Photo by Lester Chung.
As Canada prepares to celebrate its national holiday, the country finds itself no longer one of the top five countries in terms of policies that promote immigrant integration, according to the latest report by European think-tank Migration Policy Group.
Yet policy is only one part of the story, says Alden Habacon, director of UBC’s Intercultural Understanding Strategy Development. The way Canadians support and treat newcomers, who in turn give back to their adopted homeland, makes a huge difference.
“Policy doesn’t tell how people live and interact with each other,” Habacon says. “What’s just as important is how policy is implemented on the social level. The most important question is: what does it mean to be a good neighbour?”
Policy: on paper versus on the ground
The Migration Policy Group’s report uses 167 policy indicators to assess nations in several areas of immigration policy, such as labour market mobility, access to education and healthcare, anti-discrimination laws and political participation. The previous edition of the report, published in 2011, ranked Canada 3rd behind Sweden and Portugal. This year’s shows Canada falling to 6th place, losing points due to delays and greater restrictions to citizenship and family reunification.
“My concern is it goes to the core of our Canadian identity. Canada is built by immigrants. When we are not as welcoming to our newcomers, we are denying our own identity,” said Ryerson professor Harald Bauder to Toronto Star last month.
But despite Canada’s slide, Habacon thinks that Canada is still nevertheless a global leader in being inclusive compared to other countries.
“The report is meaningful as it validates our feelings that Canadian policy is becoming more closed, but at the same time, it doesn’t measure the social climate,” Habacon says.
Although Portugal ranked higher than Canada in both the 2011 and 2015 editions of the report, Habacon recalled an anecdote about how Portuguese scholars at an immigration conference in Portugal considered second and third generation Portuguese-born to still be immigrants, and not Portuguese. It was only in 2006 that citizenship was legally extended to Portuguese citizens of ethnic descent in that country.
Habacon thought the difference between Canadian and Portuguese attitudes towards immigrants was striking since it could create feelings of exclusion that are not easily captured on paper.
“No matter how many generations you’ve lived in Portugal, you’d never be considered Portuguese. Within one generation of living in Canada, you would be Canadian. And within two, you could forget where you came from!” says Habacon.
Resources and obstacles
Government initiatives across Metro Vancouver aim to smooth the transition for newcomers by creating more inclusive workplaces, promoting civic engagement and improving settlement services like employment, healthcare and language training.
But perhaps just as important are addressing the intangible barriers and challenges newcomers continue to face: learning soft skills and building social capital. Plenty of newcomers come to Canada equipped with technical skills, but lacking the less tangible assets –
street smarts, workplace savviness, cultural etiquette, a network of social relationships – needed to find and keep employment.
“When employers ask newcomers whether they have ‘Canadian’ work experience what that means is do you have the soft skills – the cultural know-how to get along with everybody to be a good fit,” says Habacon. “And where can they get this from? There are a lot more English language programs than there are Canadian soft skill programs.”
In addition, with the growing number of visible minority Canadians, there is an emerging kind of integration challenge for newcomers: a perceived tension between Canadian born and raised and newer Canadians of the same ethnic group. On paper, it seems that these ethnic Canadian communities ought to form a natural connection between newcomers and multi-generational Canadians. But Habacon sees the reality isn’t quite as simple as that.
“The way that Canadian born students have explained it to me is that they’ve spent their whole youth disassociating themselves from the immigrant stereotype that to associate with newcomers would feel like a step backwards,” says Habacon.
Habacon thinks finding ways to overcome these many social barriers is the ongoing challenge for 21st century Canadian immigration integrative thinking.
Giving back to the community
One group of newcomers has tried to learn the intangibles while at the same time giving back to their new community.
In 2014, Leon Luo and Sumi Li founded Young Artists in Action (YAA), a youth philanthropy project dedicated to helping young artists showcase their work, as a way of honing their artistic skills, making connections with fellow young artists and donating the proceeds of their art to charity.
“The purpose of our very first art exhibition was to exchange youths’ different perspectives of arts, serving as a mean of communication between young artists,” says Luo who immigrated in 2011.
After hosting a few art exhibitions at UBC, Luo, along with fellow artist Li, decided to make YAA a long-term project.
They approached MOSAIC for assistance, who were happy to help the pair with their presentation and logistical skills to apply for grants at the Vancouver Foundation and secure space at Emily Carr University for their exhibition, the proceeds from which will support the David Suzuki Foundation. Last May, they hosted Burgeon, an art exhibition which raised over $2000.
“I was impressed by these youth’s talents, vision, as well as their strong sense of giving back to the community,” says Khim Tan, a senior manager at MOSAIC Settlement Services. “We are so fortunate to have these newcomers with bountiful talents who make Metro Vancouver their new homes.”
