The Problem of Refugees in Canada

The author examines the problem of refugees in Canada and sees its solution in the effective investment. However, the difficulty is that the it is not always within the government’s remit to control the flow of refugees, thereby creating unfavorable conditions for their settlement and employment. Moreover, Toronto’s financial support is rather limited, and, thus, the city’s budget does not presuppose monetary aid for coping with the problem. One way or another, the author uses a number of arguments that one can analyze in accordance with the proposed seven steps for their assessment. In particular, the main premises of the work require improving in terms of acceptability, relevance, and adequacy to make a convincing and logical conclusion.

The author concludes that the new government should pay its fair share according to its openness policy to balance the problem of refugees in large cities. However, the author does not adequately draws the conclusion, and, thus, it does not follow from the major premises. In particular, the thesis statement “now is the time to open our borders wider” does not clearly link itself with the conclusion “The Wynne and Trudeau governments (…) must pay their fair share” (Star Editorial Board, 2017). Therefore, there is not enough premises for better understanding of the situation to incorporate the argument into the conclusion. Nevertheless, these two essential elements of any piece of writing do not intertwine, and, thus, the article clearly distinguishes the author’s premise and the final proposals for solving the problem.

The main idea is that the country accepts refugees, but most of the cities cannot resolve the problem of uncontrolled influx of foreigners independently. The author further shows that the country only declares its willingness to host refugees but often leaves Toronto and other large cities without proper funding and support. Hence, it is possible to identify the final premise on the basis of the author’s conclusion. Specifically,  he eventually insists on a need for government to influence the cities, in particular financially. Following this statement, the author argues that the government does not provide enough investment, and, therefore, local authorities are forced to seek money elsewhere and solve the problem of settlement on their own, supporting this argument by underlining the social difficulties in Toronto.

The writer could have enhanced the argument by making an inference to understand the logical relation in the text. Evidently, the article needs logical relation between the premise and conclusion to strengthen the argument and secure credibility. In this case, it is better to use the inductive argument structure, when the verity of the conclusion is supported by the premises that have an acceptable degree of probability. Hence, the argument needs to include plausible premises to make correct conclusions. On the one hand, the author argues that Canadian cities require investments to do their work effectively and responsibly. Additionally, he points to the fact that there is underfunding, making the readers conclude that cities do not work efficiently enough. On the other hand, it is not obvious how the investment is connected with the problem of refuges, and, thus, this argument can also include the final premise as it is highly effective in terms of inductive probability, which can strengthen the conclusion. Following this logic, there is a possibility to develop such argument: Canadian cities require investments (1) in order to resolve the problem of refuges (2), which is a part of the government’s policy (3); hence, it should presuppose monetary contributions to Canadian cities thereby paying their fair share.

As for the acceptability of the premises, they are likely to be credible since the author incorporates some established facts, but it is possible to include more details. The first premise is supposedly true since Canada declared its willingness to accept refugees. However, according to the text, the government did not pay its fair share, and, thus, it is doubtful whether the country is fully prepared to host newcomers. The next premise is also possibly true as it convincingly maintains that the effective work requires substantial investment from the state. It means that the public financial backing does not guarantee the effective solution, but it can resolve the problem with a limited number of lodging facilities. Furthermore, the premise about the immigration policy may also be probable since it is evident that the government that formulates immigration policies have not helped the city control the incoming flow of refugees. The author says that the governments “have not always helped the city manage the influx” (Star Editorial Board, 2017), but, at the same time, it does not mean that they have not helped at all. In this case, the author’s argumentation needs more evidence considering the credibility of given premises, which are not certainly true as the article suggests.

The argument is partly irrelevant since it does not contain enough premises to make a logical conclusion. In this regard, any inductive argument requires that the premises should provide strong evident for the conclusion. The author states that the effective work with refugees requires investments in municipal infrastructure and services, but the government does not provide it; thus, there is a problem with the increased productivity. However, to ensure the relevance of the argument, it is necessary to provide a logical inductive connection between the state’s financing and the crisis in Toronto as well as other cities, adhering to the principle of analogy. However, the false premise (the government provides enough money) can be relevant to the conclusion (it is not enough to solve the problem with refugees). Overall, the author can improve the concept of relevance by the use of the arguments based on analogy, simple induction, or generalization.

Accordingly, the premises do not have sufficient degree of adequacy to form a solid argument as a whole. Additionally, the author does not provide ample evidence on two aspects: the government does not finance the cities enough and the city councils should care about refugees. Hence, the premises are not relevant to the conclusion, because the readiness of the government to support emigrants does not mean that they will invest their efforts and money to resolve the problem. Moreover, it is important to prove that the premise about the government’s fair share pay is relevant to the whole problem with immigrants. The next formula “acceptability X relevance = adequacy” does now work, because the premises are credible enough considering the abovementioned facts. Thus, the degree of relevance is still uncertain, whereas the degree of adequacy is not sufficiently high too.

Since the argument is not persuasive in its nature, it is possible to propose counter-arguments. For instance, the government’s financial support does resolve the problem with refuges. In this case, it is important to prove that the premise about the financial investment is weak as the state funding does not help newcomers integrate and develop. Then, one should refute the idea that the integration of newcomers will resolve the problem of refugees. Following this logic, the counter-argument should prove that the problem with refuges does not always suggest the lack of government support and also concerns, for example, the autonomy of city councils. Obviously, one may reject this counter-argument by saying that although the government’s investment is not the only problem in this situation, the autonomy of city councils is also not enough to solve the problem with refuges. Accordingly, it is better to add one more premise that would reinforce the counter-counter argument without referring to the statements of the previous arguments.

In conclusion, the article includes the argument that requires more premises to provide a correct and reasonable conclusion. The analysis of the work demonstrates that the relevance of premises is not always logically valid, and the author incorporates them in the article although they are not always inductively interconnected with each other. Accordingly, there is a need for additional evidence needs to reinforce the premises that will formulate as many adequate arguments as possible. At the same time, it is possible to develop additional counter-arguments and even counter-counter-arguments with more acceptable premises for combat confirmation bias.