Have you ever noticed how much pride Canadians take in being Canadian? This is particularly the case when comparing themselves to Americans. For some reason, every Canadian has some kind of inferiority and superiority complex about being Canadian rather than American. I mean, they talk about how great Canada is, and how multi-cultural, and that's fine, but then they start in on this bizarre inferiority complex, where they also do everything better, bigger, faster, and more than Americans, precisely because they are Canada.

Not only does this not make sense, it's silly. America invented big. When the only sizes of drinks you can buy at Starbucks are Tall, Grande, and Venti, which translate as, roughly, big, bigger, and fucking huge, it's quite clear that we can't even call small "small", because no one will buy it.

And yet I digress. The point is, as made by a Canadian of my acquaintance, that Canada is getting a significantly different immigrant population from the one the US is getting. In specific, the immigrants coming in to Canada are generally ones with money and who are, let's face it, more desirable as integrated members of the population.

Why?

Glad you asked. It's evidently because of the perks Canada offers. First, there's a year free language training. The (federal) health care system will provide services in most, if not all, languages that an immigrant may speak. There's a huge multicultural system there, with all kinds of legislation and the rest of it. Additionally, there's also the minor fact of the existing immigrant communities, which are huge.

Now, it's obvious that some of this stems from Canada's unique mix. They've got the Francophones in Quebec, and the natives in Nunavut. In both cases, the province revolves around the specific group. To even allow the Francophones to legally exist, the Canadian government has had to incorporate multicultural policies at very high levels.

The US on the other hand, does little of this. As far as I know, there is no government sponsored language program. There is translation service, but I always find the signs written in English, Spanish, and Chinese - that leaves an awful lot of people out. Additionally, we are continually on the prowl for immigrants, and even ones who have been legally allowed residence get deported on occasion. So which would you pick - the country that's going to let you integrate but not assimilate you, or the one that's going to be trying to throw you out while keeping you marginalized?

Part of the reason for this in Canada is that their population is much smaller than the US's, and their birthrate has remained stable for years, so the population is actually declining - as a consequence, they're much more welcoming to immigrants, and as far as I know, the US has a while to go before the population starts declining.

But immigration remains a fact. The US is going to have to cope with immigration, both legal and illegal, for the rest of its existence. Even if we go totally isolationist and refuse to allow immigration, we're going to have to deal with illegals.

My thinking is that we"ve got a choice. We can either completely ignore our supposed role as beacon of freedom to the known world, and the global dream of the American Way Of Life, and continue to get immigrants who, with nothing against them, are in need of greater services, or we can realize that immigration ain't going back into the box, so we can impact who is seeking to become a citizen.

Bear in mind, that I'm not advocating a complete free-for-all with immigrants - the problems causing people to leave their home countries should be solved there, rather than simply allowing people willy-nilly into other countries, because of the negative impact on both sending and receiving communities. However, immigration will, as has been mentioned twice, be a fact of life. The only way we can change it is by choosing to do something else, like trying to attract a better class of people - to be perfectly blunt about it.

There's an interesting phenomenon going on in South Africa, where they don't have enough educated workers - even though the unemployment is 40%, there aren't enough workers because of the effects of apartheid on the educational system. Consequently, the government is having to institute a policy of immigration. I don't think the US is in danger of that, yet, but the reality is that for a first world nation, we certainly seem to have a lot of people who don't choose education that will let them work in such skilled trades. This is, of course, partially compensated for by the fact that a lot of those jobs have gone to other countries. However, while it is possible to function in a technological society with a surface competence in the machinery, what happens when it breaks? My thinking is that if we start increasing the skills of our people - partly through a revamping of the educational system and partly through selective immigration - we'll be in better shape.

Because right now, the skilled and the wealthy immigrants are going to Canada.

I think the issue is ultimately one of xenophobia - we don't have the large, integrated immigrant communities that Canada does, because once we found out that keeping people in a certain area wasn't going to work, we practically forced them into the larger community. There's tremendous pressure to assimilate, and not a lot of understanding for people who want to keep their culture in a new country. Considering that everyone dies, and that the generation in power now will, with luck, not be the generation in power in 50 years, what does it matter if demographics are changing? Is the citizen who speaks Vietnamese at home less of a citizen than you? We can impact now what our society is going to be in 50 years, and if we keep people marginalized, it's either going to be destroyed in a revolution, or else it's going to be a civilization of discontents, biding their time to get back at the dominant group.

Stratification will increase. If we haven't figured that out with the "integration" of blacks into the dominant community, we never will. Immigration will remain. We can impact that now, by changing our policies and getting people who can function on their own as well as people who need everything.

Besides, the minute we stop assuming that the only jobs immigrants can do are the scut work that Americans don't want, the better we become as people. It's time to start giving them the opportunity.

More smug than Canadians,

Channon