Becoming Canadian

It didn't appear an unreasonable assumption. That immigrants to a new country would seek to take on the nationality of their new host, to reflect its values, to adapt to its social mores, to value its priorities and respect its laws. To become, in fact and reality, the very essence of what it means to be a citizen of the country. In return immigrants would be entitled to all and every privilege and right accorded to all citizens of the country.

"We want new citizens to embrace our rich culture and values, and feel compelled to remain active members of Canadian society. Canadian citizenship is uniquely valuable in the world, a weighty privilege that bestows both duties and rights, opportunities and responsibilities", expounded Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Chris Alexander, when he spoke of changes proposed in Bill C-24, changes whose measure is meant to "strengthen the value of citizenship".

October 21, 2013 Minister Alexander officially kicks-off Citizenship Week 2013 by welcoming 50 new Canadian citizens at a special ceremony at the CN Tower

Residency requirements of the legislative alterations tabled several weeks back in Parliament, would require immigrants to have four years of residence before qualifying to become Canadians. Not a stupendous change from what currently pertains, a year more, that's all. The cost of applying for citizenship is to triple to $300. A more stringent language and knowledge-of-Canada standards would apply for citizenship qualifications.

Furthermore, income taxes would have to be filed within the country, along with a commitment to actually living in Canada. Penalties for residency fraud where immigrants falsely claim to be living in the country to enable them to maintain their status and qualify for citizenship, would increase, fines becoming far more detrimental to those contemplating fraud, with a punishing rise from the current $1000 to a staggering $100,000; ample food for second forethought.

When Minister Alexander was asked why the extension of the residency period was seen as crucial, he responded: "Attachment, connection, sense of belonging. It takes time to adapt. Any of us who've lived in other countries, even temporarily, know that adaptation, it is difficult. It cannot be accelerated." Four years of residency is fair as a demonstration of one's commitment "to reside here and to participate."



In fact, there have been a number of instances which have pointed out the urgent need to tighten up Canada's current citizenship-application requirement criteria. Commitment to Canada as a place of permanent residence bestowed upon people who use their citizenship as a convenient escape-hatch from perceived problems, a life raft in a sea of conflicting problems, and not a stable and permanent anchor to a new life.

This was more than adequately demonstrated when thousands of Lebanese-Canadians were 'rescued', who had been living in their native Lebanon with their Canadian-Lebanese passports, calling upon their dual citizenship to save them from the potential of physical harm when Israel had responded to one too many violent provocations from Hezbollah, established within Lebanon as a terrorist Fifth Column.

And by an RCMP probe that uncovered thousands of cases where citizens and permanent residents had defrauded the immigration system with their maintenance of a fraudulent, fictitious presence in Canada, in collaboration with unscrupulous immigration lawyers paving the way for their deceit. Enabling them to take advantage of all of Canada's social welfare benefits without committing to what might quaintly be described as "their end of the bargain" through taxation paying for benefits.

There was a time in the past when people undertaking to emigrate from their places of origin did so fully intending to completely embrace all the responsibilities of citizenship in full appreciation of what they were gaining by so doing. Loyalty to Canada and its values, customs, heritage and history, laws and governments was paramount, and it was wholly practised by naturalized Canadians, prepared to raise their children as Canadians first, ethnicity second.



The past forty years appears to have changed all that with the quantity and quality of immigrants whose fond backward glances at the culture left behind in ethical and moral clashes with Canadian values, has complicated many social, political and religious issues within the country, importing customs at variance with, and in competition to Canadian laws and values.

A notorious case in point is the presence of the infamous Khadr family, the father an ethnic Egyptian, the mother Palestinian in origin, raising their brood in strict Islamist conformation, rejecting completely the Canadian way of life, but not the benefits of social welfare and universal medicare. Returning to Canada from sojourns in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the sons were taught practical jihad, the father an al-Qaeda confidante, dying for his beliefs, a martyr to the cause of a global Caliphate.

Zaynab Khadr, sister of Omar Khadr, leaves court during a break in hearings in Federal Court in Ottawa, Tuesday June 23, 2009.(CP Photo/Adrian Wyld)

A significant percentage of new immigrants over that 40-year time frame seemed eager to share in all of the wealth of opportunities for advancement and privileges of freedoms and equalities represented by Canadian values and guarantees under the Constitution, yet loathe to leave behind values and customs that clash with Canadian egalitarianism and respectful collaboration with one another in a pluralistic society.

Newcomers of varied ethnicities and religions, once supportive of Canadian values and interests were slowly replaced by others whose loyalty could be questioned through their covert activities and often public disruptions, protected under Canada's code of freedoms of expression and religion. The new infiltration of an immigrant-set unaffected by Canadian core values, resistant to established law by virtue of the values they bring with them, has resulted in adverse social effects.



Changes were  demanded in the host culture by an immigrant-set that refused to accept Canada's long-established culture and laws; assimilation appeared to be an expectation of the past; a new political correctness arose, enabling a left-leaning establishment in academia and unions and church groups to express a desire to meet the demands of an immigrant culture, as a way of paying respect to the differences among us; eschewing the need for the introduced culture to meld with the prevailing one.

And in their eagerness to welcome differences, to appease, to accommodate and overlook, the outcome was broadly interpreted as encouragement to recognize that accommodation as a just due, and to go on from there to express even greater demands, all just and due the immigrant groups as social, political and religious entitlements in a free society guaranteeing certain rights. When those rights came into conflict with the rights of others it became apparent that dysfunction reigned.

Dissent against the imposition of social mores and legal constraints came as a massive push-back by entitled immigrants, using all the legal means available to them, along with social coercion to insist that their demands be met. Equality was the word that was used as a cudgel to beat deniers into submission. And when that wasn't adequate to the task, then threats and fatwas became an option through what was increasingly recognized as the terror option.

In Christendom, there has long been acknowledged the necessity for a successful society and good governance to render unto Caesar what is his, and to render unto God his due; a separation of Church and State. There is no such separation in Islam, Islam is society and it is the state and it is the religion and the way of life, intertwined and indivisible.

The ultimate loyalty is to Islam and to God in that world view; loyalty to the state and to its concepts and precepts and jurisprudence is secondary; if the state's laws interfere with those of sharia law, they become dispensable. The two cannot and do not meld and interact since one is seen as vastly superior to the other in authority, a true conflict of essential world views and values.

Its essence has demonstrated that multiculturalism was doomed to fail.