Peter Menzies: Future Decisions on Canada’s Immigration Levels Will Be Critically Important

Commentary

When even recent immigrants think Canada has been absorbing too many immigrants, we learn at least two things.

One is that there’s a good chance Canada’s immigration levels—at least those unleashed during the years when Justin Trudeau was prime minister—have been beyond the country’s ability to absorb. By that I mean the capacity to employ newcomers, house them, educate their children—particularly if they don’t speak either of Canada’s official languages—and provide them with health care and other public services.

The second is that just because one thinks immigration levels have been unsustainable and need to return to more traditional levels, it doesn’t mean that view is fuelled by racism, an accusation commonly levelled by the left. The suspicion, while generally unfounded, might be understandable given the nation’s primary sources of immigration over the past 10 years.

Those source countries are: India with 941,000 permanent residents, the Philippines with 332,000, China at 299,000, Nigeria with 136,000, and Syria at 119,000. Those are the top five, anyway. In recent years, Cameroon, which is French-speaking, has become competitive with Nigeria, while other leading immigration source countries include France, Eritrea, and Pakistan.

So it’s certainly possible that some people within the legacy population, a little more than half of which has European heritage, is feeling a sense of cultural dislocation which could articulate itself in racist sentiment.

But there’s not a lot of evidence of that in a recent Environics poll on the topic that showed people who are either in the category of “racialized” or who are first-generation immigrants actually are more inclined than white people to be critical of the current immigration system.

This pattern was consistent through three key questions asked by Environics.

• Asked if they agreed with the statement “Canada accepts too many immigrants from racial minority groups,” 38 percent of non-white Canadians agreed compared with 34 percent of white Canadians.
• As for the statement “there is too much immigration,” 51 percent of non-white Canadians agreed compared with 47 percent of white Canadians.
• And 60 percent of non-white Canadians agreed with the statement “too many immigrants are not adopting Canadian values,” which was slightly more than the 57 percent of the white people polled.

The poll also indicated that there is a huge spread between Liberal Party supporters and Conservative Party supporters, with 80 percent of the latter believing immigration levels are too high compared to 36 percent of the former.

So, one of the things we learned is that concern about immigration isn’t something based on racial identity, at least according to Environics. What that should be able to facilitate is a mature, sensible conversation about immigration and its future.

The other thing we learned is that, notwithstanding the data showing concerns regarding recent trends are shared across all races, Liberals are probably going to continue to try to accuse Conservatives of racism, ethnicism, and xenophobia when the topic of immigration comes up.

As the Environics report notes, “Over the past two years, agreement that there is too much immigration to Canada has edged downward among supporters of the Liberal Party and the NDP, as well as among undecided voters.”

So, where there’s a gap there’s likely to be a wedge, and where there’s a wedge there’s likely to be a hammer. All that despite the fact that both parties have worked hard to build support among groups of new Canadians.

Former Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, in a post on X, called the results of the poll “Not at all surprising.”

“In my five years as Immigration Minister, we consistently found that all of our challenging reforms were supported by immigrants more than people born in Canada,” he wrote before listing a number of actions taken during his time in that office.

As I argued in a previous column, Canadian birth rates continue to decline, which means that, economically and culturally, the country is more dependent than ever on immigration. The decisions we make in the coming months and years about how many immigrants we bring in will be critically important.

Even more crucial will be the decisions about the expectations we place upon those newcomers. Will they be expected to accept and adapt to currently prevalent Canadian social mores, or will they be invited to live their new lives in Canada consistent with the accepted practices of their homeland? In other words, who will be adapting to whom, or will we be splitting it down the middle? We are, after all, dependent on each other.

It’s an important conversation that needs to be conducted in an adult fashion. Hopefully it can now be had without overwrought accusations of racism.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.