Jamie Sarkonak: Canadians right to favour melting pot model of assimilation
The quality simply couldn't be maintained with volume. A liberal approach to student visas — which quadrupled the number of permitholders from 2011 to 2024, placed them at 2.5 per cent of the population last year. Fraud ensued. Last fall, Statistics Canada found that one-fifth of international students weren't actually studying. Students too poor to afford a life here were scammed, strip-mall diploma mills grew, and the credentialed newcomers they churned out — noticed by their Canadian counterparts to be increasingly incapable of reading and writing in English — continued on their quest to receive citizenship.
Article content
Indeed, language barriers (the non-English and non-French kind) are increasingly presenting themselves to doctors, health-care staff and police. Some provincial governments get around this obstacle by releasing information in numerous foreign languages. Even the private sector is jumping on board; stand in line at a TD Bank and you'll be treated with a slew of ads clearly targeted at new arrivals.
Article content
Article content
Canadian jobseekers, meanwhile, have noticed a rise in ads seeking Punjabi speakers (and in Vancouver, Mandarin). These preferences come at a time when the employment prospects of Canadian youth, who once easily filled many entry-level jobs, have steeply fallen to a jobless rate of 13.4 per cent. It's a source of frustration for both Canadian-born English-only speakers and their immigrant non-Punjabi counterparts.
Article content
Many newcomers are still happy to assimilate, but not all — and as the total number of new arrivals grows, so too does the number of those who barricade themselves in enclaves and hold on to old, sometimes un-Canadian values. Edmonton and Calgary police both had to defuse Eritrean riots in 2023; a Montreal elementary school had to suspend 11 Muslim teachers amid allegations of creating a toxic, sometimes violent environment; anti-Israel protests have become a regular feature of Toronto and Montreal, correlating with high immigration in the last decade from Muslim countries.
Article content
Making matters worse is a national attitude that sends the message to newcomers that Canada is racist, hateful of its Indigenous people and has a history in strong need of being painted over.
Article content
All of this, Canadian officials will probably say, is a good thing. 'Diversity is our strength' is a phrase that has been uttered in Parliament 135 times; government documents often tout the Canadian mosaic model of multiculturalism. But regular Canadians, for the most part, never wanted this: in 1993, Angus Reid found that 57 per cent of the nation wanted minorities to 'be more like most Canadians'; in 2016, 68 per cent were found to believe that 'minorities should do more to fit in better.' There's a common-sense understanding, which could be acknowledged more openly in the early 2000s, that diversity can also offer challenges to overcome.
Article content
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
26 minutes ago
- CTV News
Canadian government plans to reduce size of public service through attrition: Lightbound
Despite warnings from experts that the federal government will have to make deep cuts to the public service if it hopes to meet its promises to reduce operational spending, Government Transformation Minister Joël Lightbound says the 'intention' is to rely on retirements and resignations. 'As the prime minister has mentioned, our intention is to go through attrition in terms of reducing the size of public service,' Lightbound said, when asked whether the government's ongoing spending review will lead to job cuts. The minister made the comments during a question-and-answer period with reporters following the announcement of a new Cultural Heritage Science facility on Thursday. Lightbound added it's 'too early for (him) to tell' whether the savings will mean cuts, but repeated that the 'intention' is to rely on attrition. Ahead of an expected fall budget, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali issued letters to Prime Minister Mark Carney's cabinet last month, asking them to present plans by the end of summer to find day-to-day operational savings. Ministers were told to find 7.5 per cent savings for the 2026-27 fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2026, followed by 10 per cent in 2027-28 and 15 per cent in 2028-29, CTV News reported at the time. 'As the prime minister mentioned during the campaign, we're capping this size of the public service,' Lightbound said, when asked about a new report by the CD Howe Institute stating that the federal spending review will generate less than half of the savings needed to maintain a good fiscal path. 'Our goal is to reduce it through attrition, but there are also other ways to where we can make savings in terms of the federal government standpoint,' Lightbound said, pointing to the adoption of new technologies as a way to improve government efficiency. The CD Howe Institute report states the spending review should be broadened to all spending — including to measures delivered through the tax system — if it hopes to make meaningful reductions. According to a report in late June from left-leaning think tank the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Liberal government's plan to find billions of dollars in operating efficiencies would require a 24 per cent cut in public service spending. The report states it could amount to 'the worst spending cuts in modern history,' and adding it will 'inevitably diminish the quality of public services.' With files from CTV News' Rachel Aiello and Stephanie Ha
National Post
26 minutes ago
- National Post
Ontario public servants required to go back to office five days a week by January
Ontario public servants will be required to return to the office full time, with employees going in-person five days a week by January 2026, the government announced Thursday. Article content Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney said in a press release that the province has been monitoring in-workplace standards across the public and private sectors, and the decision 'represents the current workforce landscape.' Article content Article content Article content She said employees who have been going into the office for a minimum of three days a week will increase their attendance to four days a week starting on Oct. 20. with a gradual transition to five days a week in the office by Jan. 5, 2026. Article content Article content Premier Doug Ford said he believes employees are more productive when they work in-person. Article content 'How do you mentor someone over a phone? You can't. You've got to look at them eye to eye,' Ford said at an unrelated press conference Thursday morning. Article content Thursday's announcement comes after some private sector companies, including several Canadian banks, announced that employees would be required to spend more time at the office. Article content
CBC
27 minutes ago
- CBC
Poilievre says pushing Liberals to repeal EV mandate will be Conservative priority this fall
Social Sharing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday that his party will focus on pushing the Liberals to repeal the electric vehicle sales mandate during the coming parliamentary sitting. Poilievre said the Conservatives plan to introduce motions, petitions and other "pressure campaigns" to repeal the policy that is set to come into force next year. "The electric vehicle mandate that the Liberals are imposing on Canadians is a complete and utter disaster," Poilievre said during a news conference in Corman Park, Sask. "Conservatives are launching a nationwide campaign, including in the House of Commons, to force the Liberals to back down … on the gas vehicle ban." The mandate requires the number of new zero-emission vehicles sold in Canada to hit 20 per cent by next year, 60 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035 in order to help the country hit its emission-reduction targets. Poilievre has been calling on the Liberals to walk back the mandate for months. "It's time to put Canadians back in the driver's seat so they can decide what life they want to live," he said Thursday. The auto industry has also been calling for an end to the mandate. The CEOs of Canada's big three automakers met with Prime Minister Mark Carney last month to lobby for its removal, arguing that the sales mandate would cripple their companies and put thousands of jobs at risk as the industry faces American tariffs and EV demand is sagging. The Liberals haven't indicated whether they intend to keep or scrap the mandate following July's meeting. Carney has repealed other policies introduced under former prime minister Justin Trudeau — most notably the consumer carbon tax. Manufacturers have said there is just not enough demand to hit the 20 per cent target next year, in part due to the ending of the federal EV rebate program. The rebate offered up to $5,000 toward the purchase of a new electric car and up to $2,500 on the purchase of a new plug-in hybrid. While it was supposed to stay in place until March, it was paused in January when it ran out of funding. Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin told The Canadian Press in June that another rebate program could be in the works. Even though he lost his seat in the spring election, it is unlikely Poilievre will miss much time in the House this fall. He is expected to win what is considered one of the safest Conservative seats in the country in a byelection on Monday and the House of Commons isn't set to return until mid-September.
