Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 25th, 2007

[John Ralston Saul]

I was, probably.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We only have approximately ten minutes left, so the chair will use his discretion to try to get as many people in as possible.

We'll have Mr. Karygiannis.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Saul, you talked about a discussion on citizenship and what citizenship is all about. My fear is that with Canada's new government—they are afraid to use the word “Conservative” because they don't want to use the old brand, and we all know what this is—I'm not sharpening the knives here, Parliamentary Secretary Komarnicki. My fear is that once we start opening the dialogue of citizenship and what is citizenship, we might give Canada's Conservative government the opportunity to say that if you're out of the country for a couple of years, too bad, so sad, you're not a citizen any more. We all remember what happened last summer with the Lebanon crisis, where there were certain individuals who certainly spoke out, and they had bitter tastes in their mouths about people who might have been out of the country for five or six years, and they said you're no longer a citizen.

I'm sure Mr. Chapman will probably jump up and down when he's given citizenship and hopefully some time we'll be able to resolve this, and maybe the Prime Minister will do the honourable thing and step up to the plate and ask for forgiveness from the lost Canadians.

My whole fear with that is that when we start opening this can of worms that's called “what is citizenship”, we're going to have people from all sides coming and saying you don't live in this country and you shouldn't be a citizen. I'm just wondering if you, on behalf of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, could comment on that.

[John Ralston Saul]

You know, I don't really worry too much about that. The danger in a public debate, as you know, being an elected member to Parliament, is when it breaks down into black and white, for and against, the Manichean division.

I think that there is a pretty good consensus in the country that our ideas of citizenship are tied to an idea of inclusion in justice, and that's another word, “inclusion”, that I think is really important in our history. When you look at the Lebanese crisis, it went through, as I remember it, about three phases. The first was the horror, then there was a little bit of what you're describing, which I felt came mostly from some newspapers that were asking whether these were really Canadian citizens—they don't live here. There was that kind of thing. It seemed to me to be an attempt to create a for-and-against argument of the sort that you fear. But what I found was that it just died away. It didn't get any pick-up from Canadian citizens. Canadians weren't interested in taking that kind of divisive approach on that issue. That was my impression.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm going to try to get in the four people I have here. I gave you three minutes, Mr. Karygiannis; I'll try the same thing for Mr. Gravel, Ms. Grewal, and Mr. Alghabra, and Mr. Wilson. A couple of minutes each, please.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I hope you can clarify something for me.

You mentioned three points earlier and talked about Canada's philosophic principle whereby an immigrant is deemed a citizen. You stated that Europe takes a different approach to citizenship.

[John Ralston Saul]

That's right.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

From a philosophic perspective, which is the best model? The European model, or the Canadian model? Is it critically important to transform our immigrants into citizens? Could you clarify your position on this matter? You did point this out, but—

[John Ralston Saul]

If we look at the differences of opinion in Europe on such matters as immigration and culture, we note that they are considerable. These stem in large part from the fact that there is a lack of clarity as to what the relationship is between an immigrant, a term that isn't clearly defined, and a citizen.

There are many positive points about the European continent, but its major weakness is precisely the approach Europeans have taken since the 1950s or 1960s to immigration and citizenship. Right now, they are trying to move in a different direction, but it's not been easy.

As I've stated, since Lafontaine's Address to the Electors of Terrebonne, I think we have abided by the same principle, namely that an immigrant and a citizen mean one and the same thing. There are simply two stages. Aside from the huge mistakes made in dealing with the Jews, the Chinese and other groups, this approach has served us very well. One of the most interesting things in Canada is the philosophical notion whereby immigrants are welcomed here so that they may become citizens. This is one of Canada's most lofty ideals.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Saul.

Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Saul, thank you so much for your very insightful comments.

While all of us know that the problem of so-called “lost Canadians” is not new, and it has been around since 1977, my question is very simple. When you and your wife, the former Governor General, went around, having these round tables, was this question of problems surrounding the Citizenship Act ever brought up?

[John Ralston Saul]

No, it was not, but again, that might have been that we were basically seeing new citizens, so they were part of this process of 250,000 new Canadians every year. It's such a big area in Canada. That's what they were talking about, and their concerns were things like not being able to work in the area for which they were trained, and loneliness.

My guess would be that a good 25% of the immigrant citizens would like to go to smaller cities, but in a sense, the structures lead them to bigger cities. I'm guessing 25%. We're really not set up to help them do that. They come from smaller communities. They want to go to smaller communities.

So, no, that was not brought up, but of course now that I've read all of your testimony, I'm going to be asking different people different questions and trying to understand it better.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Saul, for coming here. It's a very interesting conversation we're having here today. It's regrettable that we don't have enough time to carry on this conversation.

I got most of what I was interested in hearing from you regarding the lost Canadians file, but I have a question that I'd like to pose to you and hopefully hear your thoughts. I agree with you; I don't think we've had an extensive discussion on the meaning of citizenship responsibilities and obligations. And while I understand that there is some reluctance because of the fear of the unknown that might come out of the discussion, I am actually confident in the system and the institutions and the way we could carry on that debate, and I think we should have it.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic of debate or noise that's being made these days on reasonable accommodation. Can you share with us what your thoughts are on this concept? What do you take out of what you are hearing recently?

[John Ralston Saul]

First, on the fears that were expressed a little earlier, I think one of the reasons I don't have those fears is because, unlike Europe, which is the place where the most troubles are in terms of the democracies, we already have—look at this table—a lot of new Canadians in elected public positions, nominated public positions. We already have a critical mass, not enough, but a good start on involving the new waves of Canadians in Parliament, in the Senate, and in provincial legislatures. That changes the nature of the debate.

The problem in Europe is that they don't have that. They have sort of one person who's almost like a token, so they can't have a debate in a comfortable manner. They're very uncomfortable with it because it's the insiders and the outsiders.

On reasonable accommodation, when I said earlier that the interesting thing about Canadian citizenship was that it was both stable and moving all the time, every five to ten years we get some new wave from a different part of the world, and it changes all the time. There was an enormous argument when the Ukrainians and the Poles, and so on, came in the late 1930s, in the 20th century. There was a horrific debate, actually. We were far less sophisticated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Mr. Wilson, a quick question, please.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Okay, a quick question.

Mr. Saul, thank you very much for coming today. It has been a great discussion, and I agree with your analysis of the Canadian citizenship process as being a progressive, evolutionary process, and that we live in a country as physically diverse as the people it shelters.

The question that I have for you is this: What do you see as the biggest threat in the future facing Canadian citizenship?

[John Ralston Saul]

The biggest threat is unconsciousness. In other words, the biggest threat would be to be away out on this cutting edge, which I like and most of us want, but not really to be conscious of it, of how interesting it is what we're doing, how different it is, how original it is and therefore to really be thinking about how we can model it a little bit differently, how can we open more here and firm it up there?

For example, do we have people abroad in our embassies whose job it is to help educate new immigrants before they arrive about what it's going to be like in Canada? We don't. We need more people abroad doing that kind of thing. Do we have enough people teaching second languages in our schools? How many of our school boards and provincial governments now have cut back on what they call “soft programming”, which is now paid for by parents going out and raising money? Of course, you can only raise money in a middle-class neighbourhood, so who suffers? It is the poor neighbourhoods and the immigrant neighbourhoods. This is not a good thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I really wish we had more time.

Thank you, sir, on behalf of our committee. Thank you.

[John Ralston Saul]

Mr. Chair, I would just say that we would be very happy, and I know my wife would be very happy, to come back when we've done a little more work, in six months or a year, if you'd like us to. We'd love to come back and chat with you, if it's helpful to you. It would certainly be helpful to us, I'm sure, to hear your ideas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We would appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.