What do you mean with them „opening the flood gates“? I would be interested to see some data on that. AFAIK Canada has one of the strictest migration politics in the world.
In Germany we now have people whose grandparents have migrated to Germany, but they’re still not considered „true“ Germans just because of their names, looks and religion. Even though in the Americas they have their own racist things going on, the normal thing is that if you’re a citizen, people won’t doubt that you’re American.
The same isn’t true in European countries and as I said it didn’t actually matter where people were from, German society was incredibly hostile towards German refugees after the 2nd world war, where there was little need to integrate or learn the language, yet the rhetoric was surprisingly similar to that about e.g. Syrians today.
Canada used to have a strict policy and on some levels still do outside of the programs being instituted to supplement the workforce and to bring refugees in from complex zones, we’ve allowed in over double the previous amount for the past couple of years, under various refugee programs. Going a bit farther back there was a large influx of Syrians (and tasty shwarma!). The canada.ca website details the rapid increase in numbers quite well.
I would never say that these people move to Canada are not true Canadians because at one point my family got here on a boat and my wife’s family escaped an islamist regime to come here too. We’re both quite Canadian in culture and jean jackets.
From what I see, many of these problems derive from cultural conflicts that were previously not apparent because while many people knew to a country tend to stick together when they are a true minority, they tend to work to fit in. When you have large waves of people coming at once, there’s no impetus for them to fit in because they can stay within their own cultural confines… As sad as it is to say, some of those cultural confines are very much at odds with the greater Canadian culture.
I find it incredibly lazy to make such a big statement and then not back it up with data, not even on request. But I checked myself and what I found does not back your statement at all. Maybe I’m looking at different numbers than you did and in that case I’d like to see yours but from what I see they let in roughly the same number of people for decades.
Regarding the cultural compatibility, again, they were saying the same thing about German refugees within Germany and they’re saying that right now in Poland about Ukrainians, and in Turkey about Syrians, hell even in Lebanon and Jordan about Syrians. So to get back about your initial point, I don’t think it has anything to do with middle eastern culture, it has to do with people being xenophobic in general and the media and politicians fueling that for their own benefit.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/443063/number-of-immigrants-in-canada/
You’re lazily conflating immigration and refugee data. It’s a combination of both the Canada is struggling with. Right now. There’s no shortage of analysis or study showing that far too many people are coming to Canada than our system can handle. Even the federal government who is the one who set these policies have started walking them back.
As someone who hails from a middle Eastern culture and is married to an Iranian refugee, I can say with certainty that the influx of people coming from the places that my wife and I escaped are absolutely causing societal problems for us here in Canada. I’m far from a pull. The ladder up behind me. Kind of guy but I’m also a citizen of this country which is being quite clearly impacted by the oversaturation of new people coming from very small pockets of this planet into Canada. This isn’t being driven by politicians. Both the conservative and the liberal sides of politics in this country are very much pro-immigration due to our inability to maintain our population rates and tax base without it. The people of Canada on the other hand are starting to show more and more discontent with this approach.