by Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Slamming Canada's "phoney" debate over dual citizenship, one of the country's leading cultural researchers has released a study to CanWest News Service suggesting there's no evidence that membership with two nations diminishes a person's attachment to Canada. Jack Jedwab, director of the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, says data pulled from a landmark 2001 StatsCan survey refutes the notion that dual citizens are more prone to divided loyalties or a weakened commitment to Canada - key claims among critics who prompted a review of federal policies last year after Canada's $100-million rescue of 15,000 Lebanese-Canadians from Beirut during Israeli attacks on Hezbollah. The evacuation sparked charges that many of those brought to safety were "Canadians of convenience" who don't live here but were happy to accept help in an emergency before quickly returning to Lebanon once the danger had passed. "If we're in a situation where somebody's absent, isn't paying taxes but is going to be using our social programs down the road, I think Canadians would feel that that is unfair," former immigration minister Monte Solberg said last November in announcing a review of Canada's dual-citizenship system. "Canadians want to know that citizenship means something, that we are not just a port in the storm." The federal review - which has stirred heated debate encompassing Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean's renunciation of her French citizenship in 2005 and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's ongoing refusal to give up his - is continuing under current Immigration Minister Diane Finley.
Slamming Canada's "phoney" debate over dual citizenship, one of the country's leading cultural researchers has released a study to CanWest News Service suggesting there's no evidence that membership with two nations diminishes a person's attachment to Canada. Jack Jedwab, director of the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, says data pulled from a landmark 2001 StatsCan survey refutes the notion that dual citizens are more prone to divided loyalties or a weakened commitment to Canada - key claims among critics who prompted a review of federal policies last year after Canada's $100-million rescue of 15,000 Lebanese-Canadians from Beirut during Israeli attacks on Hezbollah. The evacuation sparked charges that many of those brought to safety were "Canadians of convenience" who don't live here but were happy to accept help in an emergency before quickly returning to Lebanon once the danger had passed. "If we're in a situation where somebody's absent, isn't paying taxes but is going to be using our social programs down the road, I think Canadians would feel that that is unfair," former immigration minister Monte Solberg said last November in announcing a review of Canada's dual-citizenship system. "Canadians want to know that citizenship means something, that we are not just a port in the storm." The federal review - which has stirred heated debate encompassing Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean's renunciation of her French citizenship in 2005 and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's ongoing refusal to give up his - is continuing under current Immigration Minister Diane Finley.
But Jedwab says his analysis shows no significant difference between single- and dual-citizenship Canadians when it comes to their expressed "sense of belonging" to Canada. "That tells us there's a phoney quality about the debate," says Jedwab, dismissing arguments that holding two sets of citizenship papers contributes to "divided loyalties" or "dilutes" the meaning of citizenship. "This has gotten a lot of play as an issue of 'dual citizenship equals dual loyalty,' and I think that's been misdirected," says Jedwab. "This has become another argument to bash multiculturalism. Detractors of multiculturalism have been the biggest agitators and they've made a mistake connecting these issues." Jedwab drew his findings from the Ethnic Diversity Survey, a massive Statistics Canada database compiled during the 2001 census that captured the views of some 40,000 Canadians on questions of identity and social integration. According to Jedwab, about 80 per cent of dual citizens said they feel a "strong" or "very strong sense" of belonging to Canada, compared with about 84 per cent for those who hold only Canadian citizenship. Among respondents who speak primarily English, 82 per cent of dual citizens and 85 per cent of single citizens conveyed a strong bond with Canada. Francophone respondents with dual citizenship were, in fact, more likely - 68 per cent compared with 57 per cent for single-citizens - to describe their sense of belonging to Canada as strong or very strong.
No comments:
Post a Comment