Trudeau’s citizenship policies are about scoring votes | Malcolm

Standard simplistic analysis by Malcolm.

While her general points are valid re importance of language, the language requirements are only being relaxed for 55-64 year olds, about 6-8 percent of those tested, and the government is not changing the requirement for the knowledge test or interview to be conducted in an official language. One can disagree with this change but the sky is not falling.

And, as both media articles and C-6 hearing testimony to date attest, there was and is pressure to relax these ongoing requirements, so any ‘pandering’ (or responding to constituents)  was limited:

Beyond economics, newcomers who learn our language will integrate better in Canadian society. Language skills help newcomers make new friends and adjust to life in Canada. In a Statistics Canada research study, 96% of immigrants said learning English was important or very important to life in Canada.

Perhaps most compelling of all, a new government report found that speaking English or French in Canada has significant health implications.

A recent Statistics Canada report found that newcomers with poor English or French skills were three times more likely to report ill health than newcomers with strong language skills. This decline in health is particularly widespread amongst older immigrants.

The report found that “limited official language proficiency was strongly associated with a transition to poor health among male and female immigrants who had earlier reported good health.”

People who were healthy when they arrived in Canada became sick, just because they didn’t learn our language.

Yet, the Trudeau government is eliminating the requirement for newcomers to learn English, particularly for older immigrants who are more likely to get sick without language skills.

When newcomers arrive in Canada, they need encouragement to begin the integration process. The language requirement for citizenship is a great incentive. It urges newcomers to take a language training course – funded by the taxpayers and free of charge to newcomers – and start communicating in English in their every day lives.

When the government drops that incentive, it allows newcomers to retreat into their own ethnic communities. It becomes a barrier and stops them from branching out.

This is bad for Canada, but it’s also bad for the individual newcomers. It makes them more isolated, more sick, and less wealthy.

So why is the Trudeau government ignoring the facts, overlooking the data, and snubbing the experts on this topic?

The answer is simple. Politics.

Trudeau is catering to the demands of special interest groups who want quick and easy access to Canadian citizenship. They are rushing to turn newly arriving immigrants into voting citizens, and “reducing the barriers” to citizenship simply to earn votes and lifelong political allegiances.

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