Fractured futures: Upward mobility for immigrants is a myth as their health declines

2024/05/07 Leave a comment

Odd connection to make between poorer health outcomes and the need for municipal voting rights for permanent residents.

First of all, unclear that this is a priority for most permanent residents compared to more pressing economic and social issues.

Secondly, Canadian citizenship is relatively easy to obtain in terms of residency, language and knowledge requirements.

Third, the author’s general comment on voting rates of immigrants is misleading: the StatsCan study, comparing the 2011 election with recent elections, highlighted small gaps between recent and long-term immigrants and the Canadian-born in the 2019 election before dropping in 2021, but recent immigrant voting rates neverthess increased by 10 points between 2011 and 2021:

Immigrant health research frequently refers to the notion that immigrants are generally healthier than people born in Canadabut that their health worsens with time.

The apparent trend has been attributed to a number of factors, including an unexpected lack of social mobility after immigration. 

The story often goes that immigrant parents willingly make sacrifices for the good of their children, with the widespread assumption that emphasizing good grades and higher education among the next generation will make their sacrifices worth it. 

But recent research finds that this lack of social mobility extends into the second generation.

As someone who’s spent more than a decade conducting immigrant and refugee health research, I am among a growing contingent of researchers who recognize that immigrants in Canada have extremely diverse identities and experiences, all of which affect their experiences with the structural and social determinants of health. 

That, in turn, shapes their health and health-care access, and challenges the notion that immigrants are a monolith with identical health and social trajectories.

This “healthy immigrant effect” and the upward social mobility of subsequent generations are commonly believed theories in academic circles. However, I fear these ideas have caused the nuanced needs of immigrant and diasporic communities to be over-simplified, dismissed and even neglected by policymakers.

The impact of COVID-19

The legacy of this neglect became painfully clear in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic amid a litany of reports about how long-term care workers, taxi drivers, food processors and other essential workers who came to Canada as immigrants were falling victim to the virus.

Statistics have since backed up these reports. 

Toronto Public Health, the first health unit in Canada to collect race-based data during the pandemic, found racialized Torontonians (including mostly immigrants but also those in racialized diasporic communities) were much more likely to be infected or hospitalized due to COVID-19. 

An upcoming study has found that before high-population COVID-19 vaccine coverage was achieved, immigrants in Ontario — particularly those from Central America, Jamaica, parts of South Asia and East Africa — were much more likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19 than other residents in the province.

The major contributing factors are a mismatch between their education and the jobs they end up getting, and employer discrimination, which leads to immigrants being over-represented and trapped in essential, low-wage precarious work. These jobs have a higher risk of exposure to COVID-19, and don’t provide employer-paid sick leave.

Thankfully, an Ontario government focus on equitable vaccine distribution, as well as innovative strategies like Toronto’s Community Health Ambassadors program — implemented by immigrant-serving community organizations — led to a remarkably equitable vaccine rollout and equally remarkable reductions in hospitalizations and deaths, according to the upcoming study.

But considering the subsequent elimination of many of these programs and policies, all of which were put in place to address barriers to vaccination for immigrants and their higher exposure to COVID-19 (due, in part, to the absence of employer-paid sick days), it’s possible that once again immigrants are bearing the brunt of the virus that’s still circulating and mutating.

Policy neglect is also responsible for the current primary-care crisis across Canada, with pre-pandemic inequities becoming further entrenched by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Racialized and low-income Canadians are the least likely to report having a primary-care physician. Meanwhile family doctors nearing retirement have a larger number of patients who face multiple social barriers to health and health care access. Both affected groups are likely made up largely of immigrant and diasporic communities.

The importance of elections

So how can the health and well-being of immigrants — widely praised as being the engine of Canada’s economy — and subsequent generations be prioritized?

First, our elected officials should engage meaningfully and respectfully with immigrants from all walks and stages of life, and avoid stoking xenophobic sentiments among the public.

Second, immigrants with Canadian citizenship — particularly those who’ve been in Canada for fewer than 10 years — are less likely than Canadian-born residents to vote in federal elections. There must be civic engagement initiatives connecting immigrants’ priorities with specific political platforms coupled with “get out the vote” campaigns.

Immigrants who are not yet citizens can’t vote in elections at any level of government, so they have no influence over how their tax dollars are spent. That voter gap should be addressed immediately, particularly given the large numbers of permanent and temporary residents who have made Toronto and other Canadian cities their home in recent years.

Right now, it seems these groups of potential future citizens are good enough to fill labour gaps and contribute their time, money and tax dollars to the economy. But they’re not good enough to have their voices and needs recognized in the political decision-making that governs their everyday lives and futures.

The false notion of the healthy immigrant effect and assumption of upward social mobility among the second generation has been reinforced through a lack of recognition of the diversity of identities and experiences of immigrants in big cities like Toronto and beyond. 

These assumptions may have led policymakers to neglect the health and health-care needs of immigrants.

Addressing long-standing inequities in immigrant and migrant voter participation in Canada may finally help shine a spotlight on the social and economic hardships that immigrant and diasporic communities have faced for decades, not to mention the adverse impact on their health and health-care access.

Source: Fractured futures: Upward mobility for immigrants is a myth as their health declines

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Minister preemptively shuts down Calgary proposal to let permanent residents vote

2024/04/18 Leave a comment

Right call, given that Canadian citizenship has reasonable requirements (high fees perhaps excepted) and that backlogs largely eliminated:

A Calgary city council motion to extend municipal voting rights to permanent residents has been stopped in its tracks by Alberta’s municipal affairs minister.

The motion is set to be introduced by councillors Walcott, Wong, Dhaliwal, Mian, and Penner on Tuesday.

However, in a post to X on Saturday, Minister Ric McIver said he’ll “save us all some time.”

“Only citizens of Canada can vote in municipal elections. That will not be changing,” he said.

The motion calls for an amendment to the Local Authorities Election Act, which determines who has the right to vote in municipal elections. 

Because municipalities exist due to provincial legislation, the Alberta government would have to decide to amend the Local Authorities Election Act.

The councillors argued in their motion that all levels of government make decisions that affect residents’ daily lives, regardless of their citizenship status. 

“Municipalities are unique, as the only order of government that is not constitutionally defined. The opportunity to extend voting rights to more members of our local communities would represent a significant shift to ensure our local communities are representative of the people who call them home,” reads the motion.

The procedure on Tuesday is to ensure that the motion is written properly, Wong told True North in an interview. The motion will not be debated until the next regular council meeting on Apr. 30.

Wong said he is eager to hear more about the pros and cons of the motion, including its virtues and benefits, and how it aligns with federal and provincial criteria for voting eligibility

“Our responsibility as municipalities extends to all… who call our communities home, who contribute to civic life, who work here, raise families here, and use city services, should have a democratic right to vote in our municipalities,” reads the motion.

Wong said that councillors have been canvassing their constituents, both citizens and permanent residents.  

The perspectives presented have been varying. Some have said that citizenship is a vital voting criterion.

“We’ve also heard people saying, ‘We’re newcomers. We want to be able to be a citizen.’ There are reasons why it’s been delayed, whether it’s in their control or not. But they also feel that they’d like to have a voice in municipal governance because they are users of our services as well as people who pay taxes,” said Wong.

He added that one of the most pressing questions is the many different types of permanent residents there are and what would determine voting eligibility.

“The nuance of that has to be discovered by the province, and the province needs to make the system fair across the province because this is not just a Calgary-based request,” said Wong.

The Calgary councillor was not surprised at McIver’s response, he said. He added that McIver is very involved and understands Alberta and Calgary’s multiculturalism. 

“I know that he wouldn’t dismiss it just because of personal feelings about us. He would weigh the arguments presented by all municipalities,” said Wong.

“All members of council are always amenable to persuasion, and therefore nobody’s cast a vote as of yet. And I think Calgarians need to understand that.”.

True North reached out to McIver for additional comment. His office said he has nothing more to add to his previous post to X. 

Source: Minister preemptively shuts down Calgary proposal to let permanent residents vote

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Meggs: Immigration and the Vote

2023/08/05 Leave a comment

Taking some of the government’s arguments in favour of self-administered oaths of citizenship and increased reliance on virtual ceremonies (except for those with Minister Miller!) to the extreme, Meggs argues that “If that’s how little we value citizenship, why do we make it so difficult to achieve?” why not move to complete “self-check-out” and provide voting rights to permanent residents at the municipal level, along with an integrated Permanent Residents to Citizenship process.

IMO, Meggs is to quick to state that political parties ignore the concerns of Permanent Residents, given that many have relatives and friends who are citizens, and that most Permanent Residents will become citizens:

Canada has been pretty clear about the benefits we expect from the nearly 500,000 immigrants now arriving annually, especially the wealth and economic growth we need them to generate.

But what’s in it for them?

Unless the pathway to citizenship speeds up dramatically, Canada will soon be home to millions of permanent residents who work, pay taxes, can even serve in Canada’s Armed Forces, but are prohibited from voting or running for office.

Those are in addition to the nearly one million Canadian residents in temporary work or study programs, more than 70 percent of whom aspire to stay.

The Discover Canada booklet, available to all would-be immigrants hoping to become Canadian, describes our country as a place guided by “a belief in ordered liberty, enterprise, hard work and fair play.”

What’s fair about taxation without representation?

Canada’s history provides ample evidence that those denied the vote – whether women, Japanese Canadians, Chinese Canadians, Indigenous or any other group – are also denied basic rights and subject to exploitation and discrimination.

A recent Abacus poll showed that Canadians remain generally enthusiastic about immigration, yet increasingly uneasy about the pressure on already-strained services like housing, education and health care. (Of course, both education and health care would collapse without foreign students’ fees and immigrant health workers’ skills.)

Those most affected by those shortfalls are immigrants themselves, confronted by constant economic and social hardship as they seek to put down roots.

Nonetheless, they prevail. The 2021 census showed that immigrants – people who were born elsewhere, immigrated to Canada and became citizens – already make up nearly one quarter of the electorate.

That share would be even higher if the 60 percent of “non-citizens” in the census tally, mostly people of working age and almost all engaged in the workforce, could vote. A large proportion of this group are young people who should have a right to participate in decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

In cities like Toronto, Montreal and Metro Vancouver, where the majority of newcomers seek to settle, those hundreds of thousands of new voters could reshape the political landscape. Until they join the electorate, their concerns are of no interest to campaigning politicians.

As things stand, permanent residents wait a minimum of three years before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship, often after years of effort to achieve permanent resident status.

To be fair, Canada has had some limited success in reducing wait times to achieve citizenship, moving the citizenship test online and even allowing successful applicants to self-administer the oath. (Unfortunately, Queen Elizabeth II remains our sovereign, according to Discover Canada’s downloadable study guide, a potential pitfall to applicants trying the multiple-choice and true/false online test.)

These efficiencies undermine the gravity and responsibility of achieving Canadian citizenship even as they seek to streamline the process. The once momentous milestone of citizenship is reduced to something akin to self-checkout.

If that’s how little we value citizenship, why do we make it so difficult to achieve?

Why not combine the permanent resident and citizenship process into one, reserving the right to revoke citizenship within a given time frame if certain criteria aren’t met?

In the meantime, provinces should allow permanent residents to vote at the municipal level, as cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Hamilton have all proposed in recent years.

The cost of inaction is well captured in the painful past experience of Japanese Canadians.

In October 1900, naturalized citizen Tomeikichi Homma marched into the Vancouver Court House and demanded to be registered to vote. The elections officer, relying on racist provincial election rules, said he would go to jail before he registered “a Jap.”

Homma’s challenge was upheld by two BC courts before finally being overturned at the Privy Council in London, then the British empire’s highest court. It would be nearly 50 years before Japanese Canadians got the vote, after suffering through the forced dislocation and internment of the Second World War.

In his judgement upholding Homma’s right to register, BC Judge Angus McColl warned:

“The residence within the province of large numbers of persons, British subjects in name, but doomed to perpetual exclusion from any part in the passage of legislation affecting their property and civil rights, would surely not be to the advantage of Canada, and might even become a source of national danger.”

His warning applies equally to Canada today. Yes, Canada’s permanent residents will get to vote, eventually. We should make that wait as short as possible.

. . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Geoff Meggs – Geoff is a Canadian politician, political operative and communications expert, who served on Vancouver, British Columbia’s City Council from 2008 to 2017. He was first elected in the 2008 municipal election, and resigned his seat on city council in 2017 to accept a job as chief of staff to John Horgan, the Premier of British Columbia. Prior to his election to City Council in 2017, Geoff served as Executive Director for the BC Federation of Labour.

Source: Meggs: Immigration and the Vote

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Curry: Permanent residents pay taxes but can’t vote

2022/06/21 Leave a comment

While Don and I disagree on municipal voting rights, he makes the case (given Canada’s relatively easy approach to citizenship, better to focus on all voting rights through citizenship). As municipalities are creations of provincial governments, the latter’s agreement would be required:

How would you like it if you paid your municipal and school taxes every year, your kids are in school, but you can’t vote for city council or the school board?

Hundreds of people in North Bay are in that situation.

They are permanent residents of Canada but are not entitled to vote because they are not yet Canadian citizens. If they would be any more motivated than the dismal 43 per cent of voters who bothered to cast a ballot in the recent Ontario election is beside the point. They don’t have the right to vote.

To become a citizen, you have to have lived in Canada for at least three of the past five years, with your time as a temporary resident only eligible for a half-day for every full day you were here. The government processing fee is $530 and the right of citizenship fee is $100.

You have to have filed taxes for each year you were in Canada, pass a citizenship test, which most Canadians would likely fail, and prove your language skills in either English or French.

The Liberal federal government said in the 2021 election campaign that it will eliminate citizenship fees. It said the same thing in the 2019 campaign, and the fees remain in place.

There are other obstacles. The paperwork is daunting to many.

One client I had speaks English as his first language and works in a professional occupation. He asked me to do the paperwork.

Others say becoming a Canadian citizen could jeopardize travel to their home country to visit relatives because dual citizenship is not recognized.

The Ontario government controls municipalities and all indications are that it has no plan to eliminate the citizenship requirement for municipal and school board elections. This is despite the fact that some municipalities, including North Bay, Toronto, and Waterloo in Ontario, plus Vancouver, Halifax, and others, have voted to allow permanent residents voting rights.

New Brunswick is set to allow permanent residents to vote in the next municipal elections, scheduled for 2026.

North Bay City Council went on the record in support of a motion on May 11, 2015, after a presentation I gave in support of the concept. As I recall, voting against were Tanya Vrebosch and Mark King, and the motion passed easily.

That endorsement has earned the city positive press across Canada, as other cities are urged to support the movement. However, when I visit city hall I see no diversity whatsoever among the staff, and there is none at the city council level. Clearly, there is more to be done to make the city a welcoming place for newcomers.

There are dissenting views, of course. They centre on the argument that this will devalue Canadian citizenship. My response is that people should have the right to vote municipally, as it is the government closest to the people and who gets elected is important. Retain citizenship as a requirement for provincial and federal elections.

Take the announcement recently by MP Anthony Rota that the federal government will contribute almost $26 million to the arena project at the Omischl complex. It was wonderful to hear.

But, if we had more diversity at city hall and on the city council, and permanent residents could vote, the conversation might include a desire for more soccer fields and cricket pitches as well. When you don’t have diversity in decision-making, which includes voting, you keep doing everything the way you have always done it.

Myer Siemiatycki, professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University, where my granddaughter begins studies in September, (if you haven’t heard of it, it’s the new name for Ryerson), says there are more than 50 countries that allow non-citizens the right to vote.

So, it’s not a novel concept. Other countries are way ahead of us.

He told the CBC recently that changes are long overdue, because there’s currently a “ludicrous” double standard where people who own property in Toronto but live elsewhere can vote, while permanent residents actually living in the city can’t.

In the U.S., non-citizens can vote municipally in many cities. New York recently came on board and Boston may be next. Near Boston, Cambridge and Amherst have extended the ability to vote.

Good on North Bay City Council for being an early adopter of a motion to extend municipal voting rights. The barrier is the Conservative government of Doug Ford.

Perhaps our MPP, Vic Fedeli, could bend his ear on the topic.

Source: Opinion: Permanent residents pay taxes but can’t vote

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Former Mayor Bloomberg: The Pro-Immigrant Case Against New York City’s Noncitizen Voting

2021/12/16 2 Comments

Good arguments. I agree, the goal should be full citizenship and voting rights, not partial:

I have always strongly supported immigrant rights and worked to protect immigrants, expand visa opportunities, and provide a pathway to citizenship for those who are here. A decade ago, I co-founded a bipartisan coalition of leaders to push for immigration reform, a group that recently merged with the American Immigration Council. And during my time as mayor, we created a program to help more New Yorkers apply for citizenship, which became a national model.

To me, being pro-immigrant has always meant incentivizing and rewarding citizenship — but some cities, unfortunately, are in danger of making it a less attractive proposition.

Generations of immigrants have sought U.S. citizenship to gain full access to the American dream, including all the rights and responsibilities that go along with it — chief of them, the right (and responsibility) to vote. But this month, the New York City Council voted 33-14 to authorize noncitizen voting. The bill would grant some 800,000 immigrants with green cards or work permits, and who have been living in the city for 30 days, the right to participate in elections for mayor, city council and other offices, as well as in local ballot questions.

The bill is likely to be challenged in court, because it conflicts with the plain language of the state constitution, which repeatedly uses the word “citizen” in its suffrage clause: “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people and upon all questions submitted to the vote of the people provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election.”

For good measure, the bill also appears to violate state election statutes, which list mandatory qualifications for voters: “No person shall be qualified to register for and vote at any election unless he is a citizen of the United States and is or will be, on the day of such election, eighteen years of age or over and a resident of this state.” This is hardly ambiguous language.

Should the plan somehow survive a legal challenge, there’s also the small matter of putting it in place. Ballots in local elections often include state offices (judgeships, for instance) and statewide referendums that noncitizens wouldn’t be eligible to vote for. Preventing noncitizens from voting on those matters would be extremely difficult under any circumstances. Leaving it to the city’s board of elections, a notoriously incompetent patronage mill, is a recipe for disaster.

Other jurisdictions may not face exactly these legal and logistical obstacles, but the biggest problem with noncitizen voting isn’t a legal or technical obstacle: It’s the way it devalues citizenship.

Proponents of the concept argue that voting gives the noncitizen more civic connections and a bigger “stake” in the community. This gets things precisely backward: Voting is a major reason many immigrants seek to obtain citizenship. They recognize that citizenship brings greater rights and responsibilities. If cities want more immigrants to become citizens — as they absolutely should — stripping away that incentive won’t help.

There’s no question that the route immigrants must travel to obtain citizenship is too slow and too restrictive. Fixing this process requires the White House and Congress to work with Republicans on a bipartisan deal, which noncitizen voting will make even more difficult and unlikely.

In fact, it will lend credence to the Republican argument that Democrats support immigration reform purely to pad their own voter rolls. This view is false, but pushing for noncitizen voting will only make it harder to refute, while also making the national conversation on the topic more toxic than it already is.

Immigrants deserve to be heard and protected. But that will not happen with local attempts to supersede the broken federal system. Instead, we must do the hard work of fixing it through federal legislation — without making that even more difficult than it already is.

Historically, incentivizing citizenship by combining it with the right to vote has benefited both immigrant communities and America as a whole — not only by integrating diverse cultures, but by cultivating a shared sense of purpose and national identity.

Local leaders should not attempt to break that compact. They should instead unite their efforts on Washington, so more immigrants have the opportunity to become full-fledged citizens — and voters.

Source: The Pro-Immigrant Case Against New York City’s Noncitizen Voting

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Poll shows Vancouverites mixed on giving vote to ‘permanent residents’

2018/05/09 Leave a comment

Interesting divergence. The other interesting aspect is that giving the right to vote to PRs as proposed has no minimum residency period (the administrative complexity of implementation would not be simple). (Note: the residency requirement is three years out of five, not two, as reported in the article).

I suspect that most recent Permanent Residents have more immediate needs than municipal voting rights that may explain the difference.

A majority of the residents polled in the cosmopolitan City of Vancouver appear to support giving permanent residents the right to vote in a civic election — but many immigrants are not so sure.

A new opinion poll conducted by Research Co. found 57 per cent of those questioned in the City of Vancouver either “strongly” or “moderately” favour giving the city’s permanent residents the right to vote in a municipal election.

The Canadian government defines a permanent resident as “someone who has been given permanent resident status by immigrating to Canada, but is not a Canadian citizen. Permanent residents are citizens of other countries.”

In a city of 630,000 that has one of the highest portions of foreign-born residents in the world, a sample of Vancouver’s 262,000 immigrants found only 48 per cent ready to give permanent residents the vote in October’s municipal election.

“The level of support for the change is higher among Vancouverites who were born in Canada than among those who acquired citizenship after immigrating from another country,” said Mario Canseco, the president of Research Co.

The company conducted the survey in response to Vancouver City council passing an early April motion by Vision Coun. Andrea Reimer, seconded by Mayor Gregor Robertson, calling on the B.C. government to “make the necessary changes” to make it the first city in Canada to allow permanent residents to vote.

The Research Co. poll revealed partisan political fault lines over whether roughly 60,000 permanent residents of the city should be able to vote. People who voted for the Non-Partisan Association’s mayoral candidate in 2014, Kirk LaPointe, were 14 percentage points less likely than those who backed Robertson to want to make it possible.

While Canseco found a slim majority of Vancouverites think it makes sense to give the vote to permanent residents “who may contribute to the city by working, living and paying taxes,” he determined the strongest pockets of support were among residents aged 18 to 34 (68 per cent), those who live in the East Side of Vancouver (62 per cent), women (58 per cent) and people of East Asian origin (60 per cent).

On the other hand, the Research Co. survey revealed 49 per cent of City of Vancouver residents expressed concern that allowing permanent residents to vote “sets a dangerous precedent, as foreigners who have not sworn allegiance to Canada would have a say in the formation of governments.”

The issue of civic voting rights arises against the backdrop of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals raising immigration levels and last October bringing in Bill C-6, which makes it easier for permanent residents to become citizens. They now need to spend only two years out of five physically present in Canada before being eligible for citizenship (compared to the previous requirement of four years out of six).

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussein also made it possible last year for permanent residents to spend a portion of the two years they are supposed to be physically present in Canada in a foreign land — either for work, to attend school or for family reasons.

Even though it is rare around the world for non-citizens to vote for any elected representatives, some of those who maintain it is a good thing argue that, since many non-permanent residents pay taxes, they have a right to determine how taxes are spent.

Proponents also say it’s better to offer the vote at a municipal level, since local politicians have no control over issues of national security and foreign policy.

On the other hand, the few dozen countries around the world that welcome immigrants normally require newcomers to prove in multiple ways they have a “meaningful connection” to their new homeland before granting the privilege to vote.

Since permanent residents in Canada are already free to engage in political activity, opponents of giving them a civic vote argue it’s relatively quick to become a citizen and people should wait for the privilege while learning an official language and the political complexities of their potential new homeland.

The 2016 Census shows the City of Vancouver contains 325,000 people who are non-immigrants and 262,000 “immigrants” (which includes those who are permanent residents).

Fifty-two per cent of the residents of the City of Vancouver are people of colour, (including 167,000 ethnic Chinese, 37,000 South Asians and 36,000 Filipinos). People of  European descent total 297,000 and Aboriginals 14,000.

According to the 2016 Census seven per cent of the residents of the city speak neither English nor French.

The Research Co. poll surveyed 400 adults in the City of Vancouver and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Source: Poll shows Vancouverites mixed on giving vote to ‘permanent residents’

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Expatriate Voting: National and Municipal

2018/04/28 Leave a comment

Rob Vineberg and I did a further refinement of our arguments against unlimited voting rights for Canadian expatriates in the Vancouver Sun:

With the Supreme Court of Canada hearing the challenge to the current five-year limit on expatriate voting rights, advocates for expansion continue to date their case.

One common feature to such advocacy: a reliance on anecdotes and assertions, completely bereft of any serious effort to assess available data on the strength of connection to Canada.

Common arguments emphasize connections to Canada, a recent example being that of Frédéric Mégret of McGill University. Long-term expatriates “may decide to come back” but is this for family reasons or to access Canadian medicare? They “are, in fact, affected by the laws and policies of Canada” but this is largely limited given that they don’t access or are affected by government services and policies that apply to residents. “Many expatriates, even though they do not reside in Canada, do a considerable amount for Canada, directly or indirectly” but is silent that equally “many” do not. And in a theoretical sense, citizenship can be defined by “how committed one is to its ideals, how ready to give back and to invest in its political life?,” in a practical sense governments can only use crude proxy measures to assess the degree of connection to Canada.

So what do these proxy measures tell us? If we take the Asia Pacific Foundation’s estimate of the number of expatriates, and adjust by voting age and citizenship, we arrive at a baseline of just under two million. Looking at government data, we know that the number of expatriates holding valid Canadian passports is approximately 630,000 adult Canadians who have lived abroad for five years or more. We also know that the number of non-resident Canadian tax returns, a deeper measure of connection, was about 112,000 in 2015 (the last year for which information is available). And while hard to assess the potential interest of long-term Canadian expatriates in voting, the data for those who qualify under the current rules suggest there is not widespread demand (about 16,000 in the 2015 election) although this number may be depressed by the difficulty in meeting current registration requirements. These more formal indicators, albeit imperfect, suggest a smaller number of connected expatriates than some of the arguments would suggest.

An argument for unlimited voting rights means that any citizen who left Canada as a baby or small child would have unlimited voting rights. As such, the proposal disconnects voting from any experience of living in Canada, being subject to Canadian laws, accessing Canadian public services or paying Canadian taxes and thus devalues the votes of Canadians who do reside in Canada and are subject to these day-to-day realities of Canadian life.

Moreover, first generation Canadians born abroad, entitled to citizenship, would similarly be able to vote, irrespective of whether they had ever set foot in Canada.

The government has understandably chosen to await the Supreme Court decision on whether the current five-year limit is constitutional. However, it signalled its intent in Bill C-33, tabled more than a year ago, to support unlimited voting rights for expatriates. This is more generous than the practices of the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, all of which impose significant conditions in order to qualify to vote abroad. While France, Italy and Portugal all allow expatriates to vote, they have established overseas constituencies in their legislatures. This prevents the will of the domestic electorate being changed by expatriate voting. In our view, residency matters.

While one can argue for a minimum of three years (as required to obtain citizenship), five years as in the current electoral rules, or some other number, citizenship is not just a theoretical construct of connection and commitment: it needs to include some measure of physical presence. The longer one has lived in Canada, the longer one should have the right to vote if living abroad. For example, if one has lived in Canada for 25 years or more, the right to vote abroad could be permanent while shorter periods of residence in Canada could entitle people to a shorter period of voting as an expatriate.

However the Supreme Court may rule on expatriate voting, the government will have to decide whether it continues to favour unlimited voting rights for expatriates or take a more measured approach to providing expanded voting rights for expatriates without the unintended consequence of diminishing the value the votes cast by Canadians resident in Canada.

Source: Andrew Griffith and Robert Vineberg: What should the voting rights of Canadian expatriates be? 

The related but distinct issue of municipal voting rights for Permanent Residents was subject to this cautionary editorial in the Vancouver Sun. In my opinion, enthusiasm for municipal voting rights is misplaced given that Canadian citizenship, which provides the full panoply of national, provincial and municipal voting rights, is to be preferred than partial rights.

Moreover, the arguments in favour of municipal voting rights are more valid in European countries with long residency period requirements compared to Canada’s three years:

About 250 years ago, colonists in New England rebelled against the Stamp Tax that Britain had imposed to recover the cost of defending the colonies during the Seven Years War. Their complaint was that the tax was illegal because they had no say in the matter. “No taxation without representation” not only became a popular bumper sticker, but ultimately led to the American Revolution.

Perhaps it was in the spirit of that principle that Vancouver city council this week unanimously passed a motion to ask the province to “make the necessary changes” to allow permanent residents to vote at the local level.

Vancouver has an estimated 60,000 permanent residents (based on 2011 statistics) — those who have gone through the immigration process but are not Canadian citizens. Permanent residents must live in Canada for two out five years to maintain their status. Although they work, own homes, pay taxes and are entitled to social benefits, including health care coverage and protection under Canadian law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they do not have the right to vote. The authors of that restriction had their reasons.

Coun. Andrea Reimer said extending the right to vote to permanent residents would advance Vancouver’s ability “to be a welcoming and inclusive city.” Municipal Affairs Minister Selina Robinson added that “a local government … keen to do more engagement in our democracy is a good thing overall.” A few other municipalities, including Halifax and Toronto, have also asked their provincial governments to change the rules.

The argument that people who pay taxes should have the right to determine who is managing the money and implementing policies that affect them is compelling. Besides paying income, property and sales taxes, permanent residents are part of their communities, send their children to nearby schools, shop in local stores and put their garbage out for collection like everyone else. But if permanent residents are granted the right to vote in civic elections, why wouldn’t the same principles apply to federal and provincial elections? And if they do, what then is the value of citizenship? Is it nothing more than a passport and a guarantee against deportation?

Besides, the notion that permanent residents would rush out to exercise their newly acquired right to vote in civic elections might be wishful thinking. It seems more likely their voting patterns would mirror those of the population at large. Turnout for the last civic election in 2014 was 44 per cent, up from 34 per cent in the 2011 election. Engagement is not top of mind for a majority of Vancouver’s citizens.

Advocating for the vote for permanent residents is a feel-good initiative for city council, but the provincial government must consider the serious implications of such a move. Although many permanent residents have lived in Canada for a long time and know the ropes, many are newcomers, some from countries where social norms are quite different from Canada’s, particularly on matters of gender equality and free speech. Some may not appreciate the sanctity of the secret ballot or freedom from duress in casting a vote.

The provincial government should respond to the city’s request cautiously. Its deliberations will require all-party committee work and extensive debate, which probably cannot be completed on time to take effect before the October 20 civic election. Fortunately, Minister Robinson has not committed to having legislation in place before then. She should not rush the changes council has requested.

Source: Editorial: Take time to consider extending right to vote 

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

Action Canada: Barriers to Belonging Report and Municipal Voting

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

Attended the presentation of the Action Canada report 5 Feb (I had been one of the people consulted in its preparation)Citizenship and Selection).

Well attended, including the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Arif Virani, who signalled the change and tone of the new government.

The one part of the report that I have a friendly disagreement with is the push for municipal voting.

The main arguments used – Permanent Residents use municipal services, pay taxes, live in the communities – apply also to provincial services (e.g., healthcare and education) and federal services (e.g., Service Canada and related employment programs). Comparisons with Europe are largely irrelevant given the barriers to or length to obtain citizenship in most European countries.

And I have never seen – readers to correct me – any convincing data or evidence on whether extending municipal voting to non-citizens will make a marked difference in voting participation or overall integration.

Recommendations as follows:

  1. Recognize and facilitate permanent immigration and citizenship acquisition as critical to nation building in selection, citizenship, settlement and integration policies. Avoid policies that risk leading to long-term residence without permanent status or citizenship.
  2. Factor the settlement and integration needs of immigrants into selection policy, alongside the long-term social and economic needs of the country.

Designing smarter services:

  1. Engage stakeholders to identify information gaps, design usable data formats, and create platforms for consolidating evidence on what works. Include, at a minimum, settlement service providers, and provincial and municipal governments.
  2. Create a $10M pay-for-success fund – about 1% of the total settlement and integration budget – focused on immigrant inclusion outcomes. This could be modeled on the UK DWP Innovation Fund.
  3. Expand eligibility criteria for settlement services.

Building Bridges to Employment

  1. Engage employers to develop demand-driven employment solutions.
  2. Work with small and medium-sized enterprise business support programs, accelerators, incubators and innovation hubs to create entrepreneurship training, mentorship, loan and venture capital programs targeted to recent immigrants.

Strengthening Political Engagement

TARGET AUDIENCE: PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS

  1. Amend provincial and territorial legislation to remove barriers to non-citizens voting in municipal elections, including school board elections.

TARGET AUDIENCE: PROVINCIAL, TERRITORIAL AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

  1. Remove barriers to non-citizens becoming members of municipal governance bodies.
  2. Publish an annual report card on the extent to which municipal governance bodies reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities should spearhead this initiative, alongside leading municipalities.

View Report

 

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Let non-citizens vote in municipal elections: Editorial | Toronto Star

2015/05/20 1 Comment

I don’t agree with The Star’s position.

Citizenship take-up should be encouraged and municipal voting for non-citizens may result in less incentive to become citizens. I have never seen any convincing evidence that municipal voting for Permanent Residents will significantly increase voter participation and visible minority representation.

The revisions to the Citizenship Act along with previous changes, making it harder for some visible minorities to become citizens, and with an overall decline in citizenship uptake, do however weaken the case against allowing non-citizen municipal voting:

Toronto Mayor John Tory doesn’t want people who aren’t Canadian citizens to vote in municipal elections. It’s a reasonable stand, but he should change his mind.

We did.

In 2005 the Star was firmly opposed to giving non-citizens the right to cast a municipal ballot, arguing that this was a well-intentioned proposal that would unfortunately dilute the privilege of citizenship.

Tory expressed similar sentiments this past week at a Ryerson City Building Institute forum organized to explore ways of bridging urban divides. Giving non-citizens the vote was suggested as a way to open up the democratic process and help more visible minority candidates win elected office.

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie and Ajax Mayor Steve Parish welcomed the idea. But the Star’s David Rider reports that Tory expressed reservations, including doubt that this change could actually boost the diversity of municipal councils.

As far as getting more minority people elected, the reform is at least worth a try. Not much else has worked so far. But even beyond that, change is a matter of fairness. On this ground alone, the right to vote in municipal elections should be extended to all permanent residents — citizens and non-citizens alike.

It’s estimated that more than a quarter-million newcomers live, work and play in Toronto. They volunteer in support of local causes, send their children to local schools, pay local taxes, and support local businesses. Yet they’re barred from the ballot box, denying them a say in how this city is run, because they’re not Canadian citizens.

At least 40 other countries allow non-citizens to vote at the municipal level, and it’s time Toronto did too. The province would need to amend the Municipal Elections Act to bring this about and it would be a big help if Toronto’s mayor were a firm advocate of change.

Citizenship would remain a privilege associated with voting in federal and provincial elections. This would still be something special. It makes sense to set a lower requirement for voting at the municipal level, where the issues aren’t national security or foreign policy concerns but more mundane matters such as garbage collection, water bills, transit fares and whether the Gardiner Expressway is torn down.

Non-citizens have become a vital component of Canada’s largest city, helping to make it one of the most diverse places in the world. These people should no longer be written off on Election Day.

Let non-citizens vote in municipal elections: Editorial | Toronto Star.

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Meet Toronto’s disenfranchised non-citizens

2015/01/07 Leave a comment

Further to my post on the declining number of immigrants taking up citizenship (Ottawa hiking citizenship fees for second time in a year | various), Myer Siemiatycki and Ratna Omidvar on how it plays out in Toronto and the links to poverty and precariousness:

Imagine a city the size of Halifax and then superimpose it onto the map of Toronto. Now imagine a wall surrounding that city state — a wall that divides its residents from the rest of the metropolis.

That’s perhaps the best way to think of the roughly 380,000 residents who live in Toronto who are without Canadian citizenship, says Myer Siemiatycki, professor of politics and the founding director of Ryerson University’s graduate program in immigration and settlement studies. And that number, from the 2006 Census, could be even higher today.

Some estimates suggest the number could be even higher if you include undocumented migrants, whose exact numbers are unknown. Some are foreign temporary workers; some are here on two-year work permits; some are live-in caregivers; many are permanent residents; others are refugee claimants. Some may one day achieve status or citizenship; others will remain underground eking out a living, always looking over their shoulder, perhaps not even able to speak English.

Critics say it’s a lost opportunity for them and for Toronto.

A deep divide separates non-citizens from most of the city’s residents, says Siemiatycki. They work here; pay property taxes; use the TTC. Their children go to school here; some use recreational facilities, community centres and libraries. But they are detached, disengaged, without a voice or a vote. Some are able to get only precarious or low-paying work. Many stay under the radar by working for cash and not paying taxes. Others live in constant fear of being deported. They pay for health care out of pocket.

“Imagine if you did not have papers,” says Ratna Omidvar, executive director of the Global Diversity Exchange at Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. “Imagine if you could only work for cash. Imagine if you were always in fear that someone would come and get you. Imagine you’re paying a premium for rent … of course they’re disengaged. They can’t not be disengaged.”

Meet Toronto’s disenfranchised non-citizens | Toronto Star.

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts