Thank you very much for inviting me to speak about Canadian citizenship and Bill C-6. I'm honoured to be here in my capacity as the executive director of the Mosaic Institute.
The Mosaic Institute is a think and do tank that was founded in 2007. Our mandate is to create platforms for learning and dialogue amongst diverse Canadian communities to advance justice and peace. Our initiatives are a combination of dialogue, research, education, and action, and all of our activities are community-grounded with an empirical approach.
Our work strengthens Canadian civil society through emphasizing respect for each other, respect for human rights, good global citizenship, and community development.
Today, my friends, I hope to de-sensationalize some of the ideas about those seeking Canadian citizenship and what it means to be a Canadian.
Before I do so, I'd like to share a bit of my family history, which has served as a backdrop for my work in the field for the last 30 years. I have a visceral understanding of the refugee and immigration experience simply because I was brought up in its shadow. I understand in the heart of my hearts the value and power of Canadian citizenship. Both my parents left their ancestral homes not because they wanted to, but as a result of anti-Semitism and persecution.
My late mother, Gertrude, was brought to Canada as a child, driven from her village of Zaslav in Ukraine by violent pogroms. Canada then was a welcoming home. Arriving at Pier 21 in Halifax must have been a daunting experience for a six-year old child fleeing violence, who spoke no English and knew nothing about Canada.
She took well to her new home. Ottawa in the late 1920s was a hodgepodge of diversity. Made up of recent refugees and immigrants, their familial Jewish home in Sandy Hill, not far from this very place, was not uncommon. The spoken language was Yiddish. My mother never really lost her accent, since she spoke Yiddish at home and only learned English when she went to public school. My mother and the rest of her family thrived in Ottawa, working at the small vegetable stall opened by my grandfather in the Byward Market.
My father, Max, and his family were not so fortunate. Just prior to World War II, a young man from a small Polish village saw what many others refused to see, the real possibility of a war in which Jews would be targeted by the Nazi regime. Wanting to live, he took matters into his own hands and through stealth and luck he managed to stow away on a boat headed to the United States.
Velvel Farber, my father's oldest brother, made it across the Atlantic. However, like many others before him, he was apprehended upon arrival and was returned to Poland. Velvel was murdered in the death camp of Treblinka. Indeed, my late father suffered the brutalities of the Holocaust. At its tragic conclusion he had to face the tragic fact that he was the sole Jewish survivor of a small Polish village. Murdered in Treblinka were his first wife, two young children, and seven brothers and sisters.
Once again, this time following a heartless closed-door immigration policy, made infamous by Harold Troper and Irving Abella in their book None is Too Many, Canada finally reopened its borders to the stateless people of Europe, amongst them thousands of Jewish survivors like my father.
Both of my parents' immigration experience and the work I am involved with today at the Mosaic Institute have informed my life. I have learned much that may be helpful to this committee.
First, people love being Canadian. Whether they arrived yesterday or have been here for generations, there is something about this country that simply inspires. Our work has proven that our diversity is one of the reasons people quickly ascribe to and adopt Canadian ways of life.
In 2014 the Mosaic Institute received a grant from Public Safety Canada's Kanishka fund to conduct a study titled “The Perception and Reality of 'Imported Conflict' in Canada”. This research was conducted as part of Public Safety Canada's efforts to shed light on terrorism and how best to address it in Canada.
We asked this question. To what extent, if any, do Canadians with connections to countries in conflict import that conflict to Canada? After surveying 5,000 Canadians across the country and speaking to more than 220 Canadians connected to countries in conflict, we determined that, for the most part, Canadians do not import their conflict here.
In fact, one-fifth of the people we surveyed told us that they were no longer as one-sided about their conflict, that being in Canada had helped them to be empathetic and recognize larger factors driving these conflicts.
One of the reasons given for this attitudinal shift is that people were able to connect with others who have experienced conflict. Essentially they realized that they were not alone. The shared element of being Canadian gives people a common ground and the foundation upon which to build their lives.
We have also found that when citizenship is achieved, it is treasured and harnessed. I say harnessed because it becomes a vehicle by which people's lives are improved, work is rewarded, people are safe, and access to education and other social services is available.
Comparatively, Canadians are fortunate and new Canadians are the first to recognize this; 94% of people we surveyed feel attached to Canada, with 78% considering themselves first and foremost Canadian. This is almost eight in 10 of those surveyed. More new Canadians supported this statement than second- and third-generation Canadians. This is resounding evidence that the majority of those seeking Canadian citizenship do become personally connected to this country and in doing so, decide to contribute richly to Canada.
Some will dismiss my statements because of recent tragic events in this country. To them, the fact that a person perpetrated such acts in a manner connected to other acts around the world must mean that the person came to Canada with the intention of harming this country. To those with this view I would respectfully disagree. However, our research indicates that while people do not import their conflicts, they do import their trauma. When this trauma is left unchecked, it can lead to social isolation and a dissociation from Canada, particularly when it is exacerbated by other barriers, such as discrimination and economic exclusion.
But when Canadians are able to fully participate in society not only do their lives improve, but they also help improve Canadian society as a whole.
