We shouldn't leave out the knowledge that a lot of original decisions that were made about immigration were made in the economic notion that we're going to bring in people who can work really hard, earn a lot of money, and make our country better. That was a form of very basic discrimination right at the point of entry. If you look at hundreds of years ago, it was,“You can stay. You can go. You look sick; you have to go back.”
We haven't really changed that much in terms of how we look at things. It's those unexamined predispositions. Why is it that we do now what we do, and how does that compare to the decisions we made a long time ago? When you look at basic, inherent discriminatory practices, and when you look at this particular clause, it's steeped in the tradition of, if you're worth it, you can come into the country, and if you're not worth it, you have to leave the country, and we decide worth by a dollar value that we attach.
It seems what I'm hearing today from everyone is a real willingness and desire to move beyond that kind of thinking to something that we can imagine that's very different. I commend you for that, because I think that reflects who we are as Canadians.