The Immigration Paradigm

1
The Immigration Paradigm

• Randall Hansen
• University of Toronto

2

• Immigration is the issue of our time
• Each year we accept close to 1 of our population
• Some 40 of them arrive in Toronto

3
Questions

• 1. Whether an overarching Canadian identity can
  (or should) be maintained.
• 2. About what can be demanded of new immigrants
  (and what they can expect from us).
• 3. About dual and multiple citizenship.

4
Three slippages

• 1. An overly lax conception of citizenship
• 2. A confusion surrounding multiculturalism and
  what it requires in terms of religious and other
  forms of accommodation
• 3. A sort of democratic deficit, a diconnect
  between the way identity is being constructed
  the way in which Canadians which to understand it.

5
How we are doing

• Canadians hold positive attitudes towards
  immigration while demonstrating integrationist
  attitudes
• Measures of discrimination, vulnerability, income
  inequality, and social cohesion indicate that all
  is not well, particularly among visible
  minorities of the second generation

6
Understanding Ethnic Diversity and Social
Cohesion in Canada

• Data show
• 1. Patterns of race-based economic inequality
• 2. High and growing perception of discrimination

7
Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Canada

• Much of the current discussion is about Islam
• Misguided, both on the left and the right
• 1. Little evidence of any difficult with Muslim
  economic incorporation.
• 2. No evidence of unusual levels of anti-Muslim
  prejudice, Islamophobia

8
Slippage I Citizenship

• Summer 2006 Lebanon evacuations
• Framed in terms of dual citizenship this is an
  error
• Disconnect between naturalization and belonging
• Declining levels of belonging overall

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Slippage II Multiculturalism Accommodation
the reasonable accommodation road show

• Two basic confusions
• 1. Multiculturalism and group rights
• 2. Common laws, differential effect, and
  discrimination

10
Slippage III The Democratic deficit

• Canadians are profoundly integrationist
• Opposition to rhetoric is driven by an
  intellectual intellectual elite.

11
Softer measures

• Recent controversies and elite representation
• Sharia Law
• Public Funding of Religious Education in Ontario

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Conclusion

• Changes require a retooling, not a radical
  recasting of policy
• They are fully consistent with high levels of
  integration
• If we attend to these, we can confidently look
  forward to the next century of immigration

13
Policy suggestions

• 1. Raise the citizenship requirement from 3 to 5
  years with a tighter link with citizenship
• 2. Reweight language requirements more heavily
  consider language training and tests at the early
  post-arrival stage
• 3. Change little in multicultural policy, but
  place the accent more on a common framework
  uniting new and old Canadians, view immigrants
  not as culture-retainers but as new participants
  in a common political project embbeded in a
  secular public culture.