The Other Right to Choose: Reversing the Trudeau Immigration Fiasco

Another example of conservative immigration commentary, somewhat caricatural, extreme and definitely partisan, but important to understand these perspectives and the risks of denying some of their valid points:

…Remaining attractive also means preserving what draws immigrants now. It means understanding that these conditions didn’t occur by chance, they had something to do with the people and culture that built it. And that a vibrant, innovative economy relies on the rule of law, a high-trust society and social cohesion. These in turn depend on a common culture and shared values which – note to progressives – are a lot more than mere “tolerance” (i.e., indifference). Preserving all that, if only to attract and keep newcomers, will mean, as controversial as it is to some, excluding individuals or groups with entrenched beliefs or cultural practices that undermine it.

In order to compete, we’ll have to be even more “ruthlessly smart”, to hearken back to that long-ago New York Timescommentary, which logically should centre upon a rigorous, adaptable points system. A system that rests on the assumption that immigration serves Canadians and our children first and foremost, not primarily the possible future immigrants or their extended families, let alone the utopian abstraction of open borders with unlimited migration. This points system must include overhauling our asylum policies, because no viable nation can allow itself to be swamped by whoever happens to turn up.

But the political minefields around such reform have already been laid. The Left believes our system – the very fact that we even choose – is a “moral failure,” that the “sorting systems” set up by wealthy nations “filter out the most useful people while condemning the rest to destitution.” But our gut instinct, that we can’t let in everyone and that not all newcomers are created equal, is confirmed by the various studies.

Regions with the most qualified applicants will fare better, resulting in source-country admission disparities. Cue up the accusations of “systemic barriers” and prejudice. Back in my day, our Liberal opposition already claimed we hated Chinese when admissions from Hong Kong dropped slightly.

My family’s experience was that it’s better to be a refugee than to be dead. And it’s vastly better to be in Canada than to be a refugee. But we got in through Canada’s choice, based on Canada’s needs, not our hopes.

This is egalitarianism taken to self-destructive absurdity, the belief that lifting only some – not all – out of destitution is unfair. It glosses over the fact that the past Heinrichs and most of the present ones, while often refugees, are fundamentally economic migrants. They have every right to seek a better life – but we have every right to choose.

Cultural changes will be even more fraught. Agreeing on and preserving whatever pixie dust makes Canada attractive to immigrants now and got us here in the first place is an incendiary topic. Academic ideologues view talk of “common values” as “code words” meant to sustain “unequal social hierarchies.” Preservation of “Canadian heritage” and “Canadian values” is thought to have a “racial subtext.” And if you believe that “white Eurocentric culture in Canada…perpetuates colonial power dynamics,” you might not like points-based immigration. Sadly, threads of such thinking extend right to the Liberal government benches.

My family’s experience was that it’s better to be a refugee than to be dead. And it’s vastly better to be in Canada than to be a refugee. But we got in through Canada’s choice, based on Canada’s needs, not our hopes. Worked then, and would work now.

John Weissenberger is a Calgary-based geologist and former executive at a provincial agency. He was Chief of Staff to the federal Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, 2007-2008.

Source: The Other Right to Choose: Reversing the Trudeau Immigration Fiasco