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DiscussionToronto: Sanctuary City (self.toronto)

yourappreciator が 投稿

I am having mixed opinion about this. I am well aware of the charitable nature and feeling warm & fuzzy about being welcoming and helping those in needs.

Not just Toronto, but Canada in general for accepting those who are less fortunate, although I would like to focus on people who are coming here illegally rather than talking about refugees who have been vetted & approved through the normal process.

But somehow, I am agreeing with Minnan-Wong:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2017/02/02/councillor-does-not-understand-what-sanctuary-city-means.html

illegal immigrants and undocumented workers “are an insult to every immigrant who played by the rules to get into this country” and “should be removed.”

Also knowing how Toronto is already over-stretched in resources, lack of affordable housing and social services, Ontario not doing great with healthcare either, and the overall strain on our much-loved social benefits / programs.

We still have tons of people who have been around here for years with various challenges of their own: homelessness, mental health, etc.

Why are we so open to bring even more burden / problems on ourselves while we still have so many unresolved issues of our own?

At some point we need to stop going with simply being warm & fuzzy and face the reality / cold hard truth that we all live with limited resources and can't simply help everybody.

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[–]kosmo_theoros 18 ポイント19 ポイント  (2子コメント)

What evidence do you have to support your claim that Toronto's Sanctuary City status is a major financial burden and drain on resources? The undocumented population in Canada is relatively small (estimates range from 50, 000 to 200,000), a drop in the bucket compared to major U.S. cities that appear to be perfectly capable of allowing undocumented folks to use city services. Most of these people are working and contributing to society.

Sanctuary cities are significant because they do not enforce status checks or report undocumented people to federal immigration authorities when they seek to use social services, for example. That's why they are important. They are not a license for undocumented people to use limited resources.

The way you frame the problem assumes that there is some sort of zero-sum tradeoff between helping citizens/PRs experiencing problems and protecting undocumented people. These are not mutually exclusive goals, even in an age of fiscal austerity.

[–]yourappreciator[S] [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Sanctuary cities are significant because they do not enforce status checks or report undocumented people to federal immigration authorities when they seek to use social services, for example. That's why they are important. They are not a license for undocumented people to use limited resources.

Isn't that contradictory?

Sanctuary status means they don't report undocumented people - this means undocumented people can use social services which are limited resources by definition.

There are limited amount of staff providing social service and limited hours in a day. Say the social service can only serve 20 people a day, for every 1 undocumented person using the service, that's 1 legal person unable to use the service. This is not an issue of course if social service is under capacity and they have "free time".

What evidence do you have to support your claim that Toronto's Sanctuary City status is a major financial burden and drain on resources?

But, you've heard reports of lack of community housing, shelter, and long wait times at hospital - aren't those indicator that our social service are at or over-capacity?

[–]kosmo_theoros [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

No they are an indicator of chronic underfunding

[–]sjw_elite [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

i think it makes our city safer, that our city can afford it, and that the current system is unfair.

  • i support sanctuary city because i think it makes our city safer for the legal residents.

there are people here who are not here legally. i would like their children to get good education, and access to services, and to not grow up in poverty.

partly this is for feel-good do-gooder bleeding-heart liberal sjw reasons.

but also, kids raised in poverty without good education or services, they are more likely to be violent criminals when they are teenagers and young adults. i don't want to be mugged, or have my house broken into. so it makes sense to take action against child poverty in this city. even if the help goes to some "undeserving" people.

if you try to save money by not allowing people without immigration status to access services, but then end up spending more money on law enforcement and compensating victims of crime andd etc, then you might not be saving much money.

  • this is a wealthy city, and a wealthy society. we all live with limited resources... but i see a lot of wealth in this city, i see a lot of people spending a lot of money on things that are nonessential. we can afford to help more people.

  • the current system is unfair: right now we have a system with very free trade, free movement of goods and money, but very limited immigration. there are multiple factors to production, including capital, land, labour. with free trade but limited immigration, if you have capital you can move it to wherever is most profitable, but if you only have labour you cannot move to wherever is most profitable to work. a system with free movement of capital, but not of labour, then rich people can just move their factory to a poor country and get the poor people to work for them for less. if there was movement of labour, then the factory could stay here and poor people could move here to work in that factory. obviously we don't want to just have totally open borders, but when we have a situation where the border is more open for capital then it is for labour, we have a situation where people with capital have an advantage and people with only labour do not... therefore rich get richer and poor get poorer. if some people are getting unfairly rich because they have capital, and some people are getting unfairly left behind because the system privileges those with capital over those who do not, then it is fair to redistribute some of that unfairly gotten wealth from those who have it to those who need it. it some people are getting unfairly poor, then i have more compassion towards them breaking the rules in order to try to survive.

[–]wedontswiminsoda [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

but we already are a sanctuary city, is this news to people?

There are always going to be a small percentage of illegals here (and sometimes they're not what you expect - Americans, people from Britain on expired work visas).

Their own expenditures (buying food, renting, working) probably have no impact on our system. My quibble might be that if the work is done under the table, there are of course no income taxes, but there are plenty people born here who skirt taxes as well with no qualms about it, probably more so

Kicking these people out isnt going to suddenly focus all of us on fixing homelessness, mental health ect (we'll just find some other "noble" cause to justify not helping those people - "why should we help homeless people when there are hardworking families who pay taxes and blah blah blah who need help with X,Y Z).

[–]yourappreciator[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

but we already are a sanctuary city, is this news to people?

Nope, but just recent news bring back the spotlight on the topic combined with constant report / news about budget issues.

[–]dkwangchuckEglinton East [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

At some point we need to stop going with simply being warm & fuzzy and face the reality / cold hard truth that we all live with limited resources and can't simply help everybody.

Then we should be accepting more refugees.

One of the most important studies of the economic impact of immigration to Canada is Morton Beiser's Strangers at the Gate. This study looked at the arrival of the Vietnamese boat people who began to arrive in Canada in 1979 to much controversy. The total number of refugees was 60,000, the largest single group of refugees to ever arrive in Canada. Beiser first studied the boat people upon their arrival, finding that few spoke English or French, that most were farmers with few skills useful in Canada, and that they had arrived with no assets with which to establish themselves. Beiser then followed the progress of the boat people to see what effect they would have on Canada. Within ten years of arrival the boat people had an unemployment rate 2.3% lower than the Canadian average. One in five had started a business, 99% had successfully applied to become Canadian citizens, and they were considerably less likely than average to receive some form of social assistance.

Refugees are trying to build new lives for themselves and their families. They are escaping from dire and desperate circumstances. These are people who have more reason than most to work hard and to truly appreciate the opportunities presented to them. The outcomes observed from the cohort of Boat People are amazing - and they were achieved despite the xenophobic backlash against them. Imagine the impact if we were more supportive and welcoming of refugees, instead of treating them like a drain on our resources.

[–]sP4RKIE 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace, you

You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope some day you'll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you

[–]codyflood90 [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

My issue is why even have an immigration process if we're not going to do anything about those who come in illegally, it defeats the purpose.

[–]danger____zone [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

if we're not going to do anything about those who come in illegally

We don't do nothing. We have immigration enforcement and do remove people from the country. It's just not a major issue in Canada so it's not often talked about.

My understanding is sanctuary city status in Canada simply means city services won't be denied to illegal immigrants. But it doesn't go as far as the US, where a sanctuary city will not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

I'm completely comfortable with that. Let those who are responsible for immigration deal with it, but as long as someone is in the city I think we can treat them the same as anyone else.

[–]codyflood90 [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

But if Toronto is a sanctuary city, by definition doesn't that mean doing nothing, at least within Toronto.

[–]danger____zone [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

No I don't think cities have as much power here as they do in the US. The records of city police forces are accessible by Immigration. They've adopted the term "Sanctuary City" but it doesn't mean quite the same thing.

I have an article, I'll add a link shortly when I'm off mobile.

[–]VladK02 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Canada is a country of immigrants, and we welcome others. having said that, we welcome them legally - there is a process, it is accessible and not difficult. And everyone had to wait in line to do it.

So please, none of this American bullshit here. We are not american, we dont get involved with their politics. Stop this sanctuary city nonsense. Its not us.

[–]1925326 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

I'm strongly supportive of the sanctuary city concept in general. Also, I'm a legal immigrant and definitely do not feel "insulted" by illegal immigrants, pretty much all of whom I've known over the years work their asses off and have been good people doing what they felt best for their futures. I'd rather he didn't speak for me in that regard.

[–]ur_a_idiet [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

We still have tons of people who have been around here for years with various challenges of their own: homelessness, mental health, etc.

Then advocate for more government funding to help them.

reality / cold hard truth

...featuring zero supporting information

[–]ReeferEyedJane and Finch [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

So.... Vote o Leary?