Evidence of meeting #51 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was security.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims) NDP Jinny Sims
Can we now give time for the answer, please?
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
—yes, sure—as Bill C-31 indicates, that there will be countries of safe origin, and therefore you wouldn't have status in terms of being able to apply, at least for an appeal.
4:30 p.m.
Professor, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
These are rich and complicated questions.
I think it is impossible to determine the reason for those individuals withdrawing their claim, because their claim was not adjudicated. We can make some guesses about why they withdrew their claim, but we cannot know. I think that logically it's just incorrect to say that those 2,000 people were fraudulent because they withdrew their claim.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
4:30 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims) NDP Jinny Sims
Can we just please give Professor Salter a chance to answer?
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I just don't want him to put words in my mouth, that's all.
4:30 p.m.
Professor, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
My apologies.
My understanding is that CIC does not discuss countries of safe origin anymore, but rather designated countries, in the way that they've adjudicated that.
It seems to me that we need to balance the profiling and the rule of law. As I understand Canada's international legal obligations, every individual has a right to leave their country and every individual has a right to apply for asylum. If the way that Canada runs its asylum policy is to say that we can only apply for asylum once we reach Canadian shores, then by preventing those individuals from reaching Canadian shores, we are, I think, not fulfilling the utmost of our international legal obligations.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims) NDP Jinny Sims
Thank you very much.
We're going to suspend for three minutes. Before we do that, I want to thank Peter Edelmann and Professor Salter for coming to appear before the committee and responding to our questions.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims) NDP Jinny Sims
I'd like to call the meeting back to order. I would like to remind everyone that this is televised, in case any of you were not aware of this.
Our next presenter is Salim Mansur, professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario.
Salim, you have 10 minutes to make your presentation, and then the committee will have time to ask you questions. Thank you.
4:35 p.m.
Salim Mansur Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Madam Chair and honourable members, many thanks for inviting me to share my thoughts with the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
I appear before you as a common citizen deeply apprehensive and concerned about the drift of our country as it changes due to the rate of immigration, which is without precedent among any of the advanced liberal democracies of the west. My expertise, or to the extent my expertise is recognized by this committee, at which I have been invited to appear, is that of a professional academic, researcher, writer, author, and public intellectual of some recognition in this great country of ours. I'm proud and humbled to come before you as an unhyphenated Canadian.
Before I share with you my perspective on immigration, let me state at the outset that I support all measures under consideration that modern technology provides for securing our borders, monitoring those who seek to gain entry into Canada, those who arrive here without proper documentation and claim refugee status, and the legions of those outside Canada who want to come here as immigrants. I believe it is a no-brainer to work towards a more secure Canada and to implement smart cards, biometric systems, and other tools that are available now or will be in the future.
I have no doubt on this matter that were we to have the thoughts of our founding fathers inform us, and those remarkable leaders who have come after them, such as Laurier and King, Pearson and Trudeau, Knowles and Douglas, they would remind us that a constitution agreed upon by a free people to provide for, as John A. Macdonald put it, “peace, order and good government”, is not a suicide pact.
In the small amount of time I have before you, I want to stress upon the first principle behind the immigration policy as it has evolved since the country's centennial year and as it presently stands.
It is needless to remark that Canada is an immigrant country. Our history tells us, as we should know, that it was immigrants from Europe over the past several centuries who built this country. On the whole, they built it well, indeed so well that Canada has come to be an eagerly sought country for people from around the world, including me. Here is the point: at some stage of Canada's historical development since at least 1867, those who built Canada in the early years of its history could have reached an agreement to close the door to immigration, but they did not. They believed the strength of their country would be maintained through a judicious policy of accepting new immigrants from Europe. The key point I want to emphasize, and I have written about this at length in the public media, is that they all believed that immigration judiciously and carefully managed, and I emphasize “managed”, in terms of numbers and source of origin of immigrants should be such that the nature of Canada as a liberal democracy would not be undermined.
It is numbers and the nature of numbers that matter and, given the nature of things, determine how existing arrangements are secured or undermined. Since the open-door immigration policy was instituted around the time of Canada's centennial year, the nature of immigration into Canada started to change from what had been the pattern since before 1867 to around 1960. During the past 50 years, immigration from outside of Europe, from what is generally designated the third world, has rapidly increased in proportion to immigrants originating in Europe.
Furthermore, given the revolution in transportation and the introduction of wide-body transcontinental jetliners that have made mass travel economical and easy, the distinction between immigrant and migrant workers has been eliminated. This means—and it is not simply in reference to ethnicity—that Canada is rapidly changing culturally in ways our political elite, media elite, and academic elite do not want to discuss. The fact that this is not discussed or that it is driven under the carpet does not mean the public is not keenly aware of how much the country has changed in great measure in a relatively short period. If this pattern continues for another few decades, there's the likelihood that Canada will have changed irrevocably, and not necessarily for the better in terms of its political tradition as a liberal democracy.
In terms of the first principle, we need our governing institutions and those individuals we, as Canadians, send to represent us to boldly re-examine our existing immigration policy and rethink it in terms of what it represents and how it will affect the well-being of Canada in the years to come. I do not need to remind you that any policy, however benign or good the intent is behind the making of such policy, is riddled with unintended consequences. History is a paradox. What you intend is not how things turn out in the long run, and not even in the short term. Pick any example you want, think it through, and see for yourself the paradoxical nature of history and how it surprises us by confounding our expectations.
I have at hand a recent publication of Statistics Canada, Projections of the Diversity of the Canadian Population: 2006 to 2031. In other words, this projection affects me and what remains of my life, but more importantly it affects my children, my students, my friends, and my neighbours.
Your views, as our representatives, are critical and will affect all of us. You will be responsible, in terms of our history, if you take your place in these hallowed halls with the seriousness it demands, for the good and the bad that come out of your decisions.
Let me quickly, time permitting, point out from this Statistics Canada publication the following.
One, given the nature of our immigration policy since 1960, the foreign-born population is growing about four times faster than the rest of the population. Consequently, in 2031, there will be between 9.8 million and 12.5 million foreign-born persons compared to 6.5 million in 2006. The corresponding number in 1981 was 3.8 million.
Two, according to Statistics Canada's projections, the population estimated for 2031 will be around 45 million, with 32%, around 14.5 million people, being foreign born.
Three, one more interesting and critical figure is the cultural and religious makeup of Canada in 2031. The fastest growth, according to the report, is “the Muslim population...with its numbers tripling during this period. This increase is mainly due to two factors: the composition of immigration...and higher fertility than for other groups”. The figures are, for Muslims, in 2006, around 900,000, constituting 2.7% of the population, and rising in 2031 to around 3.3 million, constituting 7.3% of the population.
If the level of immigration in Canada is being maintained and defended on the basis of the need to deal with the problems of Canadian society in terms of aging population, fertility rates among Canadian women, skilled labour requirements, and maintaining a growth level for the population consistent with the growth of the economy, then this policy needs to be re-evaluated. We cannot fix the social problems of Canadian society by an open immigration policy that adds to the numbers at a rate that puts into question the absorptive capacity of the country, not only in economic terms, but also, if not more importantly, in cultural and social terms, and what this does to our political arrangement as a liberal democracy.
The flow of immigration into Canada from around the world, and in particular the flow from Muslim countries, means a pouring in of numbers into a liberal society of people from cultures at best non-liberal. But we know through our studies and observation that the illiberal mix of cultures poses one of the greatest dilemmas and an unprecedented challenge to liberal societies such as ours, when there is no demand placed on immigrants any longer to assimilate into the founding liberal values of the country to which they have immigrated. Instead, a misguided and thoroughly wrong-headed policy of multiculturalism encourages the opposite.
It is no wonder that recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, among other European leaders and a growing body of intellectuals, have spoken out in public against multiculturalism and the need to push it back and even repeal it.
I have written a book on the wrong-headed policy of multiculturalism, published recently under the title Delectable Lie: a liberal repudiation of multiculturalism.
Time forbids me to discuss this matter in any length, but I would like to leave the following paradox with you.
We may want to continue with a level of immigration into Canada annually that is about the same as it is at present. We cannot, however, continue with such an inflow of immigrants under the present arrangement of the official policy of multiculturalism based on the premise that all cultures are equal when this is untrue. This policy is a severe, perhaps even a lethal, test for a liberal democracy such as ours.
This means we cannot simultaneously continue with both the existing level of immigration and official multiculturalism, and we must choose one or the other for the preservation of our liberal democratic traditions.
If we persist, we will severely undermine our liberal democracy, or what remains of it, compromise the foundation of individual freedom by accommodating group rights, and bequeath to our children and unborn generations a political situation fraught with explosive potential for ethnic violence, the sort of which we have seen in Europe in the riots of the banlieues, the suburbs of Paris, and other metropolitan centres.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that we need to consider lowering the number of immigrants entering Canada until we have had a serious debate among Canadians on this matter.
We should not allow bureaucratic inertia to determine not only the policy but the existing level of immigrant numbers and source origin that Canada brings in annually. We have the precedent of how we selectively closed immigration from the Soviet bloc countries during the Cold War years, and we need to consider doing the same in terms of immigration from Muslim countries for a period of time given how disruptive is the cultural baggage of illiberal values that is brought in as a result.
We are, in other words, stoking the fuel of much unrest in our country, as we have witnessed of late in Europe.
Lest any member wants to instruct me that my views are in any way politically incorrect, or worse, I would like members to note that I come before you as a practising Muslim who knows out of experience, from the inside, how volatile, how disruptive, how violent, how misogynistic is the culture of Islam today and has been during my lifetime, and how it greatly threatens our liberal democracy that I cherish, since I know what is its opposite.
Thank you.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims) NDP Jinny Sims
Thank you very much for your presentation.
We are going to go to....
Are we going to you?
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you.
I will share my time with my colleague Rick Dykstra. I'll let Rick ask the first question.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims) NDP Jinny Sims
I thought that's what I'd heard.
We will start with Mr. Dykstra and then go over to Mr. Leung.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Mansur, we had a bit of an issue at our last committee meeting, where there was discussion around an individual's views pertaining to those who should or should not come to the country. Three times during your presentation you raised the issue that you think we should not be allowing any more Muslims to come to this country, number one; and number two, you've indicated that we should be lowering the number of those we allow into the country.
I'm assuming that your basis of belief in the first part, which is to restrict individuals from coming to this country because of their belief, or because of their upbringing, or because of their culture or their lifestyle, is that by lowering the number we would actually have the ability to do that.
4:45 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Well, I believe the number that we have.... Because of the limitation of time, I was not getting into numbers here, but I understand it's somewhere around about 300,000, if you take into question those who are coming in as legal immigrants, who had gone through the process, including refugee claimants, including the number of—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
So that's the number, and what I'm suggesting is that it is not only such an unprecedented number; it raises the whole problem of absorptive capacity. The absorptive capacity has not only to do with the economic situation, particularly in the time period we've been living through since 2008, but with the larger question of what it means for a country to remain a liberal democracy.
Through my study, I believe this is a question that we have to confront, as the Europeans are confronting today. We are just a few years behind what is happening in Europe right now. That's the concern from which I'm speaking to you, sir.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I'm not sure your view of “liberal democracy” was represented by six Liberal prime ministers. I'm assuming you didn't mean liberalism in that effect; you meant liberalism in terms of our rights and responsibilities and obligations as Canadians.
4:50 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Yes.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I have just one further question, then. I would like you to clarify for me why you believe that, from a Muslim faith perspective, they are going to be a detriment to our liberal Canadian democracy here in Canada, or at least the structure upon which you frame the term “liberal”.
4:50 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Well, it is as I understand it as a practising Muslim and coming from the background of an Islamic society.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Just because you're a practising Muslim, it doesn't necessarily mean you can say who can and who can't come to this country.
4:50 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
No, I didn't say that, and that is not what you asked me. You asked me how I think, and that's what I was ready to answer. That's the question.