Immigration

So, I work in the temporary employment industry, which is probably giving me a lot of insight into that aspect of equality, equity, etc (if so, I'm not sure what, but I've gotta be absorbing something on some level). I deal with a lot of different people, mostly by phone, clients and employees (temp and perm), and usually talk about payroll, but sometimes I need to pass on information about taxes, employment insurance, garnishments, etc.

Today, after I'd answered a lady's questions about some documents she's requested, out of the blue she suddenly started asking me why we keep letting immigrants into our country to steal all of our jobs. Cripes.

Listen, if you want good service, please try not to rope your phone rep into a discussion about politics. I mean, it's a risk she took I suppose. It's possible that I might have been completely on her side and agreed with her and we'd laugh about how awful it is for us white middle class Canadian folks and how all those brown people keep trying to take our country from us (which we kinda took from some other brown people - who are still here! Maybe they might be sympathetic to her concerns about foreigners coming in and ruining the place).

Instead, I reminded her that we have it pretty good here, and that I can't really fault someone for wanting to move here for a better life for their family (or whatever). She started going off about being "born and raised" here, as if that makes our tax dollars any better, and I told her that I was also born and raised here, but that I was raised to "share".

She wanted to debate, but I cut her off and said, finally, that I wasn't able to discuss immigration policies with her and she should have a good day. I feel like maybe I could have tried harder to get her to see my side of things, but it just really pissed me off. This lady goes around feeling like her entitlement is being taken away by people new to this country, and who knows what little microaggressions she might be inflicting on a daily basis. I'm not perfect, by any means, but I feel like this lady was incredibly rude to try to engage me in her prejudices, and I, as a good Canadian, cannot abide rudeness.