IMMIGRATION AND THE VOTE
Geoff Meggs
Canada has been pretty clear about the benefits we expect from the nearly 500,000 immigrants now arriving annually, especially the wealth and economic growth we need them to generate.
But what’s in it for them?
Unless the pathway to citizenship speeds up dramatically, Canada will soon be home to millions of permanent residents who work, pay taxes, can even serve in Canada’s Armed Forces, but are prohibited from voting or running for office.
Those are in addition to the nearly one million Canadian residents in temporary work or study programs, more than 70 percent of whom aspire to stay.
The Discover Canada booklet, available to all would-be immigrants hoping to become Canadian, describes our country as a place guided by “a belief in ordered liberty, enterprise, hard work and fair play.”
What’s fair about taxation without representation?
Canada’s history provides ample evidence that those denied the vote – whether women, Japanese Canadians, Chinese Canadians, Indigenous or any other group – are also denied basic rights and subject to exploitation and discrimination.
A recent Abacus poll showed that Canadians remain generally enthusiastic about immigration, yet increasingly uneasy about the pressure on already-strained services like housing, education and health care. (Of course, both education and health care would collapse without foreign students’ fees and immigrant health workers’ skills.)
Those most affected by those shortfalls are immigrants themselves, confronted by constant economic and social hardship as they seek to put down roots.
Nonetheless, they prevail. The 2021 census showed that immigrants – people who were born elsewhere, immigrated to Canada and became citizens – already make up nearly one quarter of the electorate.
That share would be even higher if the 60 percent of “non-citizens” in the census tally, mostly people of working age and almost all engaged in the workforce, could vote. A large proportion of this group are young people who should have a right to participate in decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
In cities like Toronto, Montreal and Metro Vancouver, where the majority of newcomers seek to settle, those hundreds of thousands of new voters could reshape the political landscape. Until they join the electorate, their concerns are of no interest to campaigning politicians.
As things stand, permanent residents wait a minimum of three years before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship, often after years of effort to achieve permanent resident status.
To be fair, Canada has had some limited success in reducing wait times to achieve citizenship, moving the citizenship test online and even allowing successful applicants to self-administer the oath. (Unfortunately, Queen Elizabeth II remains our sovereign, according to Discover Canada’s downloadable study guide, a potential pitfall to applicants trying the multiple-choice and true/false online test.)
These efficiencies undermine the gravity and responsibility of achieving Canadian citizenship even as they seek to streamline the process. The once momentous milestone of citizenship is reduced to something akin to self-checkout.
If that’s how little we value citizenship, why do we make it so difficult to achieve?
Why not combine the permanent resident and citizenship process into one, reserving the right to revoke citizenship within a given time frame if certain criteria aren’t met?
In the meantime, provinces should allow permanent residents to vote at the municipal level, as cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Hamilton have all proposed in recent years.
The cost of inaction is well captured in the painful past experience of Japanese Canadians.
In October 1900, naturalized citizen Tomeikichi Homma marched into the Vancouver Court House and demanded to be registered to vote. The elections officer, relying on racist provincial election rules, said he would go to jail before he registered “a Jap.”
Homma’s challenge was upheld by two BC courts before finally being overturned at the Privy Council in London, then the British empire’s highest court. It would be nearly 50 years before Japanese Canadians got the vote, after suffering through the forced dislocation and internment of the Second World War.
In his judgement upholding Homma’s right to register, BC Judge Angus McColl warned:
“The residence within the province of large numbers of persons, British subjects in name, but doomed to perpetual exclusion from any part in the passage of legislation affecting their property and civil rights, would surely not be to the advantage of Canada, and might even become a source of national danger.”
His warning applies equally to Canada today. Yes, Canada’s permanent residents will get to vote, eventually. We should make that wait as short as possible.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Geoff Meggs - Geoff is a Canadian politician, political operative and communications expert, who served on Vancouver, British Columbia's City Council from 2008 to 2017. He was first elected in the 2008 municipal election, and resigned his seat on city council in 2017 to accept a job as chief of staff to John Horgan, the Premier of British Columbia. Prior to his election to City Council in 2017, Geoff served as Executive Director for the BC Federation of Labour.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.