There’s a values-based case against Canada’s immigration policy. Conservatives should make it

While the header conjures images of value tests and “barbaric cultural practices”, the main argument is in favour of permanent rather than temporary immigration, with “a vision of mutual obligation, not temporary expediency,” as much about citizenship as immigration:

As former federal deputy minister Tim Sargent set out this week in a DeepDive for The Hub, Canada’s immigration policy has undergone a fundamental shift over the past decade or so. It’s not just that the number of newcomers has significantly increased, but the composition of who is entering the country has changed too.

Our self-image of Canada’s immigration system as being hyper-focused on skills and human capital is no longer supported by the evidence. Among the more than 470,000 newcomers who came through the permanent resident stream last year, only about 40 percent were selected according to economic criteria. The majority were the immediate family members of economic immigrants, family members of those who have already immigrated, or refugees.

And even that only tells part of the story. Non-permanent residents—including temporary foreign workers and international students—are now a bigger share of Canada’s annual population growth. In 2023 alone, nearly 805,000 non-permanent residents were added to the population. Sargent estimates that there are now 2.8 million non-permanent residents in the country—of which just under 2 million are entitled to work.

What’s the upshot here? Less than half of those entering Canada’s much-vaunted permanent resident stream are being selected based on economic criteria and more than two-thirds of the total annual intake aren’t even entering as permanent residents. We increasingly have an immigration system that’s shifted away from the country’s long-term economic interests and towards temporary migration to fill low-skilled jobs and subsidize post-secondary institutions.

The Left and Right have begun to talk about these developments in different ways. Conservatives have rightly tended to focus on the basic economics of an influx of low-skilled labour and its downward pressures—including on employment and wages—on Canadian workers. Progressives, by contrast, have played up the poor conditions and risk of exploitation for temporary migrants themselves.

Conservatives shouldn’t limit themselves to economic critiques here. They should be prepared to make values-based arguments too.

Large-scale temporary migration is incompatible with how conservatives think about society as a web of reciprocal relations between neighbours and family. The late British rabbi Jonathan Sacks frequently referred to society as a “home that we build together.” Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to describecitizenship ceremonies as “joining the Canadian family.”

These metaphors of family and home convey something much richer than a mere transactional relationship between migrants and a society in which the former sells his or her labour to the latter. They reflect a Burkean conception of society in which we’re equal parts of a multi-generational partnership. The Canadian family can and should welcome new people to join it. But it shouldn’t really be in the business of temporarily hiring people to do its landscaping or deliver its food or care for its children.

This richer, more textured understanding of immigration is reflected in Canada’s birth-on-soil policy. We grant citizenship based on birthright rather than blood because we envision making long-term commitments to newcomers and their families and expect them to make similar commitments to our society. It’s a vision of mutual obligation, not temporary expediency.

The Trudeau government’s abandonment of this vision has done serious harm to Canadian immigration policy. It’s probably the government’s single biggest policy failure. The Conservatives are right therefore to criticize it. But they shouldn’t merely rely on numbers and facts to prosecute their case. They can draw on the conservative traditions of family and home to present a better image of immigration and its relationship to our society.

Source: There’s a values-based case against Canada’s immigration policy. Conservatives should make it