Immigration and Discrimination

Inclusion or discrimination? The government rejects certain occupations, requires certain language skills, and makes immigration officers available in only certain parts of the world. “Certainly since Confederation, we’ve developed some kind of sense that, as our immigration ministers will tell you, admission to Canada is a privilege and not a right.” Every nation’s immigration policy is written through an economic prism — it’s all about what’s good for the country economically, Troper says. That means someone will always be excluded or rejected. “We don’t have a turnstile and count people as they arrive and say ‘Keep an orderly line as you arrive,’”

Harrold Troper article Troper points to a series of notorious examples of past discrimination in Canada’s immigration policy: the infamous Chinese head tax The exclusion of black Oklahoman farmers from coming to Canada in 1910; The exclusion of Jewish immigrants from the 1920s until after the Second World War. the refusal in May 1914 of most of the 375 Indians aboard the Komagata Maru after landing in Vancouver, where the ship spent two months before it was ordered back to India.

Without notice, in 2012, The Canadian Government arbitrarily rejected a backlog of nearly 100,000 applications, representing 280,000 people, many of whom had waited years to come to Canada. But simply having an immigration policy discriminates or excludes certain people in one form or another, says Harold Troper, an immigration historian at the University of Toronto and co-author of None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe. These and other examples of discrimination paint a picture of a country — not unlike others around the world at the time — that was xenophobic and saw itself as an “Anglo-British outpost of British civility,” Troper says.

Definitions Racism Discrimination Inequality Human rights Xenophobia Refugees

Racism Hatred or intolerance of another race or other races. A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human  racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and  has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to  the others.

Discrimination An act or instance of discriminating, or of making a distinction. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual  merit racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.

age disability (including physical, sensory and intellectual disability, work related injury, medical conditions, and mental, psychological and learning disabilities) employment activity gender identity, lawful sexual activity and sexual orientation industrial activity marital status physical features political belief or activity pregnancy and breastfeeding race (including colour, nationality, ethnicity and ethnic origin) religious belief or activity Sex carer and parental status personal association with someone who has, or is assumed to have, one of these personal characteristics.

inequality The condition of being unequal; lack of equality disparity inequality of size. Social or economic disparity inequality between the rich and the poor;  widening income inequality in  America. Unequal opportunity or treatment resulting from this disparity inequality in healthcare and education.

Refugee A person who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc. Examples Jews during WW2 Cubans 1990s Syrian 2016 The Government of Canada resettled more than 25,000 Syrian refugees between November 4, 2015 and February 29, 2016. Colombians / Hondurans in 2018

Xenophobia Fear or hatred of foreigners, people from different cultures, or  strangers: Xenophobia and nationalism can be seen as a reaction to the rise of globalization. fear or dislike of the customs, dress, etc., of people who are culturally different  from oneself. EXAMPLES: KKK Japanese internment camps Apartheid Holocaust

The word xenophobia comes from the Greek words 'xenos', which means stranger, and 'phobos', which is fear. It refers to the irrational and intense fear that people have against anything that is strange or unfamiliar, more specifically against people from foreign nations or ethnic backgrounds. Xenophobia can be classified into 2 types. The first is a cultural fear, where the phobia is against objects and elements related to a particular culture, such as clothes and language. The second is against a group of people who are not considered to be a part of society, which usually occurs during periods of mass immigration, which usually leads to reactions ranging from violence on a small scale to large executions or genocides.