Migration, Sovereignty, and their Discontents

The UN Global Compact for Migration continues to stir up controversy and escalate the debates in the countries that have vowed their commitment to it.

In Canada, it’s been the cause of rancorous division between political leaders and their constituents.

Perspective of the party leaders

On December 4, Andrew Scheer asked the Prime Minister if he would consider not signing the compact to allow Canada to retain its autonomy. The Prime Minister responded with the usual banalities like his emphasis on the need to“promote diversity as a strength.”

It’s obvious that the UN Global Compact is one of the greatest embodiments of Trudeau’s ideological proclivities. Trudeau has stressed that its mission to facilitate a “rigorous, but open immigration system” to allow the enrichment of our country is something of which Canadians should be proud.

Meanwhile, Scheer and Maxime Bernier are competing in the court of public opinion to prove whose opposition to the compact is more authentic. Some conservative writers have opined that Scheer is only virtue signaling to get credit for taking a stance against the open borders ideology.

If this is the case, competition is stiff since Bernier has made it his modus operandi to oppose anything that is too submissive to globalism or resembling a cultish diversity.

Whoever comes out on top as the leader of this resistance, it’s clear Scheer and Bernier are attuned to the opinions being professed by people in Canada, as well as internationally.

The protest against the compact

The latest responses to excessive multilateralism encapsulate an embittered populace that has lost their patience with idealistic initiatives to address climate change or immigration.

Arguably,the world leader that has been forced to confront this the most is French President Emmanuel Macron.

Reacting to France’s signing of the compact, French military generals sent a letter to the President that accused him of treason and not being mindful of the “impossibility of integrating too many people” from “totally different cultures.”

People in other European countries have followed suit

Recently, around 1000 people in Brussels took to the streets donning yellow vests to voice their frustrations with the compact. Clashing with police when they attempted to infiltrate the EU Commission building. Amid the turmoil, Belgium’s Prime Minister, Charles Michel, offered to resign Tuesday after opponents tabled a no confidence vote.

Tothe dismay of immigration doves, the phenomenon has spread to Canada.

Protestors clad in the same bright attire have assembled in a number of major Canadian cities, including Edmonton, Toronto, Calgary, and Halifax. Some were protesting the “global world order” being established by the UN, and the consequent clampdowns on free speech.

The explosive civil unrest is the apogee of tensions that have long boiled.

Antipathy towards immigration has reached new highs as half of Canadians have said they want immigration rates to decrease.

With the advent of the compact, this is consistent with the rest of the world as Pew Research surveys of citizens across the international community indicate that 45% per cent think fewer or no immigrants should be allowed in their countries.

The response by the elites: Is sovereignty real?

As more and more people have become disenchanted, supporters of the compact have been laboring to make their case.

Members of the intellectual elite have been cited as authoritative support for the government. Academics have dismissed conservative claims as “logic-defying”since the compact “explicitly” affirms the rights of states to determine their migration policy. These facetious arguments have been made for the compact since the beginning, and the rebuttals offered by some remain relevant.

Desperate to debunk Conservatives, members of the government have put forth some outlandish ideas. Last Friday, Gerald Butts tweeted out an article by scholar Harald Bauder titled, “Why Canada’s Right Lied About the UN Migration Compact.”

It essentially makes the argument that “sovereignty” is a social construct.

“In away, sovereignty is a fiction,” Bauder writes, since it emerged as a way “for feudal lords and kings to claim control over their territories and the people on it without interference from other powers.”

This exhibits a dumbfounding level of idiocy. Not only is it an asinine analysis of how the international order came into being, the piece suggests that the idea of sovereignty is ruinously chauvinistic rather than something that helps states co-exist and maintain order. It’s promulgating patent nonsense.

It doesn’t succeed at making the case for the compact so much as it does at making one for defunding universities since they breed this intellectual buffoonery.

Nevertheless,whilst promoting these radical conceptions of world affairs, the Trudeau government is going down the path it’s on in the face of an assertive citizenry. This might be the schism that puts a strong populist Right in an advantageous position to truly make its ascendance.