Canada’s multicultural success story is built on class inequalities, not just cultural differences

Well, should Canada give priority to immigrants that are not credentialed, don’t speak English or French, immobile and not networked or not easily understood. Arguing for those not compatible with Canadian institutions?:

…Our interviews suggest something more mundane and more selective is happening underneath the multicultural branding. People who arrive already resemble a Canadian middle-class template. Like most Canadians, the newcomers we interviewed are credentialed, English-speaking, mobile and networked and have an easier time being “legible,” or easily understood and categorized, by many institutions outside of Québec. 

Multiculturalism, therefore, isn’t really about managing radical differences. It’s about smoothing over fairly minor cultural differences, insofar as Canadian immigration and refugee systems filter for people who are already compatible with the Canadian ideal of being and acting middle-class.

Canada’s emergency and resettlement programs, like its immigration system more broadly, don’t admit a random cross-section of Ukrainian or Afghan society. They tend to favour people with education, professional experience, language skills or existing ties to Canada — the very same traits that emerged as the connective tissue in our interviews. 

In other words, the “shared values” newcomers are so often expected to possess may have less to do with adopting Canadian culture after arrival and more to do with already holding a class position and mentality that made them compatible with Canadian institutions in the first place.

Source: Canada’s multicultural success story is built on class inequalities, not just cultural differences