Getting to know you: a new card game and immigration issues

Dave Pollard has written a piece of fiction containing instructions for a new game that seems fun and interesting at first but goes deep.

“It’s a game board, Dev. I’ve invented a new game based on ikigai. It can be used as an ice-breaker, to help people who don’t know each other discover things they enjoy in common. Or it can be used by people who do know each other to learn more about each other, and see how well they know each other.”

The Ontario government is making it harder for immigrants to attain citizenship. Under the guise of fighting fraud in the immigration system, the province is changing things which is throwing thousands of people into limbo and lots will leave as a result of the goal posts changing. This is cruel. Our immigration system has a major problem in that it promotes the fact the we need skilled people to work in all of our economic sectors. Yet when those skilled people choose Canada they get here and face multiple barriers to making their offerings. And then governments change the system from under them. It amounts to withdrawing a promise. One person quoted in the story says this:

“It’s like a broken promise… If they didn’t need us in the first place, they should not have invited us,” he said. 

He’s right. And whatever systemic changes happen, it will not stop fraud. Fraud is the result of clever operators cheating the system. Every system has cheaters. It’s clear to me that the reasons for these changes are purely political, feeding into an increasing thread of xenophobia that wins partisan political points but throws yet one more barrier up in front of the people who have chosen to come here and be a part of this national project. It’s transparently racist and should be called out as such.

The system is broken, not the people. At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, thousands of refugees fled to Canada where we welcomed them. Now some are being told that they will have to wait 50 years for their permanent residency.