Sask. needs wide welcome mat

BY MURRAY MANDRYK, THE STARPHOENIX JANUARY 6, 2012

 

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If one didn't know better, one might think that the Saskatchewan Party has a strange obsession with the Irish.

Long before the party took power in 2007, former leader Elwin Hermanson and others in the party virtually campaigned on the idea that Saskatchewan could follow Ireland's model and become Canada's Celtic Tiger. Now that the Irish economy has gone bust, Premier Brad Wall's government seriously is considering a "jobs mission" to Ireland in the hopes of wooing displaced Irish workers to join Saskatchewan's booming economy.

There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to attract people from Ireland, or from anywhere else for that matter, who want to come here and help address Saskatchewan's shortage of skilled labour.

If the goal is to attract newcomers who provide an immediate contribution to the economy and will make a long-term commitment to staying, there's even an argument that the transition would be easier for white, English-speaking Europeans with similar job training and educational backgrounds as we find in Canada. This might be especially so in the case of less diverse, smaller Saskatchewan communities. Currently, about 70 per cent of new immigrants wind up in Regina or Saskatoon.

But the lesson we should have learned 100 years ago, during the province's first great immigration wave, is that if you open your doors to the world, you forfeit control over who you are inviting. And the notion that you can, or even would want to, micromanage your immigration policy to the extent of having politicians travel across the ocean to find specific skilled workers for a few specific employers seems wrong-headed.

Saskatchewan's foremost statistician Doug Elliott, who was in the United Arab Emirates this fall to provide its government with help on its job-related immigration issues, wonders about the Wall government's strategy in targeting Ireland. He acknowledges the downturn in the Irish economy, particularly in its housing market that has seen entire subdivisions of new homes left empty (similar to hard-hit parts of the United States such as Phoenix).

While Elliott notes that it made sense to recruit tradespeople and truck drivers from Russia and Ukraine, and nurses from the Philippines - whose policy is to train more nurses than it needs so they can work abroad and send support money home - it makes less sense to target Irish workers.

Immigrants who come from traditionally depressed areas are more likely to remain, he notes, while those coming from places such as Ireland are more likely to return to their homelands when things improve.

Of course, this would make this a good recruitment policy if the only objective is to meet short-term needs. But that's certainly not what the Wall government is saying about this exercise.

Immigration Minister Rob Norris said in an interview Wednesday that construction companies are one group interested in Irish employees. However, the Saskatchewan delegation, expected to go to Ireland in March, also will be seeking health sciences workers and engineers at the Irish job fairs. Norris also emphasized the desire to have these immigrants become permanent Saskatchewan citizens.

Certainly, one can appreciate the government's eagerness to lend assistance when it also can address a local problem of some degree. But Norris is only talking about 75 to 100 jobs he hopes the delegates can offer.

Is a government trade mission really necessary for that, and is it even the government's role in our free market economy?

Does a government need to spend valuable public resources on an immigration recruitment project that sounds as if it's mostly about meeting the niche needs of some construction companies?

With First Nation unemployment far exceeding 14 per cent in Saskatchewan, one might think the government needs a grander view of this issue. Shouldn't First Nations people with bleak employment prospects be its foremost priority?

There's certainly nothing wrong with politicians doing what they can to help with what clearly is a problem of some degree. But this government especially finds itself getting into trouble when it starts focusing on the problems of like-minded supporters without first considering broader-based policy issues. Its recent foray into more financial support for private Christian schools at the potential expense of the public education system is a good example.

The welcome mat should be there for everyone.

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The changing face of Canadian diversity

By Douglas Todd, Special to the Sun January 6, 2012

The common wisdom, from Italy to the United States, is that resistance to immigration magnifies in direct correlation to how much a country’s citizens struggle economically.

There are increasing signs that hard thinking is beginning to play out in Canada, which has the highest immigration rate per capita in the world — and which is now, along with the rest of the globe, undergoing financial strains.

Polls have long shown that Canadians, more than residents of any other country, believe that high immigration is “good for the economy.”

But signs of wariness are appearing. A recent Nanos poll found four out of five Canadians either want immigration levels to stay the same or decrease.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, since the May election, has been responding by acting tougher. He’s banned face-covering veils during citizenship ceremonies, required more thorough knowledge of English or French among prospective immigrants, spoken out against marriages of convenience and frozen immigration applications from parents and grandparents.

What’s behind the shift in the social wind? Numerous surveys are showing average Canadian families are taking a financial hit. It now takes two parents to match the pay packet of a single working person three decades ago. The gap between rich and poor keeps expanding, with young B.C. couples especially seeing a drop in their incomes since 1976.

In this context, Canadians, especially Metro residents, can expect to see certain immigration issues gain extra attention in the next year and beyond. Just as Europeans and Americans are becoming more outspoken about immigration issues, expect Canadians to become openly animated about the five following topics:

1. Ethnic enclaves expanding

The history of Canadian immigration is predominantly urban. The vast majority of immigrants move to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, in that order.

In each of these major cities immigrants have increasingly been creating ethnic enclaves, which Statistics Canada defines as neighbourhoods in which more than 30 per cent of the population is a visible minority.

Tens of thousands of Metro Vancouver residents are among those who each year quietly make their housing choices based in part on whether they will feel comfortable with the cultural and ethnic makeup of a particular neighbourhood.

Canada had only six ethnic enclaves in 1976. Now Metro Vancouver alone has more than 110. Many neighbourhoods in Richmond are more than 70 per cent Chinese, while others in north Surrey are 70 per cent South Asian. Meanwhile, many neighbourhoods in Tsawwassen, south Surrey and the North Shore remain predominantly white.

Metro Vancouver residents continue for the most part to get along. But the noted Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam is among many researchers who are finding, to their regret, that trust levels tend to decline when a city is composed of enclaves.

Optimists, however, maintain that mono-ethnic neighbourhoods break down over generations, as the offspring of immigrants gain the emotional strength to move into more diverse areas.

Whatever the case, expect the subject of ethnic enclaves, once only whispered about, to be discussed more overtly in coming years.

2. Canadians will heighten debate over the “limits of tolerance”

When Canada’s immigration minister heard in December that some Muslim women were refusing to take off their niqabs or burkas at citizenship ceremonies, he immediately declared they must reveal their faces if they want to become Canadians.

Except for some Muslim activists, few Canadians complained. Even though Kenney has spent years wooing Canadian immigrants to vote Conservative by attending hundreds of ethnic and religious banquets, the devout Catholic was likely aware his move would be applauded in a country where polls show Muslims are not as popular as Christians, Jews or Buddhists.

Similarly, many Canadians are suspicious about some forms of arranged international marriages. Kenney is being praised for taking a rhetorical hard-line against marriages of convenience, those difficult-to-prosecute frauds in which would-be immigrants jump to the front of the queue by pretending to be committed to a Canadian citizen.

Although arranged marriages often stand the test of time, expect Canadians to become more critical of immigrants who try to bring certain illiberal customs to this northern nation — including in some cases institutionalized homophobia, genital mutilation, domestic abuse, polygamy and gender inequality.

3. More economic anxieties will boil to the surface

Kenney is not the only politician publicly worrying about immigration. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson this year openly lamented how wealthy new immigrants were making city housing unaffordable for his children and countless others.

But housing prices are responsible for only one of many immigrant-related economic problems. For instance, studies show new immigrants are, on average, not doing as well as they were two decades ago.

University of B.C. economist Thomas Lemieux is among those warning that the declining financial fortunes of new immigrants are spilling over to the entire population.

For all Canadians, says Lemieux, the gap is growing between the financially well-off and those with low incomes. The wealthiest Canadians, Lemieux says, “have doubled their share of the pie” in the past 15 years.

Both new Canadians, and homegrown ones, would most benefit from easier access to education, Lemieux maintains. But that will require major policy reforms.

“What’s getting the most expensive in Canada?” Lemieux asks rhetorically.

“In the past 15 years it has not been TVs or cars. It's actually education. It may be discouraging lots of people from going to school.”

4. Temporary foreign workers will be spotlighted

Metro Vancouver’s 80,000 diligent Filipinos form the centre of a growing concern over temporary foreign workers. Since taking office in 2005, the Conservative government has hiked the numbers of these short-term foreign workers from 160,000 in 2006 to 283,000 in 2010.

Although temporary foreign workers have traditionally been brought into fill short-term skills shortages, they are increasingly being welcomed into the country to do unskilled, low-wage jobs like farm labour.

In a rare display of agreement, economists from both the centre-left Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and centre-right Fraser Institute have come out against the rise in temporary foreign workers, many of whom are from the Philippines.

Both sides of the spectrum say the over-use of temporary foreign workers is lowering overall wages, hurting productivity and, perhaps most importantly, discouraging Canadians and landed immigrants from upgrading their skills.

University of B.C. planning specialist Prod Laquian, who has Filipino heritage, adds another dimension to this thorny issue. He is among those who points out it is often devastating for developing countries to lose their more industrious citizens to richer countries such as Canada.

5. Inter-ethnic relationships are growing

Ending on a positive note, it is becoming ever more common to see couples of mixed ethnicity holding hands, dining out or playing with their offspring in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Canadians’ boast of building a true multicultural society — characterized by creative dialogue and a new synthesis of cultures — will not occur through just our legendary niceness, which can sometimes mask distance and superficiality.

Authentic inter-ethnic bonding occurs when people can honestly face real social tensions, including some of those outlined here. Inter-ethnic relationships, which continue to be on the rise, may be the best way to help us cross these cultural boundaries.

As Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam has discovered, fondness between people of different backgrounds, religions and world views is most likely to swell when we take the risk of getting to know others — as friends, lovers, teammates or family.

dtodd@vancouversun.com

Blog: www.vancouversun.com/thesearch

Twitter:@douglastodd

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