Canadians, Anti-Immigration?

Well, look here; Canada is a country comprised largely of immigrants. Ask any of our First Nations peoples, they'll remind us of that. They had to contend with the arrogance of occupying powers; the French and the British, during those free-wheeling, geographical acquisitory days of imperialist colonialism. They're still indignant and grate against the indignities visited upon them, when 'their' land and 'their' country was slipped out from under their moccasined feet.

And there was that time when the majority Anglais lorded it over the quaint-but-rough-hewn migrants from eastern Europe, and when oriental labourers were brought over to do the tough, dangerous and dirty work of railroad building out west, the starving Irish building canals in the east, the Ukrainians sent to the prairies to farm, and the French remained subordinate to the English stock superior to all other immigrants, the lords and masters of the land.

That fine old tradition has only just faded, with apologies gone out to the Japanese for their war-time internment, the Chinese for unjustifiable head tax impositions, the First Nations for institutionalized child-assimilation, and a plethora of other historical mea culpas to a newly compassionate government which would prefer to shovel the coal of regret over rejecting Jewish orphans fleeing racial obliteration.

Canada's immigrant populations of Poles, Ukrainians, Dutch, Irish, Germans, Portuguese, Chinese, East Indians and Italians enriched the country, giving it cosmopolitan substance adding to the heritage of the British and the French. Vietnamese and Somalis and others fleeing war-torn countries altered the bland face of society to produce a diverse, multi-dimensional population.

And now? Now Canada is suddenly leery of our immigration tradition, at a time when we're committed to introducing a quarter-million immigrants a year into the country, this vast, beautiful, resource-rich geography inhabited by a still-slight 33-million people. Once so proud of our multicultural tradition, we no longer are quite as dedicated to it as such. We would far prefer close integration, assimilation.

Assimilation of values and priorities and customs and social mores. Oh, it's all right; keep some of your traditions and be proud of your original heritage, but cling to and become a portion of what has absorbed you. Become Canadian. Leave behind, please do, all the misery and nastiness that led you to flee your origins and cleave to what you find here.

Do not, under any circumstances, bring along traditional animosities and grievances. Canada has no room nor tolerance for such. Too late, alas. Immigration officers are, in practise, taught to discriminate between applicants who seem likely to be able to fit into Canadian society, and those who do not present as suitable. In theory, but not in practise,

We have accepted ideological dogmatism, religious fanaticism, tribal hatreds that refuse to diminish with distance and time; for whom passion not reason prevails.

So it's just as well to hear that a group of elder statesmen, still politically-active individuals of the Canadian establishment are clearly prepared to confront the conundrum of who should and should not be admitted under a new reality. One that has rent Europe apart, and will threaten to do the same with North America.

Welcome the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform. In thee we shall trust. Their argument that high immigration comes at too steep a cost is a welcome one. Beyond the practicalities of greater government expenditures in accommodations and crowding.

"Unfortunately immigration and refugee policy is a bit like health care in Canada. It's being denied rational debate at the political level, and this despite the very clear evidence of abuse of the system, of fraud in the system and a lack of co-ordination in the country in terms of screening." Derek Burney

Yes, that is so. It is most certainly so. And past time things began to change.