Canada Isn’t the Eldorado Third Worlders Imagine

I’ve been corresponding with many people on Facebook from Third World countries, especially Sub-Saharan African countries like Gambia, who genuinely believe Canada is Heaven on Earth and all of their problems would magically vanish if only they either migrated here or convinced all of us to donate some of our spare change to lift them all out of poverty. And I really struggle to convince them otherwise.

Of course I wish not to minimise their own plight. I’ve seen enough misery stemming from a country whose safety net is failing its people to picture out what life in a country without a safety net is like. I know they’re starving, they’re lacking access to clean water, proper sanitation, and health care, that their dwellings are squalid, and that the region is continually at war with itself. I don’t have a problem believing them because I see people plagued with similar plights all around me, and I live in a country of the G7.

But don’t take my word for it. Just ask the Palestinian refugee who stabbed herself in the stomach while in a meeting with a federal government official with Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada⁠—and she had just fled Hell on Earth. Or the Afghan refugee who was shocked to find out how many Canadians relied on food banks—and he too had just fled Hell on Earth. Coming to Canada only to see its social fabric and infrastructure crumble can really burst a migrant’s bubble, especially one who ends up homeless upon arrival.

Granted, our country has wealth, but we’ve priced ourselves out of it. We have homes, but the only people who can afford one are those who already have one, while many houses are falling apart and landlords are brazenly evicting tenants over skyrocketing rent. We have universal health care, and yet millions of Canadians cannot access it while facing extensive drug shortages. Plenty of people in remote regions lack access to clean water and basic sanitation. Our cities are crawling with desperate homeless people turning them into landfills, just like the slums of underdeveloped countries, while living conditions in supportive housing complexes are squalid. We have freedoms on paper, but they’re rapidly eroding due to politicians getting addicted to ruling by diktat. And of course this country is no stranger to genocide, such as the murder of thousands of aboriginal children in residential schools.

In addition, First World countries have First World problems, such as the drug overdose crisis killing thousands every year and made artificially acute by lack of access to a safe drug supply. Suddenly all this wealth of ours seems to have flip side, fuelling issues from gambling addiction to environmental feuds, while sometimes it seems the only solution the government can afford to address social ills is medically assisted death.

So when I get told by prospective migrants online that they would gladly brave Canada’s two million application backlog because this country can only be much better than theirs, I can’t help shaking my head in dismay, thinking of all the Kafkaesque misery I witness every day and of the countless migrants who made it here telling me just how badly their own bubble has burst upon experiencing it themselves. Yet it’s difficult to explain to people who haven’t seen for themselves just how ingenious a society with virtually unlimited wealth can be at crafting itself an incredible and inextricable Hell.