Canada: If You Build It, People Will Come
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CANADA: IF YOU BUILD IT, PEOPLE WILL COME Robin V. Sears Contributing Writer Robin Sears looks at the history of immigration policy in Canada and finds that almost in spite of ourselves we have created, in this nation of immgrants, one of the most successful and diverse countries in the world. He also finds, on this political journey, episodes that Canada shouldn’t be proud of, Chinese railway workers in one century, Jewish refugees in the next, are two that come to mind. He’s also found, in the recurring efforts to reform immigration, that the system is always broke and needs fixing. And that, inevitably, what goes around comes around. Retraçant l’histoire de la politique d’immigration canadienne, notre collaborateur Robin Sears observe que nous avons créé en cette terre d’immigrants l’un des pays les plus prospères et les plus diversifiés du monde. D’un siècle à l’autre, il n’en relève pas moins certains épisodes qui entachent cette réussite, notamment ceux des travailleurs du rail chinois et des réfugiés juifs. Il note enfin qu’en dépit d’efforts périodiques de réforme, notre système d’immigration reste boiteux et doit être révisé en profondeur. Sinon, nous en paierons inévitablement le prix. anada’s first great national dream — our conti- nyone who has ever worked in politics in Canada, nent-straddling, glittering ribbon of steel, from sea A fighting for constituents’ cases as an elected member C to shining sea — always had a dark side. Hundreds or staffer, has a collection of appalling stories about the of imported Chinese coolies plunged to their deaths in victims of our immigration hell. The arbitrary and often swamps and from cliff faces building it. Many of the sur- incomprehensible stupidity of some parts of the immigra- vivors were deported at the end of their usefulness; the tion processing empire would cause even the most cynical others were left to struggle through lives of poverty and observer to blush. Tragic tales of applications and appeals official discrimination. that go unanswered for years; decisions to separate parents Canada’s new national dream — the world’s first and infants without explanation; refusal to acknowledge multi-ethnic developed society, tolerant and colour-blind other nations’ awards, credentials and approvals; and with equal opportunity for all — is marred by its own dark Kafkaesque treatment of supplicants roll in daily to MPs’ shadow. Many of those who arrive to build the dream offices across Canada. endure rejection of their credentials and their experience A junior Canadian immigration official attempted to while they and their families struggle to overcome more deny my infant niece entrance to Canada, from her birth subtle forms of discrimination. Increasingly, they struggle home near Shanghai, until she had lived with her adopted at the bottom of the social ladder for far longer than any mother and father for six months. This was a standard other generation of Canadian immigrants. Those in the response a decade ago. That this was clearly an impossible queue to win a chance to land and build a life often option for parents who had often travelled long distances endure a nightmare in an immigration purgatory than from their homes to complete an adoption was irrelevant. can last years. The official reason offered was “concern about whether Canada’s immigration system is, once again, broken. this was a sincere adoption.” My mother’s caustic response Heralded for its bias-free, ethnically neutral, objective test still echoes: “What do they mean, exactly? That my of skills and capabilities — when compared to most oth- daughter plans to sell her adored new child in Canada, or ers and our own race-based quota history — it is now an that my new infant grand-daughter has plans to set up an embarrassment to Canada. It is also a constant humilia- illegal Chinese laundry on arrival?” This year, after many tion to nearly a million men and women trapped in its red years of bitter stories by adoptive parents, the government tape, bureaucratic paralysis and contradictions. announced that adopted children, born anywhere in the 38 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JUIN 2008 Canada: if you build it, people will come world would be granted citizenship wanted skilled labourers and import- immigration in the 1990s. The Hong immediately, when adopted by ed them first from the UK, the Kong and Taiwanese immigrants who Canadian parents. Caribbean and southern Europe and flooded Canada and Australia in the later from Asia. Today we want highly panic of post-Tiananmen China he thousands of men and skilled tradespeople, service workers found on landing that their creden- T women who work on the front and professionals. We take nearly half tials and professional experience lines of the Canadian immigration of the annual total from East and were not recognized, that tax rates system in embassies, consulates and South Asia. were high and good job opportuni- commissions around the world, a Humanitarian policy goals in ties low. Many, perhaps as many as majority of them non-Canadian local immigration have always played a dis- 250,000, returned “home” after years hires, may be excused for sometimes tant second to economic imperatives, of frustration in Vancouver, Calgary harsh and arbitrary rulings, given the though few politicians or immigration and Toronto. volume-driven pressures under which officials like to concede this inevitable Today, it is hard to imagine that they operate, the many subterfuges reality. Reunifying families does much the Indian engineering Ph.D. work- and deceits employed by immigra- less — and granting landed status to ing a night shift as a Toronto hospi- tal orderly is not tempted The immigration holding areas in Canadian offices in India by stories from Bangalore and China look like airport waiting rooms on a holiday brothers about opportuni- ties in the booming Indian weekend, all day, every day. Hundreds of tense, sometimes economy. Apart from the aggressive adults and crying children sit, often for hours, personal frustration for waiting for their brief life-changing interview. Of the more the families themselves, than 900,000 supplicants on waiting lists, more than two- this is the extravagant cost of the failure of our immi- thirds are from China and the Indian subcontinent, and tens grant integration structure of thousands of new applicants pour in each year. to cope. It matches changes in tion “consultants” and their clients poor refugees is even more ineffective demand poorly, fails to win accept- to which they are subject every day — to fill the economic gaps created by ance of immigrants’ credentials and and the lack of transparency at any our declining birth rates than select- experience and is heavily overloaded one time about what our immigra- ing a bright young Bangladeshi engi- in Toronto and Montreal. More than tion policy really is. neer or experienced Chinese software half the immigrants to Canada end up The immigration holding areas in programmer as a new Canadian-in- in the Great Toronto Area. Much of Canadian offices in India and China waiting. the burden for their integration falls, look like airport waiting rooms on a incredibly, on municipal taxpayers. holiday weekend, all day, every day. ur public dishonesty about not Once we have found the “best in Hundreds of tense, sometimes aggres- O wanting to import indigent class” from our lengthening queue of sive adults and crying children sit, grandmothers and great-uncles as part immigrants — those with the industri- often for hours, waiting for their brief of the package with our young engi- al and technical skills we say we need life-changing interview. Of the more neer and his family is the root cause of — and paid to help them find housing, than 900,000 supplicants on waiting much of the anger about immigration learn English and “become Canadian,” lists, more than two-thirds are from policy these days. We accept family re- we are surprised by their anger at hav- China and the Indian subcontinent, unification for two reasons: it is the ing to drive a cab for years. and tens of thousands of new appli- price of getting the best immigrants, It was not meant to be this way. cants pour in each year. and it encourages the ones we really Forty years ago Jean Marchand and It is an embarrassing scene, the want to stay. There was a brief flurry of Pierre Elliott Trudeau engineered the product of an unbridgeable chasm consternation even among immigra- amendments to Canadian immigra- between policy goals and public tion advocates when Statistics Canada tion law which ended the last of the demand. Canadian immigration poli- revealed in March that, according to race-based quota system and replaced cy has always been, understandably, its analysis of the 2001 and 2006 cen- it with a merit-based and skills-based self-interested first. In the 19th centu- sus data, as many as 40 percent of admission system, with special provi- ry we wanted peasants willing to landed immigrants and new citizens sions for family reunification. Despite occupy and cultivate the land. We return to their native lands. the Tory reputation for being “immi- found them by the thousands in east- This was not news to those who grant unfriendly,” it was John ern Europe. In the 20th century we had observed the waves of Asian Diefenbaker and Ellen Fairclough who POLICY OPTIONS 39 JUNE 2008 Robin V. Sears began the reform process, away from the same family, often from different ly observe that it might have avoided the “white Canada” immigration poli- locations, and privacy rules and the battle over its legislative changes cy instituted by Mackenzie King and ancient data systems mean that offi- through the sleight-of-hand of slid- maintained until the late 1950s.