottawa proceeds with its plan to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers allowed into Canada. This case exposes the brutal clash between cheap political rhetoric and lived economic reality.
But behind the headlines lies a deeper, quieter tragedy—one of shattered dreams, broken families, and promises betrayed.
Immigration has become the go-to scapegoat for politicians in trouble. Switch on the news or open a newspaper, and you’ll see leaders competing to appear the harshest on immigrants. It’s a race to the bottom in which the loudest and cruelest voices get the spotlight. This isn’t policy—it’s performance art. It’s about creating spectacle, no matter the cost to human dignity.
For immigrants like us, watching this unfold is both infuriating and heartbreaking. We’ve become convenient targets, blamed for every social failure, every shortage, every crisis—while our contributions are erased or ignored. There is bitter irony in a country built by immigrants treating immigration not as a strength, but as a threat.
When COVID-19 hit, the federal government expanded the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to address labour shortages. But by August 2024, faced with political pressure over housing and job concerns, Ottawa reversed course and abruptly restricted the program. These changes included a halt to processing LMIAs for low-wage positions in cities with unemployment above 6%, and cutting the maximum work term from two years to just one.
These are not just bureaucratic decisions—they are seismic disruptions in the lives of real people. People who borrowed $16,000 or $20,000—often everything they had—to get to Canada. Many come from African or Latin American countries, selling homes or taking on massive debts for a shot at a better life. Within months of arriving, some find themselves laid off, broke, and alone in a country that promised opportunity but delivered rejection.
Marriages crack under the weight of financial ruin. Some become homeless, unable to pay rent or buy a ticket home. Others are trapped in limbo—too poor to stay, too poor to leave. What is the moral cost of a system that invites people in, only to abandon them?
These workers are not statistics. They are human beings. They are people who placed faith in Canada’s word—faith that was rewarded with silence, confusion, and betrayal.
The lawsuit launched by Quebec employers is not about greed; it is about survival. These businesses produce steel, winter clothing, and aircraft parts. They hired and trained foreign workers in good faith, based on official policy. Now, that policy has been reversed overnight, leaving both employers and employees in crisis.
At the same time, the current immigration framework fails to protect the very people it claims to help. Closed work permits leave foreign workers vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. A system that binds workers to a single employer is not a system built on dignity or rights—it is a system of control.
Canada should never have slammed the door on these workers. It should have introduced stronger oversight, clearer standards, and better protections—not punishment. Sensible regulation, not panic-driven restriction, could have addressed concerns without sacrificing the most vulnerable.
Real reform begins by shifting the lens. It’s time to stop seeing migrants as problems and start seeing them as people. That means holding employers accountable for wages and conditions. It means offering open work permits so workers can escape abusive jobs. It means giving consistent, honest information about immigration policy instead of lurching from one extreme to another.
Most of all, it means treating those who risk everything to come here with dignity, not suspicion.
Immigration is not a tap you turn on and off based on headlines. These are human lives. They come with hopes, skills, families, and love for this country. When we treat immigration as a threat rather than a partnership, we don’t just fail newcomers—we fail ourselves.
The lawsuit in Quebec is a symptom of a much deeper problem: a political class more concerned with winning arguments than making plans. While they posture and point fingers, real people suffer.
Canada has always been strongest when it welcomed the stranger, when it understood that immigration is not a burden—it’s a blessing. We built this country together: newcomers, settlers, Indigenous communities. And we can rebuild it again—on fairness, justice, and shared hope.
But we must choose. Do we want a country ruled by fear and division, or one rooted in dignity and courage?
Those who sacrifice everything to come here deserve more than broken promises and political scapegoating. They deserve the Canada they believed in. And that’s a fight worth having—for them and for all of us.
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