Canada’s Immigration Coverage Is Hypocritical and Damaging, Says Gabor Maté

Canada is shifting towards stricter immigration and asylum guidelines. Invoice C-12, handed in March, limits refugee claims, accelerates removals and case closures, and offers the federal government broader authority to pause or alter visa, research allow, and work allow processing. It builds on earlier measures, together with the 2002 Secure Third Nation Settlement with the USA—which was expanded in 2023 and requires asylum seekers to hunt safety within the first secure nation they attain, barring those that arrive from the US at official land crossings from claiming refugee standing in Canada.

In different associated developments, immigration minister Lena Metlege Diab just lately got here underneath criticism over “piecemeal” communication a couple of deliberate pathway to everlasting residency for 33,000 expert staff, with critics saying it fuelled confusion and misinformation amongst migrants earlier than full program particulars had been launched and that it created alternatives for unauthorized immigration consultants to use short-term residents vulnerable to dropping standing.

Furthermore, immigration discourse in Canada continues to be influenced by US coverage narratives and media framing, with anti-immigrant sentiment and polarizing rhetoric shaping how migration is known on either side of the border. Information reveals that Canadians’ assist for immigration ranges decreased considerably in 2023 and 2024 to a thirty-year low, regardless of traditionally secure attitudes, simply as annual everlasting resident consumption rose between 2001 and 2023 from about 250,000 to over 470,000, and that 56 p.c of Canadians in 2025 believed the nation was accepting too many immigrants.

Towards this backdrop, issues in regards to the psychological well being of immigrants and refugees, the trauma they reside with, and their long-term integration have change into extra urgent. Newcomers arriving from conflict-affected areas usually face not solely the psychological impression of displacement but additionally the pressures of adapting to shifting immigration techniques and public attitudes in host international locations.

To discover these points, I spoke by Zoom with Gabor Maté—doctor and writer whose work focuses on trauma, dependancy, and the social roots of psychological sickness. As somebody who himself got here to Canada as an immigrant and has spent many years working with newcomer households in household follow, Maté brings a private and scientific perspective to those questions, usually emphasizing a deeper understanding of immigrant expertise than is often mirrored in public debates.

The interview has been edited for size and readability.

You got here to Canada as an immigrant if you had been a toddler. What motivated you and your loved ones to construct a life right here? How does that have evaluate to what newcomers face at this time?

We got here to Canada in 1957 as refugees from Hungary, and Europeans had been typically extra accepted right here than non-Europeans. We had been welcomed and got every kind of assist, and that was very beneficiant of Canada. We got here after the Hungarian Revolution, an anti-communist revolution, so politically, too, we had been welcome right here.

However, for me, it was nonetheless very laborious. I bear in mind being referred to as a “DP,” a displaced individual. It was a time period initially used for individuals who needed to depart their international locations throughout the Second World Conflict, however right here in Canada, it was used as a pejorative. It was an insult.

So, on the one hand, we had been supported by the Canadian authorities and introduced right here very generously. However, on the opposite, it was nonetheless tough to slot in culturally. There are components that may make integration simpler for some teams—although it was nonetheless very laborious in our case—however for individuals who come from different elements of the world and don’t obtain the identical stage of political or social assist, it may be a lot tougher.

How do latest Canadian immigration coverage adjustments, similar to Invoice C-12, have an effect on newcomers psychologically?

Nicely, within the first place, the place are folks coming from? Persons are coming from locations the place there’s battle, insecurity, poverty, oppression, and every kind of stress and trauma. They’re locations the place the Western world has created all the issues, like Syria, Iraq, North Africa, Libya, South America, and the Caribbean, amongst others. These are all locations that the West, together with Canada, has made actually depressing in every kind of the way: by financial pressures, army interventions, and so forth.

These individuals are already terribly insecure, terribly careworn. Now they arrive to the West. Canadian insurance policies that make their expertise harder, extra insecure, and extra punishing are solely going to deepen folks’s nervousness, stress, and trauma. And it’s not simply in Canada. It’s half of a complete Western development of clamping down on immigrants and refugees—refugees from all of the international locations that the West has ruined, similar to Afghanistan. To not point out Palestine.

And it’s very selective. In six months after the Ukraine struggle broke out, Canada authorized 1,000,000 refugee claims. However from a spot just like the Gaza Strip, the place the loss of life toll and destruction are exponentially better, they accepted just a few thousand. So the coverage isn’t solely harsh but additionally discriminatory within the sense that individuals of color are being affected extra.

How do these international conflicts have an effect on communities in a different way in Canada?

It’s completely different for various teams of individuals. For instance, Ukrainians are thought-about Europeans, so they’re very welcome and obtain every kind of assist and benefits. I feel that’s tremendous. In the meantime, folks from the Gaza Strip are sometimes not welcomed in the identical manner. They face a lot harsher guidelines and rather more restricted potentialities for receiving assist than Ukrainians. Not that Ukrainians shouldn’t be welcome—after all, they need to be. They’re refugees from a horrible battle. However Gazans are in a lot better want.

Psychological well being within the Gaza Strip is at nice threat due to the unbelievable affected by the genocide. Psychological well being is a big concern and has been for a very long time. There was a research completed in 2004, a few years earlier than October 7, which confirmed that a big proportion of youngsters within the Gaza Strip had signs of post-traumatic stress dysfunction. Are you able to think about what it’s like now, with so many deaths and households dropping members?

Do the worldwide conflicts contribute to a rise in racism and discrimination towards minorities in Canada?

There’s all the time been a sure diploma of response towards immigrants of color, like anti-Chinese language racism in Canada. That’s been occurring for over 100 years. There have been anti-Asian riots and anti-Indian insurance policies in Vancouver again within the early twentieth century.

With the worldwide financial system being increasingly more unsure for folks, as it’s proper now, they have a tendency to look upon identifiable strangers as threats to their very own well-being. Individuals of various colors are apparent targets. At any time when there’s battle, there are triggers for stress: uncertainty, lack of know-how, lack of management. When individuals are careworn, they have a tendency to get extra polarized and extra hostile towards many individuals.

How do folks from battle zones carry deep trauma however nonetheless stay resilient once they come to Canada?

Individuals have survived horrible circumstances all through our historical past. It’s a part of human nature to cope with actuality. But additionally, these folks have a tendency to return from cultures the place there’s a robust sense of neighborhood and belonging. They’ve one another and again one another. That’s an element for resilience.

And lastly, what impression do you suppose US immigration insurance policies have on Canada and migrants right here?

I don’t have particular knowledge, research, or observations on it, however I consider it’s going to have an impact. There’s a lot anti-immigrant propaganda coming from the US and US media, which doesn’t present a lot fact. It isn’t solely in America however different Western international locations too. Refugees from North Africa are drowning within the Mediterranean Sea in giant numbers, and the Europeans are letting it occur. There’s a common anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping Europe, and there are every kind of events which are brazenly racist now.

On the identical time, America is the worst instance, with American insurance policies separating households from their kids. The Canadian one is hypocritical, and it’s damaging. The coverage is getting harsher, that’s for positive. It’s value remembering that America is a nation of immigrants—as is Canada.

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