The first post-national nation?
While the world is shutting itself from refugees and migrants and wondering how to curb their inflow or even kick them out, Canada has adopted a different approach: it not only welcomes foreigners, but it does it eagerly.
Right-wing populism, xenophobia, encapsulation - that is how we could briefly describe the dominant dynamics around the world in 2016. Trump won the US election largely on the promise to build That Wall. A slight majority of the Britons decided their country should leave the EU, one of their chief arguments being the need for enhanced border control. Various right-wing parties across Europe are on the rise, aiming to stop the migration influx.
The only exception seems to be Canada. The new liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau won the 2015 election, promising not fewer but more migrants, including from Syria. His conservative rival Stephen Harper used the election campaign to flame up anti-Muslim sentiment - and lost. Now we can see Trudeau personally welcoming Syrian refugees at the airport and hand-shaking with them.
Since liberal migration policy has cast deep roots in Canada, this debate was entirely absent from the election campaign there. In fact Canada is largely selecting the sort of migrants it wants to import. This is valid both for the economic migrants and the war refugees alike. A country of 36 million accepts about 300 thousand migrants annually, which in absolute numbers is not as much as Germany, but on the other hand the process has been there for a long time. Besides, Canada not only deems economic migrants desirable, but it also pursues this as an official national policy. I mean the controlled recruitment of new migrants.
Of course, not all Canadians agree with the policy. There have been attacks on mosques and synagogues there, too. Still, about 80% of the Canadians believe the migrants are beneficial to their country. The majority of the Canadian public and the mainsream parties even believe that the migrant quotas should be expanded. Multiculturalism has become a doctrine in Canada, and has stopped being a taboo for quite a while, unlike many European countries.
The latest census (2001) shows that there are 33 ethnic groups in Canada with more than 100 thousand people. And 10 groups even have more than 1 million. In 2001, about 16% of the population were of the so called "visible minorities" (that is how non-Caucasian, non-Aboriginal peoples are designated). The forecast is that by 2031 this visible minority will become 33% and will no longer be considered a minority. The Canadian author and chairman of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, Charles Foran explains all this with practical reasons. Low birth rates since the 90s and the ageing population have hindered Canadian economic growth for years, so the consensus is that diversity tends to bolster prosperity, rather than undermine it. Unlike Americans who expect that the migrants' identity should fade in the so called melting pot, Canada relies on diversity and does not pressure the newcomers to integrate into a homogeneous host culture. In other words, the Canadian migration and integration policy does not aim to forge a new local identity (as it is in the US), nor to lump many cultures into a homogeneous host culture (as is in Europe).
This policy tends to reflect on identity, of course. A while ago, prime minister Trudeau said Canada would probably become the first "post-national country" in the world, where no single "main identity" would exist any more. It is quite telling that this statement was not met with an outcry or a backlash in his country. In Germany or France, where such a "dominant host culture" debate has been going on for years, if a politician said any such thing, they could say goodbye to their political career.
Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan who coined the term "global village" in the 60s, said that Canada is the only country on Earth that can cope just fine without a national identity. Whether Canada is really the big exception from the general rule, and whether it will remain so for the time being, is yet to be seen.
The results of a recent Angus Reid poll from last year show some cracks in that theory, though: about 68% of the respondents said they are content with the way their migrant acquaintances are integrating - but in the meantime, a similarly large segment expect that the adaptation should be improved. 79% believe the migration policy should serve the country's economic interests and the needs of the labour market, not people's preferences for a destination for their exodus from crisis regions and hot spots around the world. In other words, Canadian interests should be placed first, and humanitarian motivations should take the backseat, regardless of the nation's professed values and principles.
Most of the conservative push-back to this process now seems to be focused and embodied by Kellie Leitch, who is a very ambitious politician mimicking Donald Trump in many ways. Much in Trump's rhetorical style, she has said that the elites behave as if migration is a non-issue. She wants the security services to make thorough checks on all incoming migrants, mostly meaning the Muslims. Later this year the Canadian conservatives will be electing their next leader, and Leitch has a good shot at becoming the standard-bearer of the anti-Trudeau camp. A bag full of surprises coming from the right-wing populists in Canada is not to be ruled out, either. The same forces that made the Brexit and Trump's ascent possible are also present in Canada, though they may still be acting in a more muted and typically Canadian, polite way. The pendulum's swing to the right does not seem likely to bypass Canada, either. At least for the time being. The one thing that remains to be seen is the particular scope and magnitude this process would have in the presumed "first post-national nation on Earth".
Right-wing populism, xenophobia, encapsulation - that is how we could briefly describe the dominant dynamics around the world in 2016. Trump won the US election largely on the promise to build That Wall. A slight majority of the Britons decided their country should leave the EU, one of their chief arguments being the need for enhanced border control. Various right-wing parties across Europe are on the rise, aiming to stop the migration influx.
The only exception seems to be Canada. The new liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau won the 2015 election, promising not fewer but more migrants, including from Syria. His conservative rival Stephen Harper used the election campaign to flame up anti-Muslim sentiment - and lost. Now we can see Trudeau personally welcoming Syrian refugees at the airport and hand-shaking with them.
Since liberal migration policy has cast deep roots in Canada, this debate was entirely absent from the election campaign there. In fact Canada is largely selecting the sort of migrants it wants to import. This is valid both for the economic migrants and the war refugees alike. A country of 36 million accepts about 300 thousand migrants annually, which in absolute numbers is not as much as Germany, but on the other hand the process has been there for a long time. Besides, Canada not only deems economic migrants desirable, but it also pursues this as an official national policy. I mean the controlled recruitment of new migrants.
Of course, not all Canadians agree with the policy. There have been attacks on mosques and synagogues there, too. Still, about 80% of the Canadians believe the migrants are beneficial to their country. The majority of the Canadian public and the mainsream parties even believe that the migrant quotas should be expanded. Multiculturalism has become a doctrine in Canada, and has stopped being a taboo for quite a while, unlike many European countries.
The latest census (2001) shows that there are 33 ethnic groups in Canada with more than 100 thousand people. And 10 groups even have more than 1 million. In 2001, about 16% of the population were of the so called "visible minorities" (that is how non-Caucasian, non-Aboriginal peoples are designated). The forecast is that by 2031 this visible minority will become 33% and will no longer be considered a minority. The Canadian author and chairman of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, Charles Foran explains all this with practical reasons. Low birth rates since the 90s and the ageing population have hindered Canadian economic growth for years, so the consensus is that diversity tends to bolster prosperity, rather than undermine it. Unlike Americans who expect that the migrants' identity should fade in the so called melting pot, Canada relies on diversity and does not pressure the newcomers to integrate into a homogeneous host culture. In other words, the Canadian migration and integration policy does not aim to forge a new local identity (as it is in the US), nor to lump many cultures into a homogeneous host culture (as is in Europe).
This policy tends to reflect on identity, of course. A while ago, prime minister Trudeau said Canada would probably become the first "post-national country" in the world, where no single "main identity" would exist any more. It is quite telling that this statement was not met with an outcry or a backlash in his country. In Germany or France, where such a "dominant host culture" debate has been going on for years, if a politician said any such thing, they could say goodbye to their political career.
Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan who coined the term "global village" in the 60s, said that Canada is the only country on Earth that can cope just fine without a national identity. Whether Canada is really the big exception from the general rule, and whether it will remain so for the time being, is yet to be seen.
The results of a recent Angus Reid poll from last year show some cracks in that theory, though: about 68% of the respondents said they are content with the way their migrant acquaintances are integrating - but in the meantime, a similarly large segment expect that the adaptation should be improved. 79% believe the migration policy should serve the country's economic interests and the needs of the labour market, not people's preferences for a destination for their exodus from crisis regions and hot spots around the world. In other words, Canadian interests should be placed first, and humanitarian motivations should take the backseat, regardless of the nation's professed values and principles.
Most of the conservative push-back to this process now seems to be focused and embodied by Kellie Leitch, who is a very ambitious politician mimicking Donald Trump in many ways. Much in Trump's rhetorical style, she has said that the elites behave as if migration is a non-issue. She wants the security services to make thorough checks on all incoming migrants, mostly meaning the Muslims. Later this year the Canadian conservatives will be electing their next leader, and Leitch has a good shot at becoming the standard-bearer of the anti-Trudeau camp. A bag full of surprises coming from the right-wing populists in Canada is not to be ruled out, either. The same forces that made the Brexit and Trump's ascent possible are also present in Canada, though they may still be acting in a more muted and typically Canadian, polite way. The pendulum's swing to the right does not seem likely to bypass Canada, either. At least for the time being. The one thing that remains to be seen is the particular scope and magnitude this process would have in the presumed "first post-national nation on Earth".