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Honduran migrant Fernando Najar Guillen, 22, carries a handmade Canadian flag as he rides on the back of a flatbed truck with other Central Americans, outside Juchitan, in Oaxaca state, Mexico, on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. He said he plans to continue across the entire U.S. and seek work in Canada.Rebecca Blackwell/The Associated Press

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Last Saturday, Michael Valpy and Frank Graves, in their article The Multiculturalism Dilemma, came very close to pinpointing the related problems of xenophobic nationalism and populism.

They say populism is characterized by a sense of economic pessimism, anger at elites, deep mistrust of mainstream media, science etc. Further on, they say part of the answer lies with high levels of inequality, tepid economic growth … and so forth.

The trend to markedly higher inequality started in the 1980s and continues to worsen to this day. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have written of the co-relation between many societal ills and inequality in various developed nations. The co-relation is with inequality per se, rather than low income.

This is occurring throughout the liberal economies, giving rise to the irrational response known as populism due to a general feeling on the part of many people of getting a bad deal. It would be more correct to identify these economies as neoliberal, that is, having an inherent belief that the market knows best and economic growth solves everything.

To arrest these negative trends, it is necessary to adopt a policy of lowering inequality by having a more progressive taxation system, one that redistributes income and wealth to counter the natural tendency of capitalist economies to transfer wealth to the 1 per cent from the rest of the population. This would be better for everyone – but don’t count on those who benefit to fix this broken economic system.

Don Kerr, Collingwood, Ont.

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Michael Valpy and Frank Graves state that “attachment to ethnic groups is declining precipitously, national identity has remained strong, immigrants quickly adapt to Canadian values …” I would suggest they take a stroll through Brampton, Ont., for a visible demonstration of how dead wrong they are.

Surely this isn’t what was envisioned when the floodgates were opened to immigration in the 1960s. This, I believe, is what is causing the backlash, and rightly so. Canada has always welcomed immigrants, but only those who want to be Canadians. Not those who want to come here and live in their own little country-away-from-country. That is simply wrong, and not palatable to Canadians.

Steve Pozgaj, Mississauga

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In rewarding the Doug Fords and Maxime Berniers of our country for a platform allegedly based on pseudo anti-elitism and a backlash against “progressive” values, we have inevitably opened the door to the darker sides of that platform. My fear is that our other leaders, due to a combination of political correctness and worries about losing votes, will be too reluctant to call this emerging trend what it is: intolerant, racist, and unCanadian.

Adam Green, Ottawa

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While thousands of Canadians are out of jobs, while Canadians use food banks and wait for medical care, while Canadians in need cannot access social housing and others sleep on the streets, hundreds of millions of tax dollars are spent on unauthorized border-crossers. Canadians are not against legal, needed immigrants, that is an entirely separate issue.

Sylvia Makk-Lainevool, Richmond Hill, Ont.

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Back to the future, again. A decade ago, the waiting period for an average refugee claim in Canada was between three and four years.

We are heading in that direction again. Why? There are many reasons behind this unsustainable situation. The Safe Third Country Agreement is one. Another is the Trump tsunami in the United States. We have been told by the Parliamentary Budget Officer that Ottawa’s bill for asylum seekers crossing at unauthorized points on the Canada/U.S. border could exceed $1-billion over three years. There is also the flood of asylum seekers from failed states, and the modern phenomenon of movement from the “world of disorder” to the “world of order.”

But the main reason is the lack of a coherent national strategy or plan to tackle migration, immigration and refugee problems in modern times.

Current thinking is outdated and reactive in nature. Canada needs a royal commission to research and recommend a new national plan for this age. No plan to close loopholes is sufficient. We need a national strategy to effectively manage this unprecedented international tsunami of migration, which is bound to increase, and which will challenge us financially and politically.

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah, immigration consultant, Ottawa

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A genetically induced mistrust of strangers can be suppressed – but not eradicated.

Anyone who dares to question the amazing multiple benefits that high levels of immigration bring us is labelled as an economic pessimist, angry at elites, mistrustful of mainstream media etc. No wonder large numbers of people feel unable to express their true feelings, especially to pollsters who are often seen as intruders and representative of a media that is only interested in a narrow set of “opinion leaders.”

But, make no mistake, in the privacy of the ballot box, although the election of a government has to be based on a number of competing issues, strong feelings can be given an outlet. The election of Donald Trump, among other things, shows how media and pollsters live in bubbles and silos, and are easily misled.

The average Canadian on the ground, who is much more in touch with reality, knows that immigration, legal, illegal, irregular or unauthorized, has real-world impacts in jobs, housing, education and health-care line-ups, and that the government does not appear to understand this, and has no adequate plan to mitigate these effects.

Colin Lowe, Nanaimo, B.C.

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The signing of the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, together with Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s fall announcement that Canada will increase the rate of immigration by 40,000 per year to 350,000 per year by 2021, are just the latest in a series of federal moves to grow Canada’s population at an irresponsible rate (Trudeau Lashes Out At Conservatives For ‘Spreading Falsehoods For Short-term Political Gain’ On Immigration – Dec. 17).

Population growth is great for the federal government, as there are more bodies from whom to derive revenue. It’s the provincial and civic governments that have the responsibilities that incur stresses and strains physically, culturally, and financially, including housing, transportation, energy, and climate change.

Those Canadians opposed to the current rate of population growth are labelled as xenophobic, populist, fear-mongering and spreading misinformation. It is seen as hateful to suggest that there ought to be a discussion of what size of population is best for Canada, at what rate the country should approach that population via immigration, what skills should be requested of immigrants to dovetail with Canada’s requirements, and other such logical and reasonable topics of discussion.

If the government’s signature on the UN migration document at least brings this critical issue out in the open, perhaps it will indeed be a good thing for Canada.

Ric Pow, Vancouver

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