Integration must be immigration's first principle.
Immigration must be focused first on building a stronger and more united Canadian people, full stop.
Before the House of Commons rose in June, a senior official with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and delivered what many in his field believe is a perfectly reasonable statement.
“Immigration policy is an economic policy,” the official asserted.
The reaction among Conservative members of the committee was disbelief.
To be fair, in years past this statement would not have caused anyone to bat an eye. But after a decade of Liberal immigration policy that drove numbers far beyond what housing, healthcare, and the job market could sustain, and institutionalizing policy that was bent on erasing Canadian national identity, the testimony from that official was remarkably tone deaf.
That’s because it notably lacked any recognition that while Canada’s immigration system has been viewed primarily as a means of supplying labour for business or students for colleges and universities, this approach is not sustainable. Given the pressures that recent mass immigration has placed on the country, the immigration system’s primary purpose must now be immediately retooled to build the Canadian people and sustain the nation’s identity.
That means the federal Liberal government must be made to view the first principle of Canada’s immigration system as integration, because a nation that treats citizenship and residency as a commodity and regards integration as optional will not remain a nation for long.
To illustrate this point, at some point over the last several decades, Canadian governments lost the plot on the first principle of housing, which is to provide shelter. Today, most government housing policy still primarily treats housing primarily as a financial asset or investment. Far lower on the list of priorities is enabling an abundance of shelter and the stability it brings to families. This has brought a whole host of societal problems to the country.
The same goes for immigration. Over the last decade, the safeguards in the immigration system that once prevented bringing in too many people too quickly were systemically dismantled by the federal Liberals. This included removing safeguards like far lower caps on overall intake levels, stricter rules on the issuance of temporary work permits, stricter pre-entry screening, stronger language proficiency standards, and measures to dissuade the abuse of Canada’s asylum system. Those safeguards existed to ensure sufficient capacity for successful integration of all newcomers into Canada’s inclusive, and tolerant social fabric - or, to protect Canada’s high-trust society from deterioration. It should have come as no surprise to the Liberals that major problems would follow once they watered them down.
What the concept of integration in a Canadian national identity looks like in practice also used to be clear, but after a decade of policy that was designed to erode it, is now much less so. But that doesn’t mean it is now impossible to define. In fact, the foundational concepts of Canada’s national identity and what it means to be Canadian are still clearly laid out in Canada’s citizenship guide. As the citizenship guide suggests, Canada’s national identity should be considered to be rooted in the democratic institutions of its constitutional monarchy, an ordered liberty and pluralism grounded in the principles of peace, order and good government.
Newcomers were once eager to accept this identity when deciding to come to Canada. This used to mean abandoning any violent, extreme or hateful prejudices upon entry. It meant committing to obey the rule of law and uphold shared Canadian rights, including freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, and the equality of women and men. It meant acknowledging that Canada’s three founding peoples are Aboriginal, French and British. It meant learning one of Canada’s two official languages, recognizing that a common language is a societal unifier. And it meant accepting the expectation to be, or rapidly become, financially independent while contributing to the building and sustaining of Canada’s free and democratic pluralism for future generations. (All of these principles remain in the citizenship guide, too).
These expectations should form the baseline required of immigrants to our country. These principles are deliberately designed to transcend religion and ethnicity. At their foundation, they affirm that it does not matter what deity you pray to or what the colour of your skin is: if you choose to embrace these principles and abandon any that conflict with them, you can become Canadian.
But the opposite should also be considered true. If these rules are not fully embraced by newcomers, consequences must be enforced, or we risk the unravelling of Canada’s social contract. Fundamentally, the main reason why the consensus on immigration in Canada has deteriorated so rapidly is not only about the overall too-high levels of immigration in the country, but more so about Liberal changes to the system which has allowed an increasing number of newcomers to thumb their noses at these principles.
For example, the Liberals’ continued dogmatic refusal to amend Canada’s Criminal Code to ensure that non-citizens convicted of serious crimes face the longstanding immigration consequence of deportation signals that it is acceptable to disobey the rule of law. Their tolerance of fraud within the immigration system signals that it is open season for abuse. The Liberals’ continued provision of luxury benefits to failed asylum claimants signals that there is no obligation to become financially self-sufficient, and that the abuse of Canada’s asylum system is a legitimate path to entry.
The Liberals’ lowering of language knowledge standards signalled that a common language is not necessary for national unity or to fully participate in Canadian society. The Liberals’ prioritization of business groups that profit from large numbers of low-skilled temporary foreign workers signals that it’s okay for Canada to develop a caste system of labour. Their tolerance of violent foreign ideology has led to increases in acts of hate perpetrated on Canadian soil, particularly towards the Jewish community. Their abysmal screening processes have allowed agents of terrorist regimes to enter Canada and normalize and spread violent foreign ideology and gang activity within Canada’s borders. The Liberals’ recent Bill C-3, which allows Canadian citizenship to be passed down ad infinitum to people with no significant connection to Canada, erodes the value of Canadian citizenship. Their attempt to erase Canada’s national symbols says there was no national identity for newcomers to integrate into to begin with. And their decision to bring in too many people too quickly for jobs, housing, healthcare and other social supports to keep pace has led to scarcity and its negative competitive consequences.
But the most damaging part of a decade of Liberal destruction of the true first principle of Canada’s immigration system is the impact on people who came to Canada and upheld their end of the deal. These folks comprise the vast, overwhelming majority of immigrants to our country. When the Liberals allow others to get away with breaking the rules, they risk entire communities getting tarred with the same brush.
This is why Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent false claim that “they have taken back control of immigration” is so dangerous. The lived experience of many Canadians says otherwise. On any given morning there is another major story of the system failing (today was no different).
And integration metrics still do not drive immigration policy.
The good news is that this state of affairs is reversible, which is why Canada’s Conservatives have spent the past year proposing major legislative and policy changes. Rules must be enforced, and the safeguards that once ensured Canada’s immigration system prioritized building the Canadian people and our national identity must be restored. Expect more to come in the fall.
Immigration policy that forgets its first duty - to build and strengthen the Canadian people - will eventually unmake the country it claims to serve.
That cannot be allowed to come to pass.