Sweden reversed decades of open-border ideology after gang violence and social collapse forced its hand. Canada faces the same conditions but remains paralyzed by political incentives, narrative capture, and institutional cowardice. One country adapted. The other still pretends.
“Equally important was the collapse of elite credibility. For years, Swedish political and cultural elites insisted that crime and integration failure were unrelated to migration volume or composition. “
This sounds eerily similar to Canada’s experience.
Ideological capture & intellectual obstinance masquerading as effective policy.
A friend of mine was working as an Immigration officer in November 2021 when She was summoned to a Deputy minister sponsored conference call. The Call was to discuss the Immigration plan for 2022. The DM prefaced her remarks by reminding the cross Canada immigration Officers that they were professionals and were expected to be civil. When the plan laid out a 3X the normal intake of 400,000 new folks the call descended into an online riot. The DM could not answer where the Jobs,homes, schools or Doctors were coming from.
I take great solace in the Liberal party angst over the recent election of a Conservative banker repudiating almost everything the Prince ( and Gerry and Katie) worked for.
And yet he consulted a former Conservative PM he used to work with. I won’t mention that PM’s name as it’s like beetle juice. It sets things off. Face it it’s like 2009 all over again
Name the Conservative - remember, Dave, large “C”- who is advocating for stranded natural resource assets, tanker bans, emissions caps, monstrously uncontrollable deficits, lack of bail reform, immigration failure, recognition of states that don’t exist, gun buy-backs, lack of progress on foreign interference, a pivot to China, the decoupling of our U.S. trade relationships…….
Is he actually repudiating it or just tinkering around the edges? The head of the Century Initiative, where all this comes from, is part of Carney's team after all.
Carney reduced the Women’s issues departmental budget From over $460 million to under $80.
He actually delivered 8.74 Billion this fiscal year to Defence on top of the 30+ Billion of the base budget. He reduced Immigration by half of Trudeau’s top number and has recently retired 8 Deputy Ministers without replacement.
Good Conservative start that has shocked comfortable,smug,bloated Ottawa.
Besides, the real issue is the ridiculous bill C5 and the "major projects" office.
Only a liberal would spend 10 years setting up barrier to investment and a bureaucracy to support it, then instead of fixing that create another bureaucracy to circumvent the first one to allow major projects to occur, when Carney decides its in our/his interests.
This is how banana republics work, impenetrable regulations and bureaucracy unless you know the right people.
Well said. Another question is whether Sweden’s reforms are sufficient or too little too late. The reforms won’t eliminate the no-go areas where the police fear to tread, or Sweden’s title as the Grenade Attack Capital of Europe, though may help things from getting worse.
Were Sweden's immigration policies otherwise similar to Canada's, with a points system?
My non-expert feeling is that Canada's system is very well set up, just the numbers being brought in are much too high. So in Canada's case the problem is not really "immigration reform" so much as "immigration reduction": the system doesn't need to change what it is doing, it just needs to admit fewer people while doing it.
No doubt every year there are lots more applicants who do well on points than can be admitted, I imagine the Canadian immigration system already says no to lots of people for no particular reason (there is nothing wrong with their application), so they can just start saying no to more people.
I value your opinion because you are not an expert. The experts are the ones who got us here. If you can read and you have a brain you can do as well as an expert.
Far, far fewer people, and put a moratorium on work visas/labor mobility and any other avenues which have been wildly abused by the ‘business community.’
And all of these clowns overstating their temporary work or student visas must be vigorously dealt with. Temporary means temporary, go home.
I seem to think from some maybe even the author that had the immigrants & asylum seekers that went to Sweden/Canada been ‘perfect’ model citizens then there’d be nothing to complain about.
This is where some who are further right politically, myself included, would object. Theoretically, if a border is opened to all peoples as neoliberal centrists and leftists want then eventually that country will cease to exist because now its ethnic makeup (oh oh code 999 we have a racist here) has changed. Stockholm then looks feels and is like Saskatoon, Sheffield, Seville, and Seattle etc.
And what about travel companies marketing flights and hotels in the future. How do they sell a flight to these places when they are effectively made up of the same biomass.
As far as opiate addiction goes, the SOP (standard operating procedure) of treatment is methadone maintenance. “Maintenance” being all that is planned for indefinitely. The problem with this is that it doesn’t work long term and addicts on it can’t work or recover to a point where they can re-integrate into society. My former colleague and I treated these patients and tried to get the government (both locally and nationally) to adopt different protocols for withdrawal and treatment (but to no avail). Here is part of what we did:
Sweden declined to take the only step that actually matters: stop all migration of Muslims, and expel 70% of the ones they have.
“Equally important was the collapse of elite credibility. For years, Swedish political and cultural elites insisted that crime and integration failure were unrelated to migration volume or composition. “
This sounds eerily similar to Canada’s experience.
Ideological capture & intellectual obstinance masquerading as effective policy.
Great work.
A friend of mine was working as an Immigration officer in November 2021 when She was summoned to a Deputy minister sponsored conference call. The Call was to discuss the Immigration plan for 2022. The DM prefaced her remarks by reminding the cross Canada immigration Officers that they were professionals and were expected to be civil. When the plan laid out a 3X the normal intake of 400,000 new folks the call descended into an online riot. The DM could not answer where the Jobs,homes, schools or Doctors were coming from.
And here We are.
The Laurentian Prince couldn't be bothered with such trivial considerations, and the senior bureaucrats were afraid of him.
I take great solace in the Liberal party angst over the recent election of a Conservative banker repudiating almost everything the Prince ( and Gerry and Katie) worked for.
Mark Carney is about as Conservative as Kathleen Wynne’s rusty dildo.
And yet he consulted a former Conservative PM he used to work with. I won’t mention that PM’s name as it’s like beetle juice. It sets things off. Face it it’s like 2009 all over again
Name the Conservative - remember, Dave, large “C”- who is advocating for stranded natural resource assets, tanker bans, emissions caps, monstrously uncontrollable deficits, lack of bail reform, immigration failure, recognition of states that don’t exist, gun buy-backs, lack of progress on foreign interference, a pivot to China, the decoupling of our U.S. trade relationships…….
Shall I go on?
Is he actually repudiating it or just tinkering around the edges? The head of the Century Initiative, where all this comes from, is part of Carney's team after all.
Carney reduced the Women’s issues departmental budget From over $460 million to under $80.
He actually delivered 8.74 Billion this fiscal year to Defence on top of the 30+ Billion of the base budget. He reduced Immigration by half of Trudeau’s top number and has recently retired 8 Deputy Ministers without replacement.
Good Conservative start that has shocked comfortable,smug,bloated Ottawa.
and doubled the deficit in the process.
Besides, the real issue is the ridiculous bill C5 and the "major projects" office.
Only a liberal would spend 10 years setting up barrier to investment and a bureaucracy to support it, then instead of fixing that create another bureaucracy to circumvent the first one to allow major projects to occur, when Carney decides its in our/his interests.
This is how banana republics work, impenetrable regulations and bureaucracy unless you know the right people.
I think the media subsidies are what continues to shield Canadian Elites, but there are cracks forming.
Where are these cracks?
The Rewrite with Peter Menzies is one of those cracks.
Ottawa has to eat, and it will. Trumps weekend adventure might just bang the rust off central Canada or they will hang on in quiet desperation,
Well said. Another question is whether Sweden’s reforms are sufficient or too little too late. The reforms won’t eliminate the no-go areas where the police fear to tread, or Sweden’s title as the Grenade Attack Capital of Europe, though may help things from getting worse.
Excellent article, thank you. 💛
Politicians seem to not be able to learn from other’s misguided policies and want to make the same mistakes themselves!
Sweden needs to deport about 2 million migrants who refuse to integrate, commit the majority of violent crime and live on the public dole.
Excellent piece Marco
Were Sweden's immigration policies otherwise similar to Canada's, with a points system?
My non-expert feeling is that Canada's system is very well set up, just the numbers being brought in are much too high. So in Canada's case the problem is not really "immigration reform" so much as "immigration reduction": the system doesn't need to change what it is doing, it just needs to admit fewer people while doing it.
No doubt every year there are lots more applicants who do well on points than can be admitted, I imagine the Canadian immigration system already says no to lots of people for no particular reason (there is nothing wrong with their application), so they can just start saying no to more people.
I value your opinion because you are not an expert. The experts are the ones who got us here. If you can read and you have a brain you can do as well as an expert.
Far, far fewer people, and put a moratorium on work visas/labor mobility and any other avenues which have been wildly abused by the ‘business community.’
And all of these clowns overstating their temporary work or student visas must be vigorously dealt with. Temporary means temporary, go home.
I seem to think from some maybe even the author that had the immigrants & asylum seekers that went to Sweden/Canada been ‘perfect’ model citizens then there’d be nothing to complain about.
This is where some who are further right politically, myself included, would object. Theoretically, if a border is opened to all peoples as neoliberal centrists and leftists want then eventually that country will cease to exist because now its ethnic makeup (oh oh code 999 we have a racist here) has changed. Stockholm then looks feels and is like Saskatoon, Sheffield, Seville, and Seattle etc.
And what about travel companies marketing flights and hotels in the future. How do they sell a flight to these places when they are effectively made up of the same biomass.
As far as opiate addiction goes, the SOP (standard operating procedure) of treatment is methadone maintenance. “Maintenance” being all that is planned for indefinitely. The problem with this is that it doesn’t work long term and addicts on it can’t work or recover to a point where they can re-integrate into society. My former colleague and I treated these patients and tried to get the government (both locally and nationally) to adopt different protocols for withdrawal and treatment (but to no avail). Here is part of what we did:
https://open.substack.com/pub/alexaudette/p/the-intelligent-self-abuse-manual-50c?r=1z6cwm&utm_medium=ios
Which is extensive and has all the back story as to why.
Be well