Canadians’ feelings about immigration are mixed at best
If we needed a reminder that there are underlying tensions in diverse societies, recent events in the United States and in Quebec City provide a stark one.
Everywhere, we see countries retreating from the globalized world, rejecting diversity and immigration, and perhaps missing out on the economic and social opportunities from which open countries benefit. British rejection of the EU and the free movement of people, American embrace of the dark nationalist vision of Donald Trump, and right- wing populist movements in France, The Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere are self- destructive reactions driven by both economic change and the ever- present human tendency toward racism, xenophobia, and bigotry.
Canada is not immune. Though we have not seen the same kinds of movements here, the underlying tensions exist.
In co-operation with the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and their upcoming conference on immigration and diversity in Canada, we recently conducted a survey of the Canadian public designed to compare attitudes here with those in some similar countries.
Our core conclusion:? Canadian attitudes are not exceptionally proimmigrant or racially enlightened. Instead, Canadian society contains the potential for the same kinds of hate that we see elsewhere.
One question we asked was whether respondents would support, oppose, or neither support nor oppose cutting off all immigration to Canada. Not surprisingly, only 19 per cent of respondents supported such a step. However, only 46 per cent expressed opposition, with the rest on the fence. How does this compare to our southern neighbours? In 2010, the same question was asked of the American public. There, a similar 42 per cent expressed opposition. When asked about allowing immigrants from poor countries, the Canadian public answered more positively than 9 and less positively than 11 European countries where the same question was asked in 2014 and 2015. In other words, Canadian attitudes are normal for a developed country. Canada is not exceptional on that score.
None of this means that Canadian politics will inevitably go the way of populist rhetoric and action. Canadian institutions and — especially — Canadian leaders have the ability to guide politics, to maintain the norms of non-racism and to pursue policies of inclusion and co-operation. Attitudes do not lead inexorably to policies or even to politics. As two of the three largest Canadian political parties choose new leaders, those party elites and activists who have a say in the process have a duty to avoid the mistakes of the U.S. Republican Party.
There, a fractured elite and the use of primary elections meant that Donald Trump could use racist demagoguery to capture the leadership of a party that contains many for whom such rhetoric was not attractive. That, in turn, meant that when the normal processes of partisanship and retrospective voting took over in the general election, he had a roughly 50/ 50 chance of capturing the presidency.
To see if this could happen in Canada, we asked respondents who expressed support for one of the four largest parties to choose
between hypothetical candidates for leadership, based only on their names, ages, province of residence and positions on the CPP, immigration and refugees. What we found is, in some ways encouraging, but contains hints of danger for the Canadian model of openness and multiculturalism. We saw no evidence of discrimination against candidates with Indian or francophone names, and no evidence of discrimination against female names.
However, among none of the parties was there clear evidence of an electoral benefit to more open immigration or refugee policies. Indeed, among Conservatives, accepting zero Syrian refugees is a “winning” strategy, and among NDP partisans, a candidate that called for increasing economic immigration appears to suffer a large electoral penalty.
We do not write this to encourage candidates to pursue such policies in their respective leadership contests. After all, public surveys offer little insight into the opinions of the small slice of Canadians who will select leaders in both parties. Rather we offer this as evidence of two claims. First, Canadian institutions of leader selection may lead to better, less divisive leaders. Second, politicians and those selecting them have a responsibility to avoid xenophobic pandering and to reinforce the norms of behaviour that have allowed the Canadian model, for all its faults, to create the open, exciting and peaceful society we enjoy.
Michael J. Donnelly is an assistant professor of political science and public policy at the University of Toronto. Peter Loewen is the Director of the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto. They will present the results of their survey this Thursday at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada’s conference, Canadian Exceptionalism: Are we good or are we lucky?