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NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY
THE HONOURABLE JOE VOLPE
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION

TENTH INTERNATIONAL
METROPOLIS CONFERENCE

“SEEKING GLOBAL CONSENSUS ON
GREATER URBAN INTEGRATION”

Toronto, Ontario
October 20, 2005

Check against delivery

* * * * *

Honoured delegates; Members of the media; Ladies and gentlemen:

Good evening to all of you, and thank you for the kind words of introduction.

It gives me great pleasure to be with you today, and to take part in the closing ceremonies of the 10th anniversary celebration of the International Metropolis Project.

Your host city is one of the most diverse metropolitan centres in the world. With its official logo of Diversity Our Strength, Toronto is quite “at home” when welcoming guests from 50 nations. Over 100 languages are spoken here, and almost half of the city’s population was born outside Canada.

I’m proud as well that you’re with us while we celebrate National Citizenship Week! Sharing our community values with new Canadians of diverse origins lies at the heart of our citizenship. How we welcome new neighbours is of great importance to Canadians — as it is in every nation represented by Metropolis — so the timing couldn’t be better for your exploration of integration policy.

Although I represent a Toronto constituency in Parliament, I take pride in the fact that any city in Canada could set the stage for an international conference on diversity and immigration! The Canadian landscape has been shaped by immigrants from both ends of the historical time line.

Even before we became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth, Canada reflected a European influence. This was thanks to the English and French explorers who sailed to a land already settled by our first citizens — the Aboriginal cultures, who themselves arrived from Asia 10,000 years ago.

By 1867, the time of Confederation, our first prime minister was of Scottish birth. So was our second. Our fifth was born in England.

More recently — at our end of the time line — we installed our new Governor General, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, who immigrated as a child from Haïti. And her predecessor, Madame Adrienne Clarkson, was born in Hong Kong. Both highly respected former journalists, these two eminent women from immigrant families ascended to one of the highest public offices in the land.

That’s the greatness of Canadian citizenship.

There are no degrees of “belonging” or classes of “membership”. You don’t get bonus points if your ancestors arrived 200 years ago, and you harvest maple syrup, and play hockey on weekends.

Even if your citizenship certificate arrived in the mail this morning, your equality is just as solidly rooted in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Since Confederation, almost 16 million immigrants and refugees have arrived as first-generation Canadians on these shores in search of a fresh start — where the values that unite us as citizens speak of peace, social harmony, and democratic governance.

I often try to conceive what it must be like to make the decision to leave one’s country. I was a youngster in Italy when my own parents made the courageous move, and was too young to fully appreciate the impact on our family.

Given Canada’s cultural legacy, entrenched in waves of migration, I might be permitted to add some nuance to this week’s deliberations from a Canadian perspective.

Shaped by Common Experience

Our concepts of citizenship and immigration have always been inter-linked. By now, we could even consider them to be inter-locked.

Of course, there are many definitions of citizenship among the member countries of Metropolis. In Canada, we define our core values simply: respect your neighbour, obey the law, embrace equality, and become involved in the day-to-day life of your community.

Share our bounty, share our obligations, but share our values too — as would new members of any family, congregation or community.

The people who choose to come to Canada are an energetic and highly-skilled force of nation-builders.

The very notion of “Being Canadian” is constantly transforming itself thanks to newcomers’ unique skills, work ethic, and the heritage traditions they add to what we call our “multicultural mosaic.”

Last month, our Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Paul Martin, delivered a keynote speech to an audience of senior public servants. While zeroing in on Canada’s future prosperity, Mr. Martin said: “In light of our history, our values, and our impending demographic challenge, Canada’s immigration policy, particularly as it relates to the selection, integration and regional distribution of new immigrants, is obviously of key importance”.

Competing in the Global Marketplace

Canadians today don’t have as many children as their parents. We won’t have enough young leaders-in-waiting to graduate into careers that fuel the engine of economic growth.

We have become too reliant on stop-gap methods — like overtime that’s no longer a matter of free choice, “doing more with less”, and even bringing people back out of their hard-earned retirement. So, our urban work place needs to make better use of the skills of immigrants.

As industrial nations have trouble producing the legions of trained workers demanded by our Information Age, they are all compensating by opening the door to immigrant expertise. It’s not merely a matter of humanitarian social policy or family reunion.

It’s a matter of economics.

As for Canada, we want to be on a level playing field in the productivity game. Without the contributions of immigrants, and the support of their families, the economy may well lose steam while the “brain train” picks up the slack… and heads out of town.

Family is a source of strength and unity the world over. The extended family is as much a part of Canadian culture as it is elsewhere.

Young nation-builders benefit greatly when they have the stability of their family behind them. It allows them to make a maximum commitment to their careers and to community involvement.

To support families the government has allowed for a greater number of parents and grandparents to be brought in under family reunification. My Department has already increased the processing of such applications from 6,000 to 18,000 for both this year and next.

And I make no apologies for bringing up the family unit in my Department’s continuing efforts to craft a better immigration program.

An Outside Perspective

Every once in a while, I treat myself to a copy of The Economist. It can be enlightening to read insightful commentary on events in one’s country that’s written by an observer from outside the fray.

In the September 10 issue, there’s a story called, “Ghettos of the Mind.” It deals with the integration problems affecting many British Immigrants.

One community leader, a successful local businessman, states:

“It’s not a matter of wanting to be separate. We want to keep our identity, but we don’t insist on li ving apart from everybody else.”

Too many newcomers, as well as those who’ve been citizens for years, feel out of synch with the pulse of the nation. They want to integrate better, but perhaps the chances present themselves all too rarely.

When welcoming new neighbours to a house party, a host shouldn’t say, “Go in and mingle. I’ll catch up to you later.” A good host helps ensure their guests are “integrated” in the party.

With the best of intentions, our nations rolled out the carpet, and brought in people looking for a chance to work towards a promising future.

But we rolled up the carpet all too soon.

Our oversight has never been deliberate or mean-spirited. And whether it has been institutional — or attitudinal — your work this week has helped place the issues of isolation and unrealized human potential front and centre on the Metropolis agenda.

Accent on Accountability

Simply stated, we have to become more accountable for the economic and social outcomes of the immigrant experience. We need to find the ways, with them, not for them, on how best they may avoid marginalization.

And since the vast majority of people “on the move” gravitate towards our urban centres, our focus ought to be, to a significant extent, metropolitan in scope.

Better integration policies and practices may well remain one of the key goals for Metropolis in the future.

Our policy-making network must accept greater responsibility for the social and professional integration of the people we bring in.

Under often trying circumstances, they do their utmost to live up to their responsibilities as law-abiding citizens and workers.

We have to do more in the same direction as host nations. In this context, the 10th International Metropolis Conference has been the ideal setting for exchanges of views by people who care deeply about immigration and its effects on our cities.

A broad community-government framework to promote greater integration of newcomers is an important step forward. This can be achieved proactively through education, creating awareness, outreach programs, expanded language training, and investing in more effective settlement programs.

At the same time, we must ensure that immigration and integration strategies are always being re-assessed and improved if they are to have true meaning for all our citizens.

An Eye on 2006

My hope is that Canada will learn as much from the Metropolis researchers and policy-makers as its non-Canadian members learn from our experiences here.

And as for next year — my Department and I will offer whatever help we can to ensure that Metropolis 2006 in Lisbon will be launched with the influence of a solid, made-in-Canada platform.

To my Department’s own Metropolis Project Team, and to our colleagues throughout the world, I wish you all a Happy 10th Anniversary!

During the past decade, you’ve set high goals in showing the way to create positive change. Metropolis may never achieve perfection.

But I know that together, you can accomplish much for humankind while you try.

Thank you.