Posted on 02/06/2017 6:50:38 PM PST by nickcarraway
Canadians themselves remain astonishingly hospitable, with many groups clamouring for more Syrian refugees
US President Donald Trump’s harsh travel ban reflects a global pattern: All around the world, countries are slamming the doors shut.
One great exception: Canada. It may now be the finest example of the values of the Statue of Liberty. This isn’t just because Canadian leaders are particularly enlightened, although there’s some of that. It’s mostly because the Canadian people themselves remain astonishingly hospitable, with many groups clamouring for more Syrian refugees.
“Thank you, Canada,” Omar Al Omar, a Syrian who was shot at age 15 as the war started, said to me at a centre here where refugees are getting lessons in English and in Canadian habits, such as excruciating politeness. “I’m very happy. I feel welcome.”
“I’m really happy Canada does what others don’t.”
President Barack Obama admitted 12,000 Syrian refugees, triggering a furore and a backlash. Meanwhile, Canada, with a far smaller population, has admitted 40,000 Syrians.
Ahmad Hussain, Canada’s immigration minister, told me that one of the criticisms he faces from ordinary Canadians is that he’s not bringing in enough Syrians. And Hussain is himself an emblem of the country’s openness: He arrived at age 16 as a refugee from Somalia and now runs the ministry that once served him.
“We want people to join the Canadian family,” he said, noting that the country is trying to figure out how to keep more foreign students from leaving after graduation. And his trajectory is not unique: Two of the last three governors general arrived as refugees, one from Haiti and the other from Hong Kong. Canada also noted last year that it had more Sikhs in its Cabinet than India did.
Let’s be clear: Canada has xenophobes, too, and indeed, six people were just killed at a mosque in Quebec. Its people are not intrinsically nicer or more tolerant than Europeans or Americans.
Historically, Canada had a “white Canada” immigration policy steeped in racism and xenophobia. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, 96 per cent of immigrants were from Europe, and even Pierre Trudeau, who as prime minister championed tolerance, started out his career as a racist who joined an anti-Semitic riot.
Yet over the last 50 years, Canada transformed itself — because of determined political leadership, partly by Trudeau, whose son is today prime minister and extols similar ideals. Almost one-fifth of Canadians are what people here describe as “visible minorities” — mostly ethnic Chinese or people with roots in Africa or South Asia -— and Muslims constitute three times the percentage of Canadians as of Americans. By 2036, almost half of Canadians are expected to be immigrants or children of immigrants.
When I asked lily-white Canadians about their views on that, they looked puzzled and inquired, “And what’s the problem?”
Canada’s leaders nurtured multiculturalism into a sacred part of the country’s identity. As the rest of the world bangs the doors shut, Canadians celebrate their openness — and, polls show, now take more pride in multiculturalism than in hockey.
“The results in Canada have been spectacular,” Jonathan Tepperman noted in a recent book, ‘The Fix’, which explores government successes around the world, including Canada’s immigration policy. “They turned a small, closed, ethnically homogeneous state into a vibrant global powerhouse and one of the most open and successful multicultural nations in the world.”
It helps that Canada wasn’t beset by illegal immigration, and that economic policies limited the hollowing out of the middle class. Canada also has a brilliant system of citizen sponsorship. Five or more people can form a group to sponsor a refugee family, and even though this often involves a commitment of thousands of dollars per sponsor, there is a waiting list for getting refugees.
These volunteers integrate the newcomers into the community and help them get jobs and education. This focus on integration is one reason Canada’s immigrants have thrived and become doctors and lawyers, almost never terrorists.
The sponsors also untangle cultural clashes, noted Jessie Thomson, a sponsor of a Syrian family, as we shared a Middle Eastern feast in the family’s new home. When Thomson helped the Syrians open a bank account, she assumed it would be a joint account in the names of the husband and wife. But the family thought it should be in the name of the father, or perhaps the grandfather. In the end, everyone’s name went on the account, and each side learnt something.
I asked the foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland (herself a daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant), if the Trump travel ban would help Canada poach the best of the world’s scientists and entrepreneurs for itself. “That’s exactly right!” she responded, and she noted that she had heard from CEOs that Canada was now more attractive than ever. Then she made her pitch directly, through me.
“If you’re a really smart person and you want to immigrate to a great country that will welcome you, come to Canada!” she said. “And if you’re Muslim, you’re very, very welcome here, as are people of every faith — and atheists, too.”
Excellent! I’ll send Canada my Tax Bill this year!
Wa-Hooo! I’m Free! I’m Freeeeee! ;)
Americans are not stopping these people going to Canada.
“Canadians themselves remain astonishingly hospitable...”
Sure, if hospitable means stupid, that’s us!
And they certainly have the military necessary to play that role. Right.
Canada hasn’t bore the brunt of Mexican immigration. Let them carry the weight of that mess for a change.
All 30 million illegals, head north to Canada and stay there.
deep breath
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....
Another western democracy that's embraced the feminist gospel of homosexual rights and the murder of the unborn child.
They're committing national suicide.
Canada is ripe for Islamic maniacs to take over.
They should assume leadership because their PM should be in movies or something.
We better get both walls built ASAP.
I’ll wager Sharia law has been making inroads in Canada, and that there will soon be muzzie ‘no go’ cities there. They are going the way of the EU, and they will suffer similarly. We may well need a northern fence eventually.
I cry for Canada.
Hopefully, they will eject their eunuch.
Laughable
I’ve been to Canada often over the past 30 years, and the changing demographics make it much less desirable than in decades past. If I wanted to stay in a decaying rat-hole motel with an unmaintained pool run by Asians, I’d just drive 15 minutes south to one near Newark Airport. In years past those places were nice; now they remind me of the former resorts of the Catskills. The symbols of French and British history are quickly being replaced by “first nation” nonsense, and many businesses have signs only in some Asian language or other.
The only reason ours looks higher is because first and second-generation immigrants are pushing rates up.
http://time.com/4585232/white-deaths-exceed-births-united-states/
http://www.npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2016-Immigration-Drives-Population-Forum-Paper.pdf
If American culture continues to depress birth rates as it assimilates people we’ll end up with the worst of both worlds - “assimilated” US will look like Japan’s crippled demographics and unassimilated immigrants will either follow suit and die out or change american culture, and not for the better.
The only thing an organism or system absolutely requires to succeed is replication. If American culture doesn’t embrace childbirth everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the titantic.
That would double the population.
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