Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address your committee.
I'm here specifically to speak to the value of sponsoring immigrant parents and grandparents. In particular, I hope to provide you with a more robust theoretical and methodological context for your future deliberations.
The sponsorship of parents and grandparents has long been a highly contentious issue in competing views surrounding Canada's immigration strategy. Much if not all of the debate is grounded in discourse or narrative and not based on any empirical evidence. In very simplistic terms, the discussion on the value of sponsoring parents and grandparents takes place between those who advocate a humanitarian rationale for family reunification versus those who argue against such policies from an economic perspective.
The position opposing large-scale family reunification policies is based on an economic imperative that contends that while families may be good for the well-being of individuals, family class immigration may not be in the best economic interests of the state. In particular, sponsored parents and grandparents are viewed as potential burdens on Canadian society by virtue of their perceived diminished capacity for economic contribution and increased potential for stressing the social welfare and health care systems.
The humanitarian position, by contrast, derives its moral imperative from Canada's commitment to a number of international conventions that recognize the migrant's right to join or be joined by their family. The humanitarian position often also argues that not only is access to family a right, it's also fundamental for the social, physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being of newcomer populations.
In its current state, much of the debate between the more altruistic humanitarian position and the instrumental economic perspective is not particularly useful, because it lacks a common ground for argumentation. A more fruitful platform for discussion is presented by those who argue that the notions of contribution and burden are inappropriately defined by the dominant economic and human capital constructions of integration.
Researchers from this perspective argue that not only is the family good for the well-being of the individual, it is good for society as a whole because access to family relationships and networks can support and mitigate the settlement and integration experience. For example, by providing child care and/or labour to family-owned businesses, sponsored parents and grandparents can contribute to the overall economic well-being of the family and support the educational pursuits and labour market activities of other family members. Through volunteerism, informal networking, and kinship work, sponsored parents and grandparents can also contribute to community cohesion and social capital formation. In addition, the possibility of sponsoring relatives may be an important element in attracting and retaining immigrants, something that's very important for my corner of the country.
The problem with the alternative contribution discourse is that what “may” or “could” happen is more or less based on speculation rather than concrete evidence. Little attention has been given to developing models to ascertain the non-economic contributions made by these newcomers to Canada, or to develop more appropriate models for measuring the non-standard economic contributions of this particular class. Yet the need to understand the contributions that different families bring to the immigration experience is considered critical.
My research—with my colleagues Howard Ramos and Yoko Yoshida from Dalhousie University—constitutes a very preliminary effort to take a closer look at the role of sponsored parents and grandparents in this regard. Using the longitudinal survey of immigrants to Canada, and later the longitudinal immigration database, we uncovered some interesting differences between sponsored parents and grandparents and other immigrants.
Some differences provide ammunition for the burden narrative, as sponsored parents and grandparents are more likely to be women with less education, have less work experience, have weaker official language skills, be less likely to be married, and be older. However, they are not as elderly as some might expect. The average age of sponsored parents and grandparents in the LSIC is 60. Almost 70% are under the age of 65. This calls into serious question sentiments such as those expressed by a journalist from Edmonton who stated, “Most of these older immigrants will never work or will work very little between the time they are admitted and the time of their death.”
This leads to a second surprising finding. Only 30% of sponsored parents and grandparents state that their primary activity is being retired. The remaining 70% are either working—in fact, 40% of the population is working—self-employed, or in the case of many women, looking after family and home, all of which support the alternative contribution argument.
These findings suggest important directions for the type of research needed to effectively inform debates about family class immigration.
First is the need to recognize immigration, integration, and settlement as a family experience. Family class immigrants are, by definition, part of a larger social unit. Hence, arguments based on their outcomes as individuals, especially those that focus on economic indicators, are grossly misleading.
Second, our analysis shows support for the alternative contributions argument. Sponsored parents and grandparents are active, which supports the contention that further research is warranted to establish how sponsored parents and grandparents may not only be contributing to the best interests of the family, but also, through their social and cultural reproductive activities, to the best interests of the state.
I would therefore ask that future policy directions be supported by a very strong research base, one that starts with the recognition of immigration as a family project, and one that acknowledges the very many and intersecting ways that members of a family collectively can contribute to the well-being of both their family and their country.
Thank you.
