Is Canada ‘a country of immigrants?’

The saying that Canada is a “country of immigrants” is as commonplace as they come. It ranks up there with hockey, the Mounties and niceness as part of the perceived national identity.

But does it stand up to scrutiny? A former Canadian diplomat and specialist on immigration believes it is a somewhat misleading phrase. He makes an interesting case that the first waves of newcomers to Canada were settlers, not immigrants. And to him there’s a significant difference.

Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador in Asia and the Middle East, says some people who claim Canada is a “country of immigrants” do so to imply high immigration “is part of our national identity and, unless we continue to bring in large numbers of newcomers, our country will not really remain the Canada that we know and cherish.”

Collacott acknowledges there were times in our history when it made sense to have high levels of immigration — as in the early part of the 20th century when we needed to settle the West “before Americans drifted across the border and did it for us.”

But the Vancouver resident, who is with the increasingly influential Centre for Canadian Immigration Policy Reform, goes against the conventional grain when he says there have been other times “when high intake has not made sense – as, for example, during the Great Depression and during times of recession in more recent years.”

Setting aside the argument that aboriginals were here tens of thousands of years before European settlers, Collacott takes umbrage with a second usage of the phrase, “Canada is a country of immigrants.”

And that is when it’s trotted out “in defence of multiculturalism – the idea being that, if we are a country of immigrants, none of us should be able to claim primacy for our cultural values and traditions.

“It is particularly on this point where I invoke the fact that we began as a country of settlers or colonists in that people came from Britain and France and brought with them the traditions and values from those countries. Immigrants came later and from a much wider range of source countries.

“The task of immigrants as distinct from settlers is to adapt to the culture already in existence in their new homeland – rather than to expect that they will preserve intact the traditions and values of their countries of origin, as was the case with the settlers.”

Collacott has a Vietnamese wife and children of mixed race, and, despite his association with the Fraser Institute, his political and economic views do not fall neatly into categories of right and left. He is, for instance, opposed to the near-doubling of temporary foreign workers coming to Canada under the Conservatives; saying they lower wages and reduce governments’ incentives to train Canadians. And he readily agrees that Canadian culture is not static.

“It is, indeed, constantly evolving and in many cases becoming more interesting and richer as a result of contributions made by newcomers. It does, however, mean that immigrants have to do most of the adapting to what is already here rather than vice versa.”

Is Canada a country of immigrants?

Or is it more complicated than that? Could it be more accurate to say Canada is a country of settlers, colonists, aboriginals and immigrants?

Original Article
Source: vancouver sun
Author:  Douglas Todd