One in five people foreign-born, stats reveal, as Canada struggles with overt racism

[Harold Schiffman]

One in five people foreign-born stats reveal as Canada struggles with
overt racism


OTTAWA - One-in-five people in Canada is foreign-born according to
census numbers released Tuesday, an immigration surge unprecedented in
a quarter-of-a-century and one that comes as the country grapples with
acts of overt racism that fly in the face of Canada's reputation for
tolerance. While the "neo-racism" that infects society through subtle,
systemic practices has largely been the focus of anti-racism
crusaders, recent reports of assaults against Asian fisherman in
Ontario and open anti-Muslim sentiment in Quebec have become the
subject of inquiries and commissions. Canada garners kudos from around
the world for laws promising equality for all, but experts say the
true test of a tolerant nation is in day-to-day living.

"It's important for us to have human rights written down... but really
where human rights exist is on the street," said Marguerite Cassin, a
Dalhousie University professor who has written papers on racism. "We
know we have human rights when there is an absence of (racist)
incidents." The latest census figures show that 19.8 per cent of the
population in 2006 was foreign born, the highest proportion since 1931
and up 13.6 per cent from five years earlier. By contrast, the entire
Canadian population grew only 3.3 per cent in the same period. Almost
two-thirds of the nation's foreign-born population resided in Canada's
three biggest cities: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

The highest percentage of newcomers to Canada were from China (14 per
cent), followed by India (11.6), the Philippines (7) and Pakistan
(5.2). For the first time, the proportion of foreign-born immigrants
from Asian and Middle Eastern countries (41 per cent) outstripped
those of European heritage (37). "The newcomers who came between 2001
and 2006, we have about 1.1 million of them, and they added to
Canada's diverse population because they report coming from about over
200 countries," said Statistics Canada analyst Tina Chui. "When you
look at that, Canada is like a world within a country."

An aging population and the declining birth rate has Canada on track
to becoming fully dependent on immigration for population growth by
around 2030, Statistics Canada data suggests. Among Western nations,
only Australia had a higher percentage of foreign-born residents (22.2
per cent) than Canada in 2006. The United States had 12.5 per cent
foreign-born. Almost four decades after Canada became the first
country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as official policy, the
emergence of apparently racist acts raises questions about how
harmoniously the races are living together.

In 2004, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism found that
while Canada supports ethnic diversity through policy, law and
numerous government-led programs, "tangible" racism continues to exist
in the country. The Muslim population in Quebec continues to deal with
what it sees as racist attitudes in everything from girls' soccer to
small-town misconceptions about Canadian Muslims.
In January, the rural town of Herouxville passed a policy paper laying
out norms for immigrants that declared, among other things, that it is
forbidden to stone women in public. A commission has since been struck
to hear what Quebecers feel is reasonable in terms of accommodating
the practices of other cultures.

"What we're seeing is that, in the regions of Quebec there are people
who have never met minorities before (and) are coming out with...
outlandish statements," said Sameer Zuberi of the Canadian Council on
American-Islamic Relations. "A lot of it has to do with people not
understanding and people not knowing each other." Although
Canadian-born, Zuberi said it was during his teen years that he began
to notice that others viewed him as "different, even though I was born
(in Montreal)."

"I would say that is an ongoing thing, it exists and that has led to a
lot of the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing today," he said.

In Ontario, reports of Asian-Canadian anglers being targeted and
assaulted while fishing on Lake Simcoe in the town of Georgina, 80
kilometres north of Toronto, have instigated an inquiry.

Several men face charges after the fishermen where pushed into the
lake, their gear destroyed and windshields smashed.

"In a way, I'm glad that it's coming out, it's coming forward, it's
being talked about," said Avvy Go of the Metro Toronto Chinese and
Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.

"I hope that this will force all Canadians to take a look at what's
happening and try to understand why, in 2007, we still have to deal
with that in Canada, supposedly one of the most multicultural
societies in the world."

Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall struck an inquiry
following the assaults and said it's clear when cultures ignorant of
one another meet it can set the stage for conflict.

Greater understanding of one another's practices is key to overcoming
that threat, she said.

"That's not new, because our diversity and the constant change of
populations who are coming to Canada mean that we are always having to
learn about new communities," said Hall.

"In the various places where attacks have occurred against
Asian-Canadian anglers, we see what appears to be racial stereotyping,
racial profiling, hostility."

That hostility isn't confined to just two select groups.

Each year, B'nai Brith Canada releases its list of anti-Semitic events
which includes everything from rocks thrown through synagogue windows
to hate crimes on the Internet and toppled gravestones.

In Vancouver, a special task force has been struck amid a dramatic
spike in murders as gang factions within the Indo-Canadian community
wage war against one another.

In the United States, immigration issues - largely focused on Mexican
immigration - loom large in political debates heading toward the 2008
presidential election and the country remains mired in the racist
legacy of slavery.

Canada's history is filled with its own sordid tales of the ugly
actions that result when suspicion of newcomers overwhelms.

The internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War, the
Chinese Head Tax and past discriminatory immigration practices against
African Americans and Jews are just a few examples, said Cassin.

Current laws prevent people from being denied access to education or
participation in society based on their race or culture, "so at that
kind of level, in institutional practices, there is equality," Cassin
said.

"The reality, however, is that we do differentiate among one another
every day on everything, from choosing jobs, organizing promotions to
who gets served in line first, all of those kinds of things."

While overt acts of racism are easy to identify, a subtler form that
Cassin identifies as "neo-racism" is a much trickier entity.

"Do we mean is something illegal, or do we mean that we're not nice to
each other?" said Cassin.

"Or does it mean what I try to get it to mean, which is that we treat
one another in racialized ways, where we're taking our race into
account when we're making decisions or we're making preferences."

Moving beyond those practices will be "tough work," Cassin added.

"Making Canada, making a country made up of people that come and will
continue to come from all sorts of other countries and circumstances,
it's tough work. It requires engagement," she said.

"It's not completed. It's a work that is something that all of us have
to be part of all of the time."


Highlights from the 2006 census on immigration and language, as
reported Tuesday by Statistics Canada:

-Almost one in five people (19.8 per cent) living in Canada last year
was born in another country. That's the highest proportion since the
1930s, when Canada's immigration rate peaked before dropping off
during the Depression and Second World War.

-The immigration stats illustrate a country of two solitudes: more
than 60 per cent of immigrants live in the large urban centres of
Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver; only about five per cent live in
rural parts of Canada.

-Most of the recent newcomers to Canada are from Asia - 58 per cent
when those from the Middle East are included. Europeans, the dominant
immigrant group for most of the 20th century, represented only 16 per
cent of those who moved to Canada from 2001-06.

-Australia (22 per cent) is the only Western country with a higher
proportion of immigrants than Canada (19.8). In the United States,
where immigration provokes a major political debate, it's 12.5 per
cent.

-About 20 per cent of the population reports a mother tongue (their
first language learned) of neither French nor English.

-More than one million people in Canada declared one of the Chinese
dialects as a first language. In some suburbs around Toronto and
Vancouver, those with English as a mother tongue are now the minority
compared to all other languages spoken.

-The new census data will give fodder to both sides on the
bilingualism debate. Knowledge of French among anglophones has
increased slightly to 9.4 per cent of the population, but
French-immersion students are losing their language skills after they
leave school.

-Statistics Canada said an anonymous e-mail campaign just before the
census might explain a slight drop in the number of francophones who
said they could also speak English. The e-mail urged francophones not
to say they were bilingual for fear Ottawa would cut French-language
services. Even though Statistics Canada posted a notice on its website
to dispute the content of the message, "it seems plausible that the
e-mail influenced some francophones in their responses."

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gcfAhMSUKHbk-A1Ev-aXwY5hU_Yg
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