[MEETUP]

I'm a lumberjack, and you're not
Aug 3rd 2006 | OTTAWA
From The Economist

Who is a real Canadian? The evacuation from Lebanon prompts a debate


IN A country composed almost entirely of immigrants or their descendants, defining what it means to be Canadian is often the subject of heated debate. Tempers have flared over whether Sikh Mounties (national police) may wear turbans, whether Jews in Quebec may build huts on their balconies to celebrate the festival of Sukkot and whether religious groups, including Catholics, Mennonites, Jews and Muslims, may arbitrate disputes involving family law in Ontario. (The answers are yes, yes and no.)

A new and ugly chapter in this argument began in July after Israel's war against Hizbullah in Lebanon forced an evacuation of foreigners. Were all the 13,000 holders of Canadian passports ferried to safety at taxpayers' expense real Canadians? Or were some, as Garth Turner, a member of Parliament from the government's backbenches, insisted on his website, “Canadians of convenience”, who had returned to live in Lebanon after meeting Canada's three-year residence requirement for citizenship and who “should hardly expect taxpayers here to gladly fly [sic] them across the world”?

Mr Turner's outburst echoed across newspapers, television and the internet. “Does Canadian citizenship mean anything?” asked Jack Lawrence Granatstein, a prominent historian. Perhaps it is too easy to obtain it, suggested Jeffrey Simpson, a columnist. Stephen Harper, the prime minister, has tried to calm the furore by promising to review dual citizenship.

That Canada, which prides itself on its multicultural make-up, is having this debate may seem strange. About 1m Canadians are of aboriginal stock; the other 31m either came from somewhere else or are descendants of someone who did. One reason for the fuss lies in changing immigration patterns. Until the early 1960s immigration law explicitly preferred Europeans to “black and Asiatic races”. With racist provisions now removed, most immigrants are from Asia and the Middle East. But ending legally sanctioned racism has not pulled up all its roots.

Not all the suspicions are racist, though. A growing number of immigrants choose to keep their former citizenship. Of the 5.5m Canadians born abroad, 560,000 declared in the most recent census that they hold passports from another country. This feeds the belief that some are using Canada as a safety-net. In the approach to the British handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, many Hong Kong Chinese emigrated to Canada, were granted citizenship and then went back. Today some 200,000 people in Hong Kong hold Canadian citizenship. The discovery in June that 17 members of immigrant communities were plotting terrorist attacks had already sparked doubts about some newcomers' commitment to their adopted country.

Unless he handles his review carefully, Mr Harper risks alienating actual and potential immigrants. Those already in Canada are concentrated in big cities, where his Conservatives fared poorly in January's general election. Mr Harper wants their votes to turn his minority government into a majority one. Potential immigrants are being wooed to ease growing labour shortages, particularly in the west. That is one reason why Canada admits around 240,000 immigrants a year, most of whom eventually become citizens. Would the highly skilled come if it meant severing their connections to home?

Canada is far from the only country to grapple with the complexities of dual citizenship. Around 90 countries, including the United States, allow it. Unlike Canada, though, the United States requires its citizens to pay American taxes no matter where they live. If Canadians did the same, they might grumble less about the cost of rescuing their embattled brethren from Lebanon.

[888]

HI, I just came back from Vacation. Is the Canadian Constitution being changed within last couple of weeks? If it is not, real Canadian , I thought , still means someone who holds the citizenship card or Canadian passport. Is that right?

[Steve]

I do not read The Economist because it is mostly written by unbearable smart asses out of touch with reality.

To me a Canadian citizen is someone who holds a passport. Many people have Canadian passports who have no sense of commitment or sense of belonging to Canada whatsoever. I do not identify with these people. It does not matter whether they are Scottish, or Serbian or Chinese or Sikh, Israeli or Lebanese at heart. All I care about is that they are not Canadian at heart. We can afford to have a certain percentage of these people, maybe 20% maximum.

A Canadian at heart, the kind that I identify with, have their first loyalty to Canadian, whether they live here or not. Their ancestry may be anything, or any combination of anecestries. It does not matter. They need not even have been born here. These are the people that are committed to Canada. There are the people that I identify with. They shoud never be allowed to constitute less than 80% of the population or we will be in trouble in Canada.

Harper is right on this one.

[888]

Canada is always generous.When the money was donated to Tsunami Area, no one said no; when the money was sent to rescue the Canadian Passport holder , Someone or many people overreacted. It' s so wired .

[Steve]

888 _BBCODE_WROTE:

Canada is always generous.When the money was donated to Tsunami Area, no one said no; when the money was sent to rescue the Canadian Passport holder , Someone or many people overreacted. It' s so wired .

Tsunami relief was a humanitarian response. The rescue of Canadian passport holders was presented as an obligation because these people had passports. We need to decide what the obligation of the Canadian state is to these people, and what these people's obligations are to the Canadian state.

We do not rescue and bring to Canada all people in distress all over the world. We do in some cases help people who are not Canadian, Vietnamese refugees, Albanian refugees etc.

The question here is the rights of a Canadian passport holder who has no commitment to Canada. I am favour of clearly establishing limits.

[bcjobs]

Steve _BBCODE_WROTE:

I do not read The Economist because it is mostly written by unbearable smart asses out of touch with reality. To me a Canadian citizen is someone who holds a passport. Many people have Canadian passports who have no sense of commitment or sense of belonging to Canada whatsoever. I do not identify with these people. It does not matter whether they are Scottish, or Serbian or Chinese or Sikh, Israeli or Lebanese at heart. All I care about is that they are not Canadian at heart. We can afford to have a certain percentage of these people, maybe 20% maximum. A Canadian at heart, the kind that I identify with, have their first loyalty to Canadian, whether they live here or not. Their ancestry may be anything, or any combination of anecestries. It does not matter. They need not even have been born here. These are the people that are committed to Canada. There are the people that I identify with. They shoud never be allowed to constitute less than 80% of the population or we will be in trouble in Canada. Harper is right on this one.

So what are some of the specific actions that could identify someone as a "Canadian at heart"?

[Steve]

There are few such specific actions. Mostly it is a matter of attitude. We should not go around as a society and try to determine who is or is not a Canadian heart. But we should encourage people to identify as Canadian.

This does not mean government coercion. It should mean putting an end to official multiculturalism which implies that ancestral attachments are more important than Canadian attachments. It should mean recognizing that more and more Canadians just want to be Canadian, without hyphen and that the natural assimilation of different people is as much a part of Canada's history as of the history of the US and other immigrant receiving societies. It means recognizing that the European origin, North American influenced, English speaking culture that we share in English Canada is ours. It may not be unique, but it is ours. Other cultures are not equal in Canada, they are peripheral, ultimately fossilized and not enduring.

It means requiring people to choose between their Canadian citizenship and other citizenships. (No more dual passports).

There are some actions that are clearly not those of a Canadian at heart. It is clear that someone who comes to Canada just long enough to get a passport and returns to his country of origin to live, is not committed to Canada.

[bcjobs]

I always got this blank stare for half a second when I told Americans that I am a Canadian. When I said the same thing in China, some people reacted quite negatively. I guess it's not unusual for immigrants to simultaneously feel at home yet somewhat alienated in their native AND resident countries.

Having lived in many parts of the world, I’d like to think that I am a resident of earth. I want to be identified by what I do to serve the world instead of where I was born or which country I got my passport from.

"Man does not belong to his language or to his race, he belongs to himself alone, for he is a free being, a moral being." Maybe a man doesn’t belong to his country as well?

[Steve]

In 1969 I was in China, at the Canton Trade Fair. I was a Canadian government Trade Comissioner. One of my duties was to entertain Canadian businessmen in my hotel room for a happy hour every evening after business hours. Many of the Canadians were either people of Eastern European Jewish origin or of Chinese origin. One businessman by the name of Wilson, showed me the card of one of the Canadians. "Hortobaggy" he said with disgust, "what kind of Canadian name is that?" I wondered what kind of a Canadian name he thought Kaufmann was.

We no longer get that today. We do not question the Canadianness of people with non-anglo or non-french names. Some people do not yet recognize Chinese names or faces, or Indian names or faces as fully Canadian, but these people are a minority. The more we see people of Asian origin in business, in politics or in the media or in sports, and the more young people go to school together and even marry each other, different physical features will be no more important than different family names.

Our identity is partly what we feel about ourselves and partly how others see us. Increasingly Canadian see themselves as Canadians. I cannot assume that someone who looks Chinese wants to be identified as Chinese or Chinese-Canadian, although that is also a possiblity. He/she may prefer to just be Canadian. Their choice, not mine.

To me, and to more and more Canadians, especially the young in school, we just accept everyone as Canadian, who wants to be. But if we are constantly being told by multiculturalism that he/she is different, of a different culture, then we start to assume that someone who looks different is different. An unfortunate trend. I guess individuals will make their own choices.

[MEETUP]

I find some articles from The Economist that are pleasant to read. Unless there is a really good topic invites me to buy a print copy, I usually skim through the free newsletter and pick up a few free online articles once in a while.

Conformity is such a huge thing in many cultures. Chinese culture is one as I know. It is so huge that most of Chinese don't even recognized. It is not unusual to hear a "naturalized" Canadian of Chinese descent, who's been living in Canada over many years (how about 10+), to attribute his/her appearance more to being Chinese. A lot of times, it is very difficult to tell if that's a matter of heart, a matter of culture, or a simple matter of conformity.

By and large, Americans will not reason a person as a foreigner if the person speaks English well with American accent. If I meet a guy anywhere in this planet, who speaks English with a non-North American accent, and who tells me he is Canadian, I don't have a problem to give him a half second stare if I can't manage to hide it.