Nick Noorani Website

“We are a country which recognizes the importance of immigration, but we do not see it as a problem – we see it as a contribution, wealth. This is fundamental in the Canadian identity.” Governor General Michaelle Jean speaking at the Occasion of an Address to the Alumni of the University for Foreigners of Perugia, Italy.
This identity however keeps being challenged as we as a young nation continue to seek our own ‘best practice’ for immigrants to this country. Since the Israel – Lebanon – Hezbollah skirmish dominated the front pages, attention naturally focused on the 50,000 Canadians who were in the ‘war zone’. Some of them were vacationing or visiting relatives when the bombings started but it rapidly became apparent that a small minority estimated at 17,000 were originally Lebanese who had migrated to Canada and returned to their homeland choosing to stay back.

Almost immediately, Canadians started asking why we were rescuing those who had ‘abandoned’ Canada. These were immigrants who came to Canada, earned their Citizenship and returned home. Why, the critics ask, does Canada allow people to hold Canadian citizenship when they have chosen to live in another country? What obligation does the Canadian government have to spend millions of dollars to rescue people who may carry a Canadian passport strictly as a matter of convenience? Why does Canada even grant citizenship to people who are citizens of some other country? And lastly, what loyalty can we expect from those who have dual citizenship?
Let’s understand why an immigrant would return to his home country.
1. Family ties- the fact is that every immigrant leaves behind many relatives who they have spent a lifetime with. Today in Canada it takes ten years to sponsor parents and what are immigrants to do when their parents become old and infirm?
2. Unsuccessful immigration. A StatsCan report showed that one in five immigrants face barriers to employment in their profession and return within the first year of their immigration and a third of working-age male immigrants who arrived in Canada since 1980 left within 20 years of arriving! We should all be asking why?
The federal government in 1977 updated the Citizenship Act to allow Canadians to have two or more citizenships and allegiances at the same time. The 1977 act made Canada one of the first countries to permit dual citizenship. Today, about half of the world’s nations allow their citizens to be a citizen of another country. Dual citizenship is an acknowledgement that people have multiple connections in a rapidly shrinking world — to family, to identity, history and culture — that cannot nor should not be denied.
As far as the government and the law are concerned, a Canadian is a Canadian. That is why Ottawa has a moral obligation to rescue any Canadian in Lebanon who wants out — regardless of whether they went to Lebanon to care for a sick parent, to earn a living or to live out their retirement.
Don DeVoretz, an economist at Simon Fraser University and co-chair of Vancouver’s Centre of Excellence in Immigration is more concerned about the return of these retirees. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun 29 July 2006 he said “A wave of immigrant retirees coming back to Canada in their golden years could cost the government a fortune. You have this looming liability if they return in retirement and there are other problems”. Apparently Mr. DeVoretz forgets that immigrants are tax payers. They too are entitled to the protection that any taxpaying citizen would have, irrespective of ethnicity, but then Mr. DeVoretz is also credited with suggesting Canada brings in more Ukrainians instead of Chinese immigrants – since Chinese immigrants are returning home!
So let us understand, why Chinese immigrants are returning. Mr. DeVoretz will find out that it is because of systemic exclusion of these immigrants based on race by some employers. No surprise that the group he compares the Chinese immigrants with (Ukrainians) are white and do not face any of the hidden barriers that visible minorities do. His solution frankly has racial undertones that are questionable. It is sad that individuals in centers of learning encourage prejudicial stereotypes and widen the gaps between communities instead of bringing us closer.
So yes, there are Lebanese immigrants who have moved back ‘home’ but so have other expatriates like French- and Greek- and Italian-Canadians who live abroad. Dialogue is important if we are to reach an ideal solution suitable for all. How we answer these questions will determine how Canadian immigrants can be when traveling abroad.