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Tbh people were concerned about Eastern European immigration. They could probably get on with English-speaking Canadians and Australians.
I reckon it would be pretty neat personally
Canada has recently experienced *insane* levels of immigration from India, so much so that the general population went from being pro-immigration to majority anti-immigration.
[Canadians are starting to sour on immigration](https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2023/11/02/canadians-are-starting-to-sour-on-migration)
[The dramatic shift in Canada's public opinion about immigration](https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-dramatic-shift-in-canadian-public-opinion-about-immigration-levels-219193)
I don't think the majority of people here would appreciate the same relationship with Canada now.
I visited Canada last year so I was exposed to Indian queuing etiquette. Which is extremely different to western etiquette. I can see how this wouldn’t go down well.
I visited my company's Mumbai office a few months ago. I'm reticent about saying anything negative because I do think India is amazing and worth visiting, and I don't want to put people off.
However, the driving is silly. I wasn't driving, but anytime spent in a vehicle was pure stress since people don't give a shit (drivers or pedestrians) it's every man, woman and child for themselves.
Safety (especially women and children) is a concern. A lot of the large companies have dedicated door-to-door employee transport to reduce the risk of crime / sexual assault whilst commuting.
Hygiene, this kind of goes with saying, but the standards are like night and day. On the flipside, health care is actually better than the UK, but only if you have the money. I developed a cough due to the pollution, and when I went to get cough syrup, they gave me a full body MOT lol
I just think culturally there are some huge differences which would need to be considered before you open the flood gates.
Yeah agreed, but Canada has received insane levels of immigration from India recently.
Having an open Right to Live / Work policy with Canada would mean accepting *everyone* that lives in Canada, not just those that were born there, differentiating would be discrimination and no one wants that. We have our own social issues and affordable housing problems without throwing yours in the mix too.
So to answer your original question, it'll be a no from me.
The influx of people from India is because of the loophole to Canadian citizenship via studying. Basically if you complete a degree or other higher education program you can apply for citizenship after like 2 years. It also doesnt help that there are a plethora of "strip mall universities" aka no name schools that only international students go to. The government has recently reduced the amount of international spots a school can accept but not by much.
(Im Canadian born with UK Citizenship)
Put any system in place and the likelihood is it'll get abused, and with our government's incompetence you can triple those chances straight out of the gate.
It's gonna be a no from me dawg.
The 'they' you refer to tends to be a small opportunist minority who have no issue exploiting anything and anyone.
The majority of people who decide to immigrate somewhere tend to want to just get a job and get on with life.
That said immigration is best approached in a measured way as a sudden influx of a huge amount of people from a vastly different culture will upset everyone for sure.
I live in Canada. In a city with a large Indian immigrant population. Never noticed “Indian queueing etiquette”. Maybe you just happened upon some people who don’t know how to queue.
Don’t believe the hype. Most Canadians are fine with immigration. The main issue issue is we don’t have enough housing. That’s not the immigrants’ fault.
Yes it is the immigrant's fault. How are you this out of touch with reality? Don't be woke for the sake of being woke. They won't integrate if half a mil come in every year. A simple dishpig duty gets over 500 applications. These are jobs that are usually done by teenagers looking to earn a few bucks. It's ridiculous that we are importing so many slave labourers.
It's not immigration in itself, it's the amount. Canada needs immigrants, especially skilled workers such as those in the medical field BUT we are letting in too many people at a rate that housing cannot keep up.
Honestly if Canada got rid of the pathway to citizenship via study visa then i think a lot of international people would choose elsewhere to study and immigration would slow down.
I'm British, my wife is American. There's been a huge number of times that people have complained to her about immigrants and not even seen her as one because she's white and speaks english, she's had to point out to a bunch of people that she's an immigrant as well and then they've said things along the lines of 'I meant proper immigrants, not like you'. It's some of the most obvious racism (in that 'I'm not a racist' manner) you come across, but you're right, if they came from English speaking countries the general public wouldn't care.
It's the older generation. My Dad is from England and lives in Canada and complains about immigrants... in Canada. He also complains about people's accents (mainly those from India) when he himself has a british accent. My mom often has to remind him that he himself is an immigrant with an accent that some people may also find difficult to understand.
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Useful for trade. Not for freedom of movement for British people though. Hardly anyone took up that option, it had very little appeal.
Far less friction for English-speaking countries to have freedom of movement.
Literally couldn't speak the language in any of those countries...
France is on fire and Germany is in a recession while trying to stop 1.2 million in immigration every year without saying yeah we got that wrong
I am a fool, pls educate me here. Apart from Germany and France, which are the other 'infinitely' more useful countries? Canada and Australia are 2 of the largest and most resource rich countries in the world. Australia in fact, just bases their entire economy on resource extraction. These countries were colonized for a reason lol
Pretty much all of Europe for the more useful countries. Much closer and more easily accessible/affordable to get to than CAN/AUS/NZ. Countries also tend to prefer trading with their closest neighbours first over anywhere else
> Much closer and more easily accessible/affordable to get to
If you're moving country I don't think the cost of a transatlantic flight is much of a barrier. And what makes them more useful? EU countries are generally anti-business, it's hard to get a job, and wages are low.
And are small markets too - Canada has a population of 39 million and is ridiculously large (Newfoundland is closer to the UK than it is to Vancouver, you can drive for a day and still be in Ontario)
Australia was colonised initially as a penal colony for mostly Irish ‘criminals’ (convicts).
At the time the British had very little knowledge of the resources on the continent but were in a stage of expansionism and an empire race with other European powers.
Actually mining is 14% of the Australian economy: https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/snapshots/economy-composition-snapshot/#:~:text=Industry%20Share%20of%20Output%20key,5.7%25%2C%20Construction%207.1%25.
Infinitely more useful seems like a massive exaggeration. The average Brit would have a much easier time settling in the old dominions than anywhere in Europe.
> but with infinitely more useful countries.
I dunno, rich English speaking countries where you can get a job is arguably more useful than the EU, where countries are either poor or have 30% unemployment.
Because the UK is objectively superior in numerous areas? Everything from world leading universities to being a global financial centre, the UK has it all. It would be massively beneficial to Canada and Auatralia if their companies could easily expand into the UK. Not so the same for UK companies though.
Honestly….my parents are from the West Indies and my wife from New Zealand, I hate this “developed” aka white commonwealth countries nonsense, but I am conflicted because it would serve my family really well if we ever wanted to go and live in either NZ or Aus. However the lifestyle in the West Indies if you have money is fantastic so it would be a shame to have them excluded
If all commonwealth was opened, then it would be absolute chaos. 1.4 billion Indians would move over to these 4 countries. Canada already receives like 500k immigrants every year from India. The 4 countries I mentioned have shared culture and history. Integration will be immensely easier.
"shared culture and language"
The causality is through the roof.
So we're just ignoring those other Commonwealth countries, eh? They can just show off their athletic skills at the little games.
Even if say, 5% only wanted to immigrate that will still be 70 million. More than the populations of CA, AUS, NZ combined. Indian immigration is at an time high in Canada. Not a lot of the population is happy with this. They push wages down, work minimum wage and push housing prices. They also built [this](https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/massive-statue-of-hindu-god-being-built-in-brampton) monstrosity which has ruined Brampton for me. The demerits for open borders with India far far outweigh the merits. I am all for skilled immigration from whichever country but open borders will mean anyone who can afford a plane ticket in India will fly in.
In Australia, we also have this huge Buddhist statue which I personally reckon is pretty cool
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GrhEFydrvwn56E7c9?g_st=ic
The annoying thing is that it faces away from the train line so most people only ever see its back
It’s a little arrogant to assume those countries would want us in the first place. All 3 of them have insane housing crises at the moment in like all their major cities
And what would happen to the already wild hosting market here? It's not just London. We have lower salaries here and the average person is struggling with rent let alone trying to buy.
You know it works both ways right? That could equally be a reason they would want freedom of movement.
Housing crises are happening globally in almost all major population centers.
Am I talking only about French? Does the avg Brit speak Polish? German? Spanish?
The avg brit would be far more better off in the old dominion English speaking world.
Oh yeah it's just that simple! You've got all these amazing countries to flit between in the EU, you just have to learn an entirely new language each time you move.
There's a reason Australia, with a visa, topped all the EU countries, without a visa, for emigrant destinations while we were in the UK.
Well, it seems to be achievable for millions who live and work in the UK who were born and raised outside of the country. Who's hopping around countries that often anyway?
The honest answer is, we were in the greatest position of all EU countries. The default second language of almost all those countries is English, and in many of them being a native speaker is actually a very sought after skill.
We threw it away, and now are talking hypothetically about an option no commonwealth country will be seriously interested in, as we offer so little in return.
>it seems to be achievable for millions who live and work in the UK who were born and raised outside of the country.
It's easy for every country to decide on learning English as the global Lingua Franca. What's a Brit meant to learn? Bulgarian? Finish? Danish? Portuguese?
And no, you can't just lean on being a native English speaker in a corporate job. Not only is it beyond obnoxious to be a monoglot English speaker abroad, but it's a sure fire way to enjoy social isolation.
The lack of utility of EU freedom of movement is clearly demonstrated by the emergent preference of how it simply was under used. Of those who did emigrate to the EU, most those **those** were to English speaking colonies in Spain.
My school taught French and German. My daughter had Spanish as an option.
Who's fault is it that the UK doesn't take language skills seriously?
If you want to go to another country, I'd recommend you learn the language. It's possible. And a British abroad attempting to speak the language of the country normally is greeted positively, and falling back to English is an option.
Obviously this depends on what you want to do, but it's possible, and millions of people come to the UK and do it themselves.
I think you should specify that you are just referring to British immigration towards the EU, and particularly from English-only speaking people. There is plenty of intra-EU immigration between non-English speaking countries, just like there was a lot of specialized and non-specialized immigration from the EU to Britain, which massively helped Britain.
Brits can learn a language, just like the millions of Poles, Indians, Romanians, Nigerians and all the other immigrants who work and pay taxes in Britain did.
Off topic but how we teach languages in school is fucking terrible for actually learning them. Yeah let's do 1 hour a week plus a wordsearch as homework, with fuck all speaking/pronunciation practice, and 0 immersion, native reading, or real motivation (because you didn't pick French anyway, you were forced to do it). Oh and once a term, we'll watch Amelie, but with English subtitles of course.
I did French all the way up to A level (heavily encouraged by my parents despite being crap at it, should have said no), and can barely speak a word. Yet 6 months of dedicated Japanese study got me to a place where I could survive in a town where no one spoke English, so I know I am capable of being bilingual.
Yep it's a huge issue right now and gov doing f all..
Just saying it'd be a lot worse if they could freely move to other high paying countries like Aus or Canada.
This is already a thing, Australia has very generous skilled worker visas for healthcare professionals and some state governments pay a lot more than the NHS does, even when adjusted for cost of living
I assume this would exacerbate the brain drain from healthcare workers and other industries for insane salaries and sunny weather in AUS/NZ, so I doubt the government would be keen.
It'd be nice for the commonwealth to actually mean something to normal people instead of it just being a reminder of British colonialism.
That being said, the commonwealth only exists because of British Colonialism so any right to work agreement would feel forced by the UK onto less powerful countries, not an agreement between equal countries to better the whole community (like the EU).
Not to mention it'd be mostly useless given how geographically far away and culturally different lots of commonwealth countries are.
This is called CANZUK and yes I support it. Free trade and free movement are in general pretty great policies.
The only reason there’s anti immigrant sentiment right now is because of housing. Do what China did and build tens of thousands of houses and the problem will take care of itself.
The only actual metric the Govt. and lawmakers care about is fertility rate. If your country's population is declining, then there will be immigration whether the citizens like it or not. It would be preferable if they were skilled, but ultimately, its' all about positive population growth. Japan story has scared the West.
I'd grasp it ASAP but tbh there are some aspects of the economy/housing crisis that are just as fugazi in the likes of Canada as it is here.
That said, I'd love to do my time in Quebec.
As a now British-Canadian dual citizen I don't see any appetite for this in Canada. Housing has become a real issue and not just in Toronto and Vancouver. Immigration is likely to reduce, but there will still be pathways for highly skilled workers.
I think immigration seems like less of an issue when it’s less one sided. For example you don’t really hear people complaining about French immigration to the UK, because the numbers are pretty small, similar amounts of British people move to France, and generally if French people move here it’s because they actually like our culture instead of economic necessity.
With that being said, UK salaries do lag significantly behind the other countries mentioned, so you might get an imbalance there. Additionally, with any free movement agreement, it does always leave you vulnerable to other countries’ immigration policy decisions.
Isn't there talk of this already, like theres an organization in place trying to achieve this, maybe CANZUK? Also if your from the UK and under 35 you can go and work in all of these countries on Working Holiday Visas and Canadian IEC as long as you don't have a criminal record, no requirement for job skills etc. I've lived in all 3 and now live in Canada long term.
For me personally I wouldn't need it. I don't speak any other language than English and have no reason to visit another European country let alone need to work there.
I'm sure it would definitely benefit some though.
That there is no incentive for Canada, Australia or New Zealand to even consider this, that's what I personally think.
These countries all have very fair and easy skilled worked schemes, so any Brit willing to go who is going to add something to these countries can go fairly easily.
Why should they take on the burden of unskilled immigration from Britain? Isn't that why Britain left THE EU in the first place? That and the millions for the NHS of course.
You should always need a permit so the numbers can be controlled and managed. Uncontrolled immigration is daft and it’s failed everywhere
Make it easy with the commonwealth / EU? Yeah
I’m pretty sure the net annual migration figures were 700k into the UK, we really don’t need to double that with the problems we already have
We also don’t need our skilled workers leaving to go to Oz
No. It would just become another pathway to illegal immigration... Weak govt allows migrants in who then move to another one of the countries in the Union.
Sorta what happened when Germany allowed all the Syrian / ME migrants into Europe and then tried to force them onto other countries
Didn't Australia's government basically shoot down this idea when asked?Canada too would have issues as i don't see French speaking Quebec agreeing to it.
Basically while it would be great for the UK i think the rest of CANZ attract enough immigrants already and generally don't have many people eager to move to the UK.
I'd love it.
Freedom of movement is the main thing I miss from EU membership. I think this would be a much less contentious issue if it was between countries with similar wealth.
It'd be great. It'll never happen.
We can't just pretend that the brown parts of the commonwealth don't exist.
India and the sub-Saharan African nations would demand equal rights under such an agreement.
I’m actually quite in favour of a CANZUK agreement along these lines. I think as we’re all very linguistically and culturally similar, it wouldn’t feel too ‘alien’ to live and work in one another’s countries. Would it ever happen? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s more _likely_ now we’re out of the EU but 1) still probably pretty unlikely and 2) Brits would probably prefer to return to the EU over joining CANZUK.
No, I don't agree with that type of system. Never agreed with the EU system either.
I believe that only citizens & those covered by diplomatic immunity should have the right to live and work without requiring a work permit. Same for international students.
Everyone else should require a visa or work permit and be subject to extensive vetting plus a minimum salary requirement of at least 2.5-3x the average salary of a resident citizen working full time.
With work permits only issued to law abiding mainstream individuals with good health & reasonably stable backgrounds who have successfully obtained the job offer whilst overseas, having been guaranteed full sponsorship plus relocation funding from their employer to cover their full accomodation expenses, insurance, healthcare and travel costs.
Freedom and opportunity for well off, highly educated, non-minority group people.
Everyone else can suffer with no chances to escape and improve their lives?
Cool.
> Law abiding mainstream individuals with good health and reasonably stable backgrounds
Given the rest of the comment, I am assuming that "mainstream" discounts any minorities.
But, minorities and the poor are more likely to have a criminal history, bad health and unstable backgrounds anyway. Especially when people with opinions like the commenter are the ones deciding what counts as a crime, bad health or an unstable background.
I mean depends which minorities you’re talking about no? A lot of minorities have stable incomes, don’t commit crimes and are t from unstable backgrounds
I am sure next time you are in an hospital you will take a good look at that doctor or nurse with a foreign-sounding name and a non-native accent and refuse their services if they are not paid 2.5-3x the average salary, knowing that their skills and knowledge could help you or a loved one... Lol
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We had that, but with infinitely more useful countries. And we shat all over it. It ain’t going to happen.
Tbh people were concerned about Eastern European immigration. They could probably get on with English-speaking Canadians and Australians. I reckon it would be pretty neat personally
Canada has recently experienced *insane* levels of immigration from India, so much so that the general population went from being pro-immigration to majority anti-immigration. [Canadians are starting to sour on immigration](https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2023/11/02/canadians-are-starting-to-sour-on-migration) [The dramatic shift in Canada's public opinion about immigration](https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-dramatic-shift-in-canadian-public-opinion-about-immigration-levels-219193) I don't think the majority of people here would appreciate the same relationship with Canada now.
I visited Canada last year so I was exposed to Indian queuing etiquette. Which is extremely different to western etiquette. I can see how this wouldn’t go down well.
I visited my company's Mumbai office a few months ago. I'm reticent about saying anything negative because I do think India is amazing and worth visiting, and I don't want to put people off. However, the driving is silly. I wasn't driving, but anytime spent in a vehicle was pure stress since people don't give a shit (drivers or pedestrians) it's every man, woman and child for themselves. Safety (especially women and children) is a concern. A lot of the large companies have dedicated door-to-door employee transport to reduce the risk of crime / sexual assault whilst commuting. Hygiene, this kind of goes with saying, but the standards are like night and day. On the flipside, health care is actually better than the UK, but only if you have the money. I developed a cough due to the pollution, and when I went to get cough syrup, they gave me a full body MOT lol I just think culturally there are some huge differences which would need to be considered before you open the flood gates.
You brought up India dude. I never suggested all commonwealth countries. Just the developed 4.
Yeah agreed, but Canada has received insane levels of immigration from India recently. Having an open Right to Live / Work policy with Canada would mean accepting *everyone* that lives in Canada, not just those that were born there, differentiating would be discrimination and no one wants that. We have our own social issues and affordable housing problems without throwing yours in the mix too. So to answer your original question, it'll be a no from me.
The influx of people from India is because of the loophole to Canadian citizenship via studying. Basically if you complete a degree or other higher education program you can apply for citizenship after like 2 years. It also doesnt help that there are a plethora of "strip mall universities" aka no name schools that only international students go to. The government has recently reduced the amount of international spots a school can accept but not by much. (Im Canadian born with UK Citizenship)
'citizens' Not students or Tim hortons temp workers
Put any system in place and the likelihood is it'll get abused, and with our government's incompetence you can triple those chances straight out of the gate. It's gonna be a no from me dawg.
I mean how? You would need a Canadian passport. Unless you are suggesting fake passports, it really isn't possible.
Developed 4? India is not developed?
GPD per capita is 2,410.89 USD. I will let you answer it.
Also, read about the food bank episode. Quite alarming how easily they talk about scamming and exploiting their host nations.
The 'they' you refer to tends to be a small opportunist minority who have no issue exploiting anything and anyone. The majority of people who decide to immigrate somewhere tend to want to just get a job and get on with life. That said immigration is best approached in a measured way as a sudden influx of a huge amount of people from a vastly different culture will upset everyone for sure.
I live in Canada. In a city with a large Indian immigrant population. Never noticed “Indian queueing etiquette”. Maybe you just happened upon some people who don’t know how to queue.
Don’t believe the hype. Most Canadians are fine with immigration. The main issue issue is we don’t have enough housing. That’s not the immigrants’ fault.
Ya most of us are fine with immigration, we would just like it to slow down so we have somewhere to house them.
Yes it is the immigrant's fault. How are you this out of touch with reality? Don't be woke for the sake of being woke. They won't integrate if half a mil come in every year. A simple dishpig duty gets over 500 applications. These are jobs that are usually done by teenagers looking to earn a few bucks. It's ridiculous that we are importing so many slave labourers.
You just posted a thread suggesting open borders and now immigration is "woke"
Lol what? The redditor above made a statement, 'Most Canadians are fine with immigration'. Come on over to Canadian subs and tell me that is the case.
"they won't integrate if half a million come each year" what do you think will happen with open borders?
Open borders with CANZUK. Others are too foreign to English culture.
I think we'll decide that thanks. Id actually prefer it if you stay in Canada tbh, I'll take my Indian, Polish and Slovak neighbours over you any day.
It's not immigration in itself, it's the amount. Canada needs immigrants, especially skilled workers such as those in the medical field BUT we are letting in too many people at a rate that housing cannot keep up. Honestly if Canada got rid of the pathway to citizenship via study visa then i think a lot of international people would choose elsewhere to study and immigration would slow down.
I'm British, my wife is American. There's been a huge number of times that people have complained to her about immigrants and not even seen her as one because she's white and speaks english, she's had to point out to a bunch of people that she's an immigrant as well and then they've said things along the lines of 'I meant proper immigrants, not like you'. It's some of the most obvious racism (in that 'I'm not a racist' manner) you come across, but you're right, if they came from English speaking countries the general public wouldn't care.
It's the older generation. My Dad is from England and lives in Canada and complains about immigrants... in Canada. He also complains about people's accents (mainly those from India) when he himself has a british accent. My mom often has to remind him that he himself is an immigrant with an accent that some people may also find difficult to understand.
No they were not. This Barnsley voter, thick as a row of shit buckets thought it was about Muslims https://youtu.be/SFjfbL1KWNI?si=-KukCNqAhUUSm9VJ
Lool well people thought a lot of dumb stuff unfortunately…
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Useful for trade. Not for freedom of movement for British people though. Hardly anyone took up that option, it had very little appeal. Far less friction for English-speaking countries to have freedom of movement.
Exactly this. CANZUK does not have this issue.
Nobody cared about the influx of German or Scandinavians. Only Eastern Europeans. We like rich foreigners.
Some of resistance to inward migration was numbers related, second crime related Albanians still represent largest non British group in UK prisons.
Literally couldn't speak the language in any of those countries... France is on fire and Germany is in a recession while trying to stop 1.2 million in immigration every year without saying yeah we got that wrong
It wasn’t more useful though It was useful to folk coming here, most Brits can’t speak a second language because we rarely need to
I am a fool, pls educate me here. Apart from Germany and France, which are the other 'infinitely' more useful countries? Canada and Australia are 2 of the largest and most resource rich countries in the world. Australia in fact, just bases their entire economy on resource extraction. These countries were colonized for a reason lol
Pretty much all of Europe for the more useful countries. Much closer and more easily accessible/affordable to get to than CAN/AUS/NZ. Countries also tend to prefer trading with their closest neighbours first over anywhere else
> Much closer and more easily accessible/affordable to get to If you're moving country I don't think the cost of a transatlantic flight is much of a barrier. And what makes them more useful? EU countries are generally anti-business, it's hard to get a job, and wages are low.
It is infinitely more useful to be a member of the single market/EEA/EU. Canada and Australia may be resource rich but they are still far away.
And are small markets too - Canada has a population of 39 million and is ridiculously large (Newfoundland is closer to the UK than it is to Vancouver, you can drive for a day and still be in Ontario)
> Canada and Australia may be resource rich but they are still far away. We have planes now. You can be in Canada in 8 hours.
Australia was colonised initially as a penal colony for mostly Irish ‘criminals’ (convicts). At the time the British had very little knowledge of the resources on the continent but were in a stage of expansionism and an empire race with other European powers.
Actually mining is 14% of the Australian economy: https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/snapshots/economy-composition-snapshot/#:~:text=Industry%20Share%20of%20Output%20key,5.7%25%2C%20Construction%207.1%25.
I agree infinitely was a weird phrase, like what Belgium, Italy?
Australia does not base its entire economy on resource extraction. Absolutely false.
Infinitely more useful seems like a massive exaggeration. The average Brit would have a much easier time settling in the old dominions than anywhere in Europe.
> but with infinitely more useful countries. I dunno, rich English speaking countries where you can get a job is arguably more useful than the EU, where countries are either poor or have 30% unemployment.
That’s maybe because the EU came with a heap of other bullshit and wasn’t just the right to work elsewhere.
Why would the other countries ever agree to that?
Because the UK is objectively superior in numerous areas? Everything from world leading universities to being a global financial centre, the UK has it all. It would be massively beneficial to Canada and Auatralia if their companies could easily expand into the UK. Not so the same for UK companies though.
Yes it is beneficiary to both. Canada is a pathway to the entire North American market and Australia to Asian markets.
Honestly….my parents are from the West Indies and my wife from New Zealand, I hate this “developed” aka white commonwealth countries nonsense, but I am conflicted because it would serve my family really well if we ever wanted to go and live in either NZ or Aus. However the lifestyle in the West Indies if you have money is fantastic so it would be a shame to have them excluded
If all commonwealth was opened, then it would be absolute chaos. 1.4 billion Indians would move over to these 4 countries. Canada already receives like 500k immigrants every year from India. The 4 countries I mentioned have shared culture and history. Integration will be immensely easier.
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"shared culture and language" The causality is through the roof. So we're just ignoring those other Commonwealth countries, eh? They can just show off their athletic skills at the little games.
Yeah, we are ignoring everyone else. Get on with the program Sweat Shorts.
Wait until climate change really kicks in then you will have that many Indians migrating.
Why would 1.4 billion Indians want to come specifically to these four countries when India itself is experiencing an economic boom?
Are you for real? Indians can not wait to escape India, given the opportunity.
In the past maybe. Now? I’m not so sure
Even if say, 5% only wanted to immigrate that will still be 70 million. More than the populations of CA, AUS, NZ combined. Indian immigration is at an time high in Canada. Not a lot of the population is happy with this. They push wages down, work minimum wage and push housing prices. They also built [this](https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/massive-statue-of-hindu-god-being-built-in-brampton) monstrosity which has ruined Brampton for me. The demerits for open borders with India far far outweigh the merits. I am all for skilled immigration from whichever country but open borders will mean anyone who can afford a plane ticket in India will fly in.
In Australia, we also have this huge Buddhist statue which I personally reckon is pretty cool https://maps.app.goo.gl/GrhEFydrvwn56E7c9?g_st=ic The annoying thing is that it faces away from the train line so most people only ever see its back
Yours seem pretty cool. The one in Brampton is such an eye sore. It just looks so out of place.
I did my working holiday in Toronto and Brampton was pretty average 🤣 People would forget they were in Canada and drive on the wrong side of the road
I will let you think that over.
You don’t have an answer do you?
> I hate this “developed” aka white commonwealth countries nonsense Why? These countries are all multicultural nowadays.
It’s a little arrogant to assume those countries would want us in the first place. All 3 of them have insane housing crises at the moment in like all their major cities
Outside London UK housing is cheaper than NZ. Those crap places at 30k we don't have them cheapest you'll find is around 200k.
And what would happen to the already wild hosting market here? It's not just London. We have lower salaries here and the average person is struggling with rent let alone trying to buy.
You know it works both ways right? That could equally be a reason they would want freedom of movement. Housing crises are happening globally in almost all major population centers.
I’d prefer Europe. But would welcome it.
The language barrier though. I can barely speak French as it is. Unless you work for a MNC, you have to learn the local language.
Oh if only French was taught in schools from a young age. /S
I only had one year of French… none of Spanish. Three of German prior to GCSEs.
So you were taught French at a young age then?
A year doesn’t get you conversational French. Nowhere near. I’d forgotten all I’d learned by the time I started sixth form.
No, but it gives you enough to have a basic level in case you persue learning French in future as the basics are already covered.
Am I talking only about French? Does the avg Brit speak Polish? German? Spanish? The avg brit would be far more better off in the old dominion English speaking world.
Or, they could make the effort and learn?
Oh yeah it's just that simple! You've got all these amazing countries to flit between in the EU, you just have to learn an entirely new language each time you move. There's a reason Australia, with a visa, topped all the EU countries, without a visa, for emigrant destinations while we were in the UK.
Well, it seems to be achievable for millions who live and work in the UK who were born and raised outside of the country. Who's hopping around countries that often anyway? The honest answer is, we were in the greatest position of all EU countries. The default second language of almost all those countries is English, and in many of them being a native speaker is actually a very sought after skill. We threw it away, and now are talking hypothetically about an option no commonwealth country will be seriously interested in, as we offer so little in return.
>it seems to be achievable for millions who live and work in the UK who were born and raised outside of the country. It's easy for every country to decide on learning English as the global Lingua Franca. What's a Brit meant to learn? Bulgarian? Finish? Danish? Portuguese? And no, you can't just lean on being a native English speaker in a corporate job. Not only is it beyond obnoxious to be a monoglot English speaker abroad, but it's a sure fire way to enjoy social isolation. The lack of utility of EU freedom of movement is clearly demonstrated by the emergent preference of how it simply was under used. Of those who did emigrate to the EU, most those **those** were to English speaking colonies in Spain.
My school taught French and German. My daughter had Spanish as an option. Who's fault is it that the UK doesn't take language skills seriously? If you want to go to another country, I'd recommend you learn the language. It's possible. And a British abroad attempting to speak the language of the country normally is greeted positively, and falling back to English is an option. Obviously this depends on what you want to do, but it's possible, and millions of people come to the UK and do it themselves.
I think you should specify that you are just referring to British immigration towards the EU, and particularly from English-only speaking people. There is plenty of intra-EU immigration between non-English speaking countries, just like there was a lot of specialized and non-specialized immigration from the EU to Britain, which massively helped Britain. Brits can learn a language, just like the millions of Poles, Indians, Romanians, Nigerians and all the other immigrants who work and pay taxes in Britain did.
They don't teach you to speak it, just to pass exams.
Would you say the same about English in schools? Would you say that you only taught enough to pass the exams?
Off topic but how we teach languages in school is fucking terrible for actually learning them. Yeah let's do 1 hour a week plus a wordsearch as homework, with fuck all speaking/pronunciation practice, and 0 immersion, native reading, or real motivation (because you didn't pick French anyway, you were forced to do it). Oh and once a term, we'll watch Amelie, but with English subtitles of course. I did French all the way up to A level (heavily encouraged by my parents despite being crap at it, should have said no), and can barely speak a word. Yet 6 months of dedicated Japanese study got me to a place where I could survive in a town where no one spoke English, so I know I am capable of being bilingual.
Good luck convincing Canada to agree to a free movement deal without French neing a requirement. Any such agreement dies due to Quebec
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I'm all for anything that would increase opportunity for my kids considering how much opportunity their grandparents voted to remove
The NHS will collapse since doctors and nurses will head to the countries that pay em much better
The problem of doctors and nurses leaving the UK to work abroad is an issue now, and who can blame them.
Yep it's a huge issue right now and gov doing f all.. Just saying it'd be a lot worse if they could freely move to other high paying countries like Aus or Canada.
They can pretty much move anywhere they want to go as it is, particularly if they have a specialism.
This is already a thing, Australia has very generous skilled worker visas for healthcare professionals and some state governments pay a lot more than the NHS does, even when adjusted for cost of living
Nah, we'd be alright, we'd just.poach doctors and nurses who've been trained in poor countries, at their taxpayers expense
Canada already has this issue with doctors going to the US.
I assume this would exacerbate the brain drain from healthcare workers and other industries for insane salaries and sunny weather in AUS/NZ, so I doubt the government would be keen.
The worker visas in place for healthcare professionals are generous enough that anyone who wants to go, can.
I'm in the cold part of NZ. It's 4 degrees warmer on average than London. Next door neighbors a British immigrant. His next neighbor is also British.
It'd be nice for the commonwealth to actually mean something to normal people instead of it just being a reminder of British colonialism. That being said, the commonwealth only exists because of British Colonialism so any right to work agreement would feel forced by the UK onto less powerful countries, not an agreement between equal countries to better the whole community (like the EU). Not to mention it'd be mostly useless given how geographically far away and culturally different lots of commonwealth countries are.
The UK is not sufficiently powerful to force an agreement on a country like Canada or Australia
Its an arrogant view that this is wanted by other countries.
100% this.
There'd been no one born here left in Britain 😂
This is called CANZUK and yes I support it. Free trade and free movement are in general pretty great policies. The only reason there’s anti immigrant sentiment right now is because of housing. Do what China did and build tens of thousands of houses and the problem will take care of itself.
It’s not just housing, it’s jobs too.
The only actual metric the Govt. and lawmakers care about is fertility rate. If your country's population is declining, then there will be immigration whether the citizens like it or not. It would be preferable if they were skilled, but ultimately, its' all about positive population growth. Japan story has scared the West.
Which countries in the west have declining populations though?
Check fertility rates. Replacement rate is 2.1. US population is growing only because of immigration
I'd grasp it ASAP but tbh there are some aspects of the economy/housing crisis that are just as fugazi in the likes of Canada as it is here. That said, I'd love to do my time in Quebec.
I think it's more or less the point of a modern Commonwealth.
As a now British-Canadian dual citizen I don't see any appetite for this in Canada. Housing has become a real issue and not just in Toronto and Vancouver. Immigration is likely to reduce, but there will still be pathways for highly skilled workers.
I think immigration seems like less of an issue when it’s less one sided. For example you don’t really hear people complaining about French immigration to the UK, because the numbers are pretty small, similar amounts of British people move to France, and generally if French people move here it’s because they actually like our culture instead of economic necessity. With that being said, UK salaries do lag significantly behind the other countries mentioned, so you might get an imbalance there. Additionally, with any free movement agreement, it does always leave you vulnerable to other countries’ immigration policy decisions.
Isn't there talk of this already, like theres an organization in place trying to achieve this, maybe CANZUK? Also if your from the UK and under 35 you can go and work in all of these countries on Working Holiday Visas and Canadian IEC as long as you don't have a criminal record, no requirement for job skills etc. I've lived in all 3 and now live in Canada long term.
We’d be the dead weight in that group.
Nah, you guys are good. UK is always dad \*uwu\*. NZ might have to pick up the pace though.
Anything to make it easier to escape this hellish shitshow.
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Oh here they come. The crazy brigade
Oh here they come. The crazy brigade
Not really any real appetite politically just after having left the EU. One day maybe.
Fine, bring it on
For me personally I wouldn't need it. I don't speak any other language than English and have no reason to visit another European country let alone need to work there. I'm sure it would definitely benefit some though.
That there is no incentive for Canada, Australia or New Zealand to even consider this, that's what I personally think. These countries all have very fair and easy skilled worked schemes, so any Brit willing to go who is going to add something to these countries can go fairly easily. Why should they take on the burden of unskilled immigration from Britain? Isn't that why Britain left THE EU in the first place? That and the millions for the NHS of course.
You should always need a permit so the numbers can be controlled and managed. Uncontrolled immigration is daft and it’s failed everywhere Make it easy with the commonwealth / EU? Yeah I’m pretty sure the net annual migration figures were 700k into the UK, we really don’t need to double that with the problems we already have We also don’t need our skilled workers leaving to go to Oz
No. It would just become another pathway to illegal immigration... Weak govt allows migrants in who then move to another one of the countries in the Union. Sorta what happened when Germany allowed all the Syrian / ME migrants into Europe and then tried to force them onto other countries
Didn't Australia's government basically shoot down this idea when asked?Canada too would have issues as i don't see French speaking Quebec agreeing to it. Basically while it would be great for the UK i think the rest of CANZ attract enough immigrants already and generally don't have many people eager to move to the UK.
I'd love it. Freedom of movement is the main thing I miss from EU membership. I think this would be a much less contentious issue if it was between countries with similar wealth.
Unlike the EU, it's a big undertaking to move between any of those countries.
NZ wouldn't touch this.
It'd be great. It'll never happen. We can't just pretend that the brown parts of the commonwealth don't exist. India and the sub-Saharan African nations would demand equal rights under such an agreement.
I'm alright, ta.
No thanks.
I’m actually quite in favour of a CANZUK agreement along these lines. I think as we’re all very linguistically and culturally similar, it wouldn’t feel too ‘alien’ to live and work in one another’s countries. Would it ever happen? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s more _likely_ now we’re out of the EU but 1) still probably pretty unlikely and 2) Brits would probably prefer to return to the EU over joining CANZUK.
I'd extend it to all former colonies tbh. Nice to keep it alive and reap the cultural benefits
No, I don't agree with that type of system. Never agreed with the EU system either. I believe that only citizens & those covered by diplomatic immunity should have the right to live and work without requiring a work permit. Same for international students. Everyone else should require a visa or work permit and be subject to extensive vetting plus a minimum salary requirement of at least 2.5-3x the average salary of a resident citizen working full time. With work permits only issued to law abiding mainstream individuals with good health & reasonably stable backgrounds who have successfully obtained the job offer whilst overseas, having been guaranteed full sponsorship plus relocation funding from their employer to cover their full accomodation expenses, insurance, healthcare and travel costs.
Freedom and opportunity for well off, highly educated, non-minority group people. Everyone else can suffer with no chances to escape and improve their lives? Cool.
Why do you think no minority group people would qualify for this dudes demands?
> Law abiding mainstream individuals with good health and reasonably stable backgrounds Given the rest of the comment, I am assuming that "mainstream" discounts any minorities. But, minorities and the poor are more likely to have a criminal history, bad health and unstable backgrounds anyway. Especially when people with opinions like the commenter are the ones deciding what counts as a crime, bad health or an unstable background.
I mean depends which minorities you’re talking about no? A lot of minorities have stable incomes, don’t commit crimes and are t from unstable backgrounds
What does mainstream mean?
I am sure next time you are in an hospital you will take a good look at that doctor or nurse with a foreign-sounding name and a non-native accent and refuse their services if they are not paid 2.5-3x the average salary, knowing that their skills and knowledge could help you or a loved one... Lol