Here in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, I serve on the board of a small not-for-profit in the immigration and refugee space. Actually I sit on two boards, if you consider that the sister policy think-tank drains more research hours from my aging bones. I don’t get much in terms of material rewards–beyond a signed card on Christmas.

When I did a similar assignment in Ghana, I received huge hampers plus the inevitable salutation of ‘Honourable’. In Canada, I am pretty much your average Joe; not any better than Jerrica, the Filipino cleaner in my office. She drives a better car than me and owns a big house. Jerrica is a foil to Auntie Atsupi, the cleaner in my former job in Ghana who swore she had never eaten pizza in her life. “It is for rich people like you”, she decrees–in a conspiratorial tone.

The Ghanaian mother of five palpitates at the sheer thought of ever owning a car in her lifetime. She might be a better cleaner than Jerrica but she earns in a month what Jerrica is paid every two hours. While this chasm reveals uncomfortable layers in the obvious divide, it also hides in those layers hard-truths and near-truths about life abroad. This facade pushes Auntie Atsupi and other Ghanaians to dream of a better life in Europe or North America. For Atsupi and her entire clan, the dream seems too expensive, especially when there is hardly any sleep.

Trump at your Door

So, when Auntie Atsupi’s son migrated to Canada last year, it sounded like the ninth wonder of the world to her neighbours. Canada had been generous to immigrants from Ghana, Nigeria, and particularly India, until July or August this year. When I picked Astupi’s son from the Ottawa airport, I felt the promise in the eyes of the young man. Today, Prosper is not such a happy man because Ontario has no jobs to give to anybody. The same week he landed in Canada, the government ended a Covid-19-inspired temporary policy which allowed immigrants on visitor visas to apply for work permit.

As I write, international students in Quebec are lacing up for a protest next week after the provincial government canceled a bridge ‘Experience’ program that enabled students to apply for permanent residency upon completion.

For months, the subject of immigration has dominated political talk on radio, TV and digital platforms in Canada. It is still raging in Parliament. The Canadians seem to have regretted opening the floodgates for my people to pour in. And now, they don’t want us here anymore or would be happy if the Trudeau Liberal government sent people away to free up space and deliver to Canadians what is due Canadians.

The other day, a great guy on my street answered “hello immigrant” when I greeted good morning. Is this the new greeting? We laughed about it but I got the message.

When President Donald Trump was re-elected last week for another stint at the White House, Auntie Atsupi wept. She worries what would happen to her son’s prospects in Canada, even though a clear border separates the two countries. She refers to Mr. Trump as “saa papa no,” a pejorative jab for “that awful man”. I have fears, too. After Trump’s victory, reports say internet searches for Canada border crossing has reached incalculable limits. Canada is reportedly preparing to fortify their borders, to push back what could be a refugee influx when President Trump’s mass immigrant deportations kick off in America. Prosper knows this too well.

Dream Jobs and Daydreams

Instead of the economy, Auntie Atsupi blames my ‘booklong’ attitude for her son’s inability to find a job. She thinks I should be able to bend some rules and hold her son’s hand to a job, as big men do in Ghana. She will not accept my honest confession that there are no big men here. I don’t have the courage to tell that her son cannot work in Canada because his visitor visa did not come with a work permit. She has tales of African immigrants in Europe who work with a new identity every week; tales of women transmogrifying into men on factory floors. She is quick to concede: “I know you booklong people do not know these things”.

I know the sacrifices and prayers that sponsored the young man’s Canadian ambition. His long-forgotten uncle in Germany had been instrumental. He tells me a prophet in Kasoa spiritually dug into the belly of time to summon the uncle’s spirit in a calabash, whereupon the German suddenly started sending help his way. “Uncle Ben, these things work”, he affirms forcefully. He knows that in Canada jobs are not conjured in a calabash. On our recent search for a sure job following a good lead, we bumped into a friend’s wife among some 500 desperate applicants. The former teacher is a permanent resident and has been job hunting for six months. Prosper has not spoken much since. Go back to Ghana? That is sacrilege.

The other day, Prosper asked: “how do people make it in Canada?” I remembered the first immigration lesson Dr. Papa Kwesi Amuah gave me when he hosted me as a fresh immigrant from the United Kingdom: “Give yourself time to succeed”. The statistician and his epidemiologist wife seem to have heeded their own advice. They gave themselves time, some twenty years of school-cum-work-cum-school and now cool work. Three kids surged along. All grown now. The first daughter, the witty little girl who quizzed me about my stay in their home, is today a sophomore.

This is the Canadian story Prosper hopes to author if he prospers in Canada. Meanwhile, Auntie Atsupi is waiting to taste her first pizza while time ticks faster for Prosper in this cold land. In his Ewe tribe in Ghana, his name means 'Prosper'. Literally.

-

Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin, Ontario
bigfrontiers@gmail.com