Suitable for Canadian Immigration

In Winnipeg, a dozen Muslim families, recently arrived in Canada have informed a Winnipeg school division they deemed it in their children's best interests to be excused from mandatory elementary school music and coeducational physical education programs. So much for adjusting to and adapting one's family to a welcoming new society.

One of the main criteria for acceptance into Canada is the immigration officer's perception of adaptability. Adaptability, meaning the willingness of new immigrants to recognize other social mores than those they have left behind. Values, cultural and traditional that might present as antipathetic to those of the host country.

In an officially multicultural country that prides itself on going out of its way to make newcomers feel accepted and appreciated, we run the very real risk of persuading immigrants by default that they need not take seriously urgent formal/official recommendations to integrate with the prevailing societal normatives.

If children in particular are treated differently than children native to the country by excusing them from otherwise compulsory subjects and activities, they are effectively being taught they are different, they are outsiders, they do not belong. If this doesn't create confusion and indifference to the greater society, as well as resentment, what would?

If parents cannot understand that they are obligated to adjust to the host country, how will their children?

The Muslim parents did not wish to have their children attending elementary school exposed to singing, or the playing of musical instruments. In response, the division has recommended the children could satisfy the music requirements of the mandatory arts curriculum otherwise, by completing some other type of project.

This request for exclusion is not universally accepted by all the local Muslims; one leader claims to be unhappy about the situation, having heard of others making similar requests. In Islam, said the executive director of the local Islamic Social Services, there is no problem with elementary-school children taking part in co-ed physical education.

"Not with little kids under the age of puberty."

"Music is controversial in our community; this is a North American phenomenon. There is a minority view that music is forbidden. That view is not accepted by the majority." Within Islam traditionally there has been an appreciation for literature, the plastic arts, architecture, poetry and music; a more rigid interpretation of Islamic values seems to deny such aesthetic pleasures.

Should the parents not be satisfied with the response by the school division, they will without doubt, take advice from other members within the Islamic community, with their own similar rejectionist experiences for guidance. Who will then direct them to take their grievance to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Canada's immigration consultants, and federal Citizenship and Immigration officers know full well that it is not in Canada's best interests to continue accepting immigrants from countries where rigid social strictures are imposed, where fundamentalist religious dictates are accepted as guides to everyday life situations.

People immersed in these traditional types of societies do not present as good candidates for immersion in Canadian life.

If they are in the refugee category it becomes problematical to deny them entry on the basis of a recognized incompatibility with Canadian values. Which does not excuse immigration and visa officers from not making full use of their discerning capabilities to make the right decision, rejecting those who clearly appear as poor candidates to become future citizens.

There is an additional problem here; when immigration officers do make those decisions and deny applicants who are clearly unsuitable for Canadian life, there is interference by politicians and even Ministers who will have been lobbied on behalf of the rejected applicants, and who have a vested interest in placating future voters.