undefined | Better HN

0 pointsadventured8y ago0 comments

Canada is nowhere near as diverse as the US.

Canada is 1.x% hispanic, 2.x% black, 78% white.

The US is 20% hispanic, 13% black, 60% white.

Canada is a homogeneous nation.

Latin America's population is ~650 million. Canada intentionally designed its immigration system to be exclusionary to immigration by poorer people. Which is why, during the time in which the US massively boomed with Latin American immigration (1970s forward), Canada did not.

How can there be 650 million people in Latin American, nearly 70 million hispanics in the US, and only ~450,000 hispanics in Canada? A skill & education restricted immigration system that doesn't allow in typically poorer, lower skill, lower education hispanics coming from Latin America. It's extremely anti-diversity.

0 comments

ZeroGravitas8y ago

People of Chinese, East Indian, First Nations, Ukrainian, Dutch, Polish & Filipino ancestry all make up a bigger proportion of Canada's population than hispanic or black people. Your own numbers only add up to 81% for Canada but 93% for the USA. That's people from as propontionally large a group as African-Americans in the USA that you've skipped over.

Possibly there's two layers of miscommunication about "diverse". One, people could consider Scots, Irish, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Welsh, Norweigan people to be non-diverse if they fit some social category of whiteness. Even if one of the groups still speaks it's own language and has a seperatist movement.

Second, having big chunks of certain demographics could be considered less diversity than having lots of little chunks from different places.

adventuredOP8y ago

Facts are facts. Canada's immigration system is absurdly anti-diversity, which is why Canada has so few hispanic and black people, and why it's nearly 80% white.

Within about 20 years, the US won't even be a majority white nation. Pretending Canada is more diverse than that, is ridiculous. That Canada is somehow a super diverse nation, is a pretend claim that is unsupported by the actual demographic facts.

Why don't more poor black people immigrate into Canada from cities like Detroit, Chicago or New York? Surely their lives would be considerably improved given Canada's superior safety net, healthcare system, etc. - and Canada has good wages and a healthy unemployment rate. It's simple, they're not allowed to. Canada's immigration system excludes the possibility that most people with lower skill & education backgrounds can ever get in.

If Canada were actually pro-diversity, they'd liberalize their immigration policies and let in a large amount of immigration from Latin America (after all, the vast majority of the Americas is hispanic), such that Canada's hispanic percentage closes the gap with the US over the next 20-30 years. They're never going to allow it.

BenchRouter8y ago

> which is why Canada has so few hispanic and black people, and why it's nearly 80% white.

Er, or it's not bordered by Mexico and doesn't have nearly the extensive history with African slavery that the US does?

> Why don't more poor black people immigrate into Canada from cities like Detroit, Chicago or New York?

I'm not trying to argue one way or another for Canada's immigration system (I know very little about it), but this is a very simplistic argument.

Why don't all the ex-coal miners in WV simply move to where the jobs are?

Picking up and relocating your life is way, way more involved than you're making it sound.

> It's simple, they're not allowed to.

This is also the case in the US, hence the widespread fears about illegal immigrants.

If life was significantly better in Canada, one would expect far more illegal immigration.

1 more reply

freeone30008y ago

"Diversity" in your example seems to include black people and hispanic people, but disregards the diversity in "white" culture (there's a huge split between English and French), and the entire Asian continent.

Denying people of low skill and educational backgrounds isn't inherently racist - an African-American software developer gets the same NAFTA rubber-stamp as a Polish-American developer. French-speaking workers have it even easier, as French-speakers get preferential treatment. (Areas of Africa natively speak French, if you're insistent that Africa is the source of all "diversity".)

I don't see how letting low-skill, uneducated people immigrate to a country helps it. Immigration isn't a charity.

ZeroGravitas8y ago

Yes, facts are indeed facts, let's agree on that at least.

The USA has always been partly hispanic, from before there was a USA. That might have something to do with their presence in the country today.

Similarly, I don't think the African-American presence in the USA can be put down to a pro-diversity immigration system, unless we're really twisting those words meanings. Indeed America has a long history of having openly and literally racist immigration laws.

Either way, we seem to be retreating from "this can't happen in the USA because it's diverse" to "there's poor people in America", which seems like a different argument entirely.

1 more reply

ZeroGravitas8y ago

It's worth noting that half of American Hispanics identify as "white" to the census, since it asks for race and ethnicity seperately (i.e. you can be black and hispanic too) The census actually counts 90% of Hispanics as white, because their answers (mostly "other race") don't fit better in any other category.

Taking that into account, the USA is either 70% or 78% white. (And presumably that bumps Canada up to 78.7% or so too.)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

ZeroGravitas8y ago

Second, having big chunks of certain demographics could be considered less diversity than having lots of little chunks from different places.

adventuredOP8y ago

Facts are facts. Canada's immigration system is absurdly anti-diversity, which is why Canada has so few hispanic and black people, and why it's nearly 80% white.

BenchRouter8y ago

> which is why Canada has so few hispanic and black people, and why it's nearly 80% white.

Er, or it's not bordered by Mexico and doesn't have nearly the extensive history with African slavery that the US does?

> Why don't more poor black people immigrate into Canada from cities like Detroit, Chicago or New York?

I'm not trying to argue one way or another for Canada's immigration system (I know very little about it), but this is a very simplistic argument.

Why don't all the ex-coal miners in WV simply move to where the jobs are?

Picking up and relocating your life is way, way more involved than you're making it sound.

> It's simple, they're not allowed to.

This is also the case in the US, hence the widespread fears about illegal immigrants.

If life was significantly better in Canada, one would expect far more illegal immigration.

1 more reply

freeone30008y ago

I don't see how letting low-skill, uneducated people immigrate to a country helps it. Immigration isn't a charity.

ZeroGravitas8y ago

Yes, facts are indeed facts, let's agree on that at least.

The USA has always been partly hispanic, from before there was a USA. That might have something to do with their presence in the country today.

Either way, we seem to be retreating from "this can't happen in the USA because it's diverse" to "there's poor people in America", which seems like a different argument entirely.

1 more reply

ZeroGravitas8y ago

Taking that into account, the USA is either 70% or 78% white. (And presumably that bumps Canada up to 78.7% or so too.)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse