Sask. welcome mat has had stains
How we define ourselves as a warm and embracing province is best exemplified in Saskatchewan’s motto, “Multis e Gentibus Vires”.
“From many peoples strength”, conjures up an image of place that has made up for its inhospitable winters through its hospitality to those fleeing economic or political oppression. Given that many impoverished immigrants settled here and helped forge the multi-ethnic communities that still exist today, much of the Saskatchewan experience has been as the motto describes.
But to assume that Saskatchewan has always been the land of milk and honey described in those turn-of-the-last-century immigration posters would be to deny some of our less-flattering history ... and maybe even our current nature.
Cross-burning Ku Klux Klansmen existed in more than 100 Saskatchewan communities in the 1920s, with a total provincial membership estimated at 40,000. Their target was “unassimilable” immigrants from central eastern Europe, or anyone who was a member of the “subversive” Roman Catholic church demanding the dual public school system. In fact, the Klan was said to be a major influence on the J.T. Anderson Conservative government after waging war on the Liberal government of Premier James Gardiner.
While this may be an isolated chapter in Saskatchewan’s history book, more common are tales of bigotry suffered by Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Germans or Scandinavians who immigrated to this province and were set apart by the dominant English culture. Again, this is not to suggest this has been the entire Saskatchewan experience. But history tells us that lower-class immigrants haven’t always been as welcomed as we’d like to think — a cautionary tale at a time when Saskatchewan is enjoying a boom unseen since the 1920s.
When asked about our attitudes towards immigration, an overwhelming number of us said we were very welcoming, according to this fall’s Taking the Pulse survey conducted by the University of Saskatchewan on behalf of the CBC, Leader-Post and StarPhoenix.
That said, a sizeable number of those surveyed also said that notwithstanding the current labour shortage, immigration levels were too high. This was also very telling.
One doesn’t have to scratch the surface very hard to find examples of less-than-welcoming attitudes. The stories this fall of Conservative MP Kelly Block’s flyer stoking the fire that refugees or “new arrivals” receive more benefits than ordinary Canadians is one example. But an even better example is the visceral reaction in support of the flyer, or opposing the Saskatoon Pakistani refugee struggling to get cancer treatment, or the two Nigerian students now awaiting deportation for breaking their visa conditions by working in Walmart.
Caught in the middle of all this is Premier Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government, which has clearly put down the welcome mat to the world when it comes to lobbying the federal government for an easing of immigration to this province, or actively recruiting health professionals or skilled workers in Ireland, the Philippines and Ukraine.
The latest such enterprise has seen Saskatchewan Health officials travel to India in hopes of addressing Saskatchewan’s need for approximately 100 doctors.
An effort like this should say much about Saskatchewan’s welcoming nature. But even before a single contract has been offered to a single Indian doctor, Health Minister Dustin Duncan is already under fire, accused of poaching doctors from a Third World country in dire need of them.
University of Ottawa professor Ronald Labonté told the CBC that contrary to Duncan’s assertion, India’s dysfunctional health system has “a severe shortage” of doctors. If this is the case, it will do little to enhance Saskatchewan’s image abroad as a welcoming place for struggling immigrants hoping for a fresh start. Rather, it paints Saskatchewan as a place only interested in poaching those immigrants who immediately suit our needs.
Ironically, the Sask. Party government also seems to be getting plenty of heat from the other perspective — those demanding we need to open more residency programs, or wondering why we can’t retain train “our own” doctors.
Of course, the complex nature of this debate extends well beyond immigration or racial issues. Some of issues are matters of pragmatism.
Nevertheless, it does speak to the 107-year-old struggle of this province to fully live up to its very motto.