Opinion: Why ideas and not identities should matter 

The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy is a new policy think tank focused on Canadian civil society, democracy, and the country’s foundational ideas and values. Its first major output is an essay compilation entitled The 1867 Project: Why Canada Should be Cherished—Not Cancelled. The Hub is pleased to publish weekly excerpts from the book’s essays over the coming weeks.

Ideas can change the trajectory of individuals and entire nations. From Adam Smith’s notion of the “invisible hand” which helped spread free market ideas and prosperity, to the opposite notions of Karl Marx which spurred revolutions, repression, and entrenched poverty, to religious conceptions of any variety which have anchored cultures, ideas affect how people see and govern themselves and each other. Ideas have impacts that outlast armies and empires.

Immigrants, likewise, can have a profound effect upon the culture and direction of any nation-state, given they are “carriers” of ideas and can actualize them by changing societal assumptions and, in liberal democracies, voting patterns. It is significant, for example, that early Chinese immigrants to the west coast of North America in the mid-nineteenth century came from an entrepreneurial region of China and carried a penchant for starting businesses with them to California and British Columbia. 

Given the importance of ideas and immigration, it is worthwhile to examine the flow of both.  Whether one’s ancestors arrived 20,000 years ago, or were from mainly European “stock” and arrived in the last 500 years, or came from any other part of the globe since the 1970s, the origins and changes in Canada’s demographic make-up matter, as do the reactions of other Canadians to that mix. That is because a nation-state must unite diverse people around a conception of the “good life” and must agree on a way to govern itself. Making such decisions necessitates some minimum agreement on what the “good life” and “good government” means and how it is actualized in policy. 

During the first few decades after Confederation, the overwhelming share of Canada’s foreign-born population came from the British Isles, Europe, and Scandinavia. Those regions accounted for over 88 percent of Canada’s foreign-born population in 1871. A full century later, that proportion had declined only marginally, to just under 80 per cent as of 1971. 

Starting in the early 1970s, the composition of the immigrant population changed significantly. The growth of non-European immigration source countries since 1971 has transformed the ethnic origins of the foreign-born population in Canada, as well as the overall population mix. By 2016, the traditional source of immigrant stock, i.e., mainly European and British, declined to just under 28 per cent.

As a proportion of all immigrants, those from Europe, Australia, Great Britain, South Africa, and the United States form a smaller share of all foreign-born immigrants than at any time in Canada’s history, while the proportion from Asian countries is noticeably higher. Immigrants from Asia alone accounted for over 48 per cent of Canada’s foreign-born population as of 2016. By 2036, the forecast is that Asian-born immigrants will comprise 57 per cent of Canada’s foreign-born population. Before 1971, just over 12 per cent of immigrants were a visible minority but as of 2021, 83 per cent of recent immigrants were projected to be in that cohort. 

The religious composition of immigrants has also changed. Prior to 1971, 78 percent of those who immigrated to Canada identified themselves as Christian. That proportion has declined ever since. After 2001, over 36 per cent of immigrants between the ages of 25 and 54 were of a non-Christian faith, just over 38 per cent identified as Christian, and nearly 26 per cent said they had no religious affiliation.

Immigration and integration 

The most widely recognized indicator of successful socialization is the participation of immigrants in the labour market (the proportion of that cohort working or searching for a job). The closer that level is to the overall level for a native-born population, the more successfully are immigrants integrated into the society. 

For example, in France, the labour force participation rate for the foreign-born population stood at 67 percent in 2019, a low compared with other countries. In Canada, the labour force participation rate for the foreign-born cohort was higher than in most G7 countries at just over 79 percent, 12 points higher than France.

The positive rates are also clear in higher employment rates and lower unemployment rates for foreign-born persons in Canada when compared with other G7 countries. For example, the unemployment rate for foreign-born people in Canada was 6.3 percent in 2019 compared with 5.5 percent for native-born Canadians. That is a marginal difference and can be explained by language difficulties, accreditation for skills, adjustments to a new country, and differing average education levels, among other factors. 

The difference in unemployment rates between foreign-born and native-born in Canada is small particularly when compared with Germany, where the unemployment rate for those born outside the country is more than double that for native-born Germans. 

This integration success for immigrants and visible minorities is supported by acceptance data on migrants from a 2019 poll. It found that among 145 countries, Canada ranks as the most accepting country for migrants, at about five times the acceptance rate of the least welcoming countries for immigrants worldwide. That, too, is another measure of success, of social harmony among most Canadians. 

The foregoing is positive. But back to the question of how to unite people with diverse origins around a shared set of positive ideas. 

Given that Canada’s population will be increasingly ethnically dissimilar to that of the past and, depending on the assumptions of new immigrants, traditional Canadian mores could be weakened or strengthened. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, the history of humanity has been one of testing and sharing ideas over time. He notes that a critical factor in economic and other aspects of a successful cohort or country is “the cultural receptivity of different peoples” to tried, true, and successful ideas both on a grand, country-wide scale and on an individual scale.

It is critical for present and future Canadians to unite around ideas which make possible human freedom and flourishing and discard poor ones that can lead to the opposite ends. That imperative makes an implicit and positive case for all Canadians to focus not on identities that are unchangeable, but on laudable ideas that can be shared by all.