Already asylum seekers from the U.S. are crossing the Manitoba border in the depth of winter (29 asylum-seekers cross border into Manitoba over the weekend – Mar 20)
What will happen this summer? Is it conceivable that the Americans under a Trump administration would actually facilitate a mass exit of some of their estimated 11 million undocumented residents as a way to expeditiously encourage ‘voluntary deportation’? ‘Walk north and we won’t get in your way. Let the smug Canadians deal with the arrival of tens of thousands of illegals and see how they like it.’
It would be like a Mariel boatlift, when 125,000 Cubans were allowed to flee to Florida over half a year in 1980.
So what would we do if, say, 10,000 refugees arrived in the Lower Mainland in a week. And another 10,000 the next. And the next.
How would we deal with even the basics: finding accommodation and feeding so many? Would it be a temporary situation or a new reality?
So far, any local official I’ve talked to hasn’t seriously considered the prospect, and as far as I know there is no anticipatory strategies being developed. But then, it’s not likely that would be publicly acknowledged at this point.
Some thoughts:
- Having seen the emergence of favelas in South American cities, the best people to call might be Brazilian and Colombian planners.
- Would the destabilization of Canada be an acceptable outcome? Would militarization of the northern border be demanded, or even possible?
- Would there be a negotiated resolution as there was after half a year in the Mariel boatlift?
- One wonders what the American people would think. Would it change their self-image, as it would the world’s, to see so many flee ‘the best and strongest country in the history of the world?’
- And what would it do to us?
Well, that is a rather improbable thought experiment.
Nonetheless, 10,000 refugees a week arriving in the Metro over the May-Sept warm months would add up to less than half the 410,000 embarking cruise ship passengers in the same period last year at Canada Place and the Ballantyne Pier.
Obviously, temporary housing will have to be built in short order, and the current in-depth processing (which even uses biometrics) will have to be ramped up. The fearmongering by nations like Hungary (which closed its borders to Syrians fleeing an unprecedented tragedy at home) and Australia (which set up hopelessly inadequate internment camps unfairly in a neighbouring country, which also experiences regular human rights violations) are to be avoided to divert a humanitarian crisis in winter.
Canada accepted three million immigrants between 1891 and 1914, which comprised a whopping 42% of Canada’s entire population of 7.2 million by 1911. There were 2.85 million immigrants that arrived between 1902 and 1914, including my grandparents who responded to the call by Clifford Sifton under the Wilfred Laurier government to help build a nation, in their case by back-breaking work farming two homesteads on the Prairies. Our current federal Immigration Minister was a refugee fleeing war and famine-torn Somalia in the early 90s. That is the Canadian story.
Anyone who thinks refugees and immigrants and especially their children are not nation builders needs to learn Canadian history.
What did Germany do with vastly greater numbers?
Germany distributes refugees across the country based on population and economic strength. Large population centres get more refugees than rural areas, although lack of housing is already an issue in many cities.
When the large numbers of refugees arrived in 2015 regions were asked on a weekly basis to find temporary housing for hundreds of new refugees. Regions pass the request on to municipalities who need to find housing. They used all public buildings available, rented empty hotels and former military barracks, then used school gyms or even entire schools. There were also private initiatives to give spare rooms in the home to refugees.
The next challenge is permanent housing. Permitting is fast tracked and construction is up but especially cities have a housing shortage and don’t have enough land to build new housing. Overall there is probably enough housing or land for new housing (especially in East Germany) but many refugees are in already densely populated areas.
To put the current refugee numbers in context between 1944 and 1950 at least 12 million people came to Germany from Central and Eastern Europe.