By Geoff Russ, June 9, 2025
Few topics have animated Canadians more than immigration in the past year.
There is broad consensus among the public that the annual intake of newcomers must fall, and polling shows both native-born and immigrant citizens agree on this. In Ottawa, the Conservative opposition has called for lower numbers, and the Liberal government ostensibly concurs.
While much of the discussion surrounding immigration has focused on economic factors like affordability and the shrinking housing supply, less attention has been paid to the cultural and political changes of welcoming more than 5 million people into the country since 2014.
Specifically, attention must be paid to the possible outcomes of importing hundreds of thousands of people from regions embroiled by war or prone to conflict. This is a necessity as digital technology proliferates and guarantees the world will be interconnected, but not united.
Mass immigration brings in far more than just people. It can cause enormous shifts in local culture, national identity, political allegiances, and community cohesion.
It matters where immigrants come from, why they choose Canada, and how many are arriving from any single country. When it comes to countries of origin, immigration streams into Canada have become wildly unbalanced over the last decade.
In 2023, almost 140,000 people immigrated to Canada from India, while the second-largest intake came from China, with 31,770 people.
This new trend is at odds with Canada’s historical immigration policies, which were more evenly weighted by country. In 2010, the top three national pools of immigration were the Philippines at 38,300 newcomers, India with 33,500, and China with 31,800.
Other countries that Canada has received increasing numbers of migrants from includes Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
Past federal governments took consideration for details like economic needs and capacity for integration. Canadian immigration policy in 2025 should take into account modern communications and conflicts within certain regions as well.
21st century technology continues to advance and innovate at dizzying speeds, giving rise to immersive social platforms and instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Signal. This has brought the world closer together, but rather than promoting peace and understanding, it has amplified foreign conflicts and brought them to our own backyards.
Tens of thousands of migrants from the Levant have arrived since 2015, a region where anti-Zionism is deeply ingrained in the cultures, as well as full-blown antisemitism.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War in 2023, the entire West has borne witness to antisemitic violence in Europe and North America, often perpetrated by ideologically motivated migrants.
Earlier this year, a Syrian migrant in Germany went on a stabbing spree with the intent of murdering Jews, while last September, Canadian police foiled the plot of a Pakistani man in Ontario who had planned to commit a mass killing of Jews in New York City.
Canada’s political culture has been profoundly affected by these same waves, with demographic changes forcing the federal government to alter its longstanding foreign policy positions. For example, the newly-minted Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly allegedly remarked last year that her shifting stance on the Israel-Hamas war was due to the “demographics” of her Montreal riding.
Montreal itself has become a hotbed of anti-Israeli and anti-semitic violence. Riots, property damage, and the storming of the McGill University campus have been carried out by radicals inspired by Hamas and their allies.
In 1968, the great Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan co-authored War and Peace in the Global Village, which warned of the consequences of modern technologies erasing the boundaries of the world. McLuhan explicitly cautioned that technology would make the world smaller, and lead to conflict in his theorized global village.
Today, that village is one where Jewish students are routinely harassed on college campuses in Vancouver and Toronto, while synagogues are burnt to the ground in Melbourne. It does not matter whether the victims are Israeli or not. They are seen by their assailants as legitimate targets as part of an enemy tribe.
On May 21, two staffers at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC were shot dead by a man shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. There is no evidence that the shooter has any Middle Eastern ancestry, revealing how diasporic conflicts can transcend ethnicity and become part of a country’s political DNA.
These sorts of imported feuds go beyond the Middle East. Global tensions in regions like the Indian subcontinent present another threat of foreign-inspired and funded violence, as well as undue political shifts.
India and Pakistan are locked in a long running standoff over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Last month, several tourists were murdered in Kashmir by militants that India accused Pakistan of backing, leading to several low-level exchanges between the Indian and Pakistani militaries before a ceasefire was brokered. Tensions are far from dissipated, and the possibility of a full-scale confrontation between India and Pakistan remains high.
Considering those two rivals have massive diasporas in the West, a potential war on the subcontinent could radically change domestic politics in countries in Canada, Australia, and Britain.
In 2022, violent clashes broke out between Hindu and Muslim youths in the British city of Leicester following a cricket match between India and Pakistan. The street battles lasted for weeks, and threatened to restart later that year following an escalation in India and Pakistan’s clash over Kashmir. In London, demonstrators from the Pakistani and Indian communities came close to violence.
If a sporting rivalry can inspire hooliganism, a war will spark something far worse, and the globalization of the Israel-Gaza conflict is a glimpse into what that might look like.
There is historical precedent in Canada for how overseas conflicts affect domestic politics.
During the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Irish—both Catholic and Protestant—emigrated to Canada before and after Confederation in 1867. They brought their religious feuds with them.
The militantly anti-Catholic Orange Order, run by Protestants, became one of the most powerful political forces in Ontario. They held a virtual monopoly on municipal politics in Toronto, excluded Catholics from jobs in the public service, and took part in brawls with the city’s Irish Catholic community for more than 100 years.
Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Confederation and an Irish Catholic migrant, was murdered for speaking out against the republican Fenian Brotherhood, which had infiltrated politics both in Canada and the United States.
Integration throughout successive generations mitigates and even practically eliminates the impact of imported conflicts. This was the case with the Irish sectarian divide, though it took over a century to fade away.
Worth noting is that roughly 300,000 Ukrainian refugees currently reside in Canada, having been admitted under a special visa program following the Russian invasion in 2022. It is intended to be temporary, with the expectation of repatriation once a stable peace returns to Ukraine.
Similarly to Irish-Canadians, the vast majority of the established Ukrainian-Canadian community has its roots in pre-modern Canada, and is largely well-integrated into the country’s social fabric. To date, there has been no major violence or anti-social harms inflicted upon their Russian-Canadian counterparts despite the war, or vice-versa.
Furthermore, the Canadian government has a longstanding close relationship with Kyiv, and there is far more trust and transparency regarding intent and collaboration. This is not the case with governments like China and India, the former of whom actively interferes in our elections, and the latter of which has been accused of assassinating dissidents on Canadian soil.
The existence of the iPhone, the internet, and opportunistic foreign governments makes it incredibly dangerous to not change course. That is not to imply that the average migrant is an active foreign agent. But the sheer quantity makes vetting them all a challenge.
Mitigating these threats requires strategic planning when crafting immigration policy.
Other parts of the world like Southeast Asia, Southern Europe, and Latin America are relatively stable and peaceful and are potential sources of newcomers with far lower risk of foreign interference and diasporic violence.
At-play is the stability, unity, and integrity of our political system. Canadian politics must remain fully Canadian in its focus and priorities. That cannot happen if we sleepwalk into becoming a battleground for the rest of the world.
Geoff Russ is a writer and policy analyst, and a contributor for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
