Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2013/10/29 6 Comments
This report is a useful source of statistical and other info on immigration and related programs. Less trend analysis than desired, however, and glosses over problems like the drop in citizenship applications approved.
2013/10/14 Leave a comment
Haroon Siddiqui of The Star on polls showing different levels of distrust for different ethnic and religious communities, similar to the earlier poll posted on BC attitudes (British Columbians grow more wary of other religions, interfaith marriages).
While some of this is normal (negative attitudes tend to prevail regarding more recent communities), the gaps are still startling.
We didn’t have such polls 50 years ago when the minorities that were likely viewed with suspicion included Jewish Canadians, Italian Canadians and the like.
Canadian Muslims encounter increasing hostility: Siddiqui | Toronto Star.
2013/10/14 2 Comments
Martin Collacott on immigrant selection and quantity. Collacott has a point in that there never has been, to my knowledge, an analysis of what should be the appropriate level of immigration to Canada; the government just sticks with the current levels.
The temptation to select immigrants on the basis of their ability to integrate, once one gets beyond the basics of language and professional competencies, becomes subjective all too quickly, and subject to potential abuse, as a history of previous immigration restrictions illustrates.
2013/10/10 Leave a comment
The continuing slide to the right in France’s immigration and integration policies, likely to be counterproductive in a country that has largely failed in integration.
What seems lost on the republicans, however, is that as coercion takes the place of persuasion, young Muslims are showing even greater fervour for their faith than their parents. But with a population of five million Muslims expected to near seven million in a decade or so, few politicians appear willing to defy public opinion by abandoning the stick for the carrot….
As Dominique Reynié, director of the Foundation for Political Innovation, observed in Le Monde: “Twenty years ago, Valls’s remarks on the Roma would have come from [Front National founder] Jean-Marie Le Pen. In 2010, president Sarkozy’s remarks were shocking. In 2013, worse language emanates from the Socialist Interior Minister. Almost 80 per cent of French voters agree with him. President Hollande shows his de facto support. It is a testimony to the rightward slide of the [political] landscape. All of France is hardening.”
2013/10/02 Leave a comment
While there is a policy rationale for the allowing people to “regularize” their marriage, and I can imagine the complex policy and legal discussions that led to this policy, I tend to be with Gillis on this.
… sharp eyes will notice a contradiction between these guidelines and longstanding immigration policy in Canada. Polygamy is considered a crime in Canada. Criminality is supposed to exclude you from eligibility for residency. As Kurland put it in an email to me this morning: “Who lets the CIC choose the sections of Canada’s Criminal Code to ignore?”
Evidently, the policy recognizes the legality of polygamy in some countries, such as Jordan, Iraq and Syria, allowing for people to adjust their living arrangements so they comply with Canadian law. Our flexibility is this regard is remarkable: children from marriages other than the applicant’s first, for instance, can come along as dependents to Canada, provided the other parent confirms they were not abducted.
Depending on your outlook, I guess this all makes us either sophisticated, cosmopolitan and nuanced—or credulous to a fault.
2013/09/26 Leave a comment
An opinion piece by Matthew Mendelsohn of the Mowat Centre, arguing that we should benefit more from the diaspora networks created by immigration. Not too much new here but bears repeating:
Diasporas provide linkages. They help information circulate. They provide cultural knowledge where it didn’t exist before. They can help establish trust and deepen social capital.
Their knowledge can lower transaction costs and reduce the time it takes to enter new markets and form new partnerships. They connect people, ideas and understanding….
We are failing immigrants and Canada when we fail to recognize the cultural knowledge, international experience and global networks of our people. We can do better.
The private sector could deepen its connections with ethnocultural chambers of commerce, professional immigrant networks, alumni networks and immigrant resource groups within firms. All these networks can help businesses better understand opportunities in emerging markets. Successful firms are already doing this.
But capitalizing on our potential requires more than the private sector. It requires governments to ensure that rules and regulations from a half century ago are not undermining our capacity to fulfil our potential as a diaspora nation.
Canada needs to take advantage of being ‘Diaspora Nation’ | Toronto Star.
2013/09/19 Leave a comment
Sounds like an interesting, nuanced read. Review quote:
The economist Paul Collier aims to introduce a measure of nuance – perhaps, as he recognises, unwanted nuance – into this “toxic” sector of public debate, where “high emotion” inspires “fundamentalists” on both sides of the argument. Liberals, however benign their intentions, turn out to be no less emotive in their predetermined approach to immigration than the small-minded racists and nationalists from whom they recoil. Immigration, Collier contends, has been out of bounds for liberal thinkers: “The only permissible opinion has been to bemoan popular antipathy to it.” Postcolonial guilt about historic injustices tends to shape responses to current migration policy, while stifling consideration of wider problems of global poverty.
2013/08/31 Leave a comment
A good reading list for those interested.
Flophouse Citizenship and International Migration Reading List Updated.
2013/08/29 Leave a comment
To vary things up, another study from the Fraser Institute regarding costs of immigration. Other studies show lower costs, and there are differences between short-term costs and longer-term benefits. And of course, some communities integrate better and faster than others.
2013/08/19 2 Comments
Just finished the final edits – substantive, copy and formatting. On track for September 16 release. Good feeling, now on to pre-production and marketing.
Click image for book purchase
Multicultural Meanderings 