Immigration and Integration in Canada in the Twenty-first Century

Immigration and Integration in Canada in the Twenty-first Century is the first volume of an anticipated collection that will facilitate knowledge transfer by the members of Metropolis, an international network for comparative research and policy development on immigration, diversity, and integration in cities in Canada and worldwide. The chapters in this Canadian-focused volume are the fruit of a series of workshops at the 8^th National Metropolis Conference held in Vancouver in March 2006, and the collaborative efforts of the editors John Biles, Meyer Burstein, and James Frideres, who benefited from the input of a number of academics, community leaders, and government officials. The editors’ introductory chapter sets the stage by presenting the overarching goal of the book, namely, “to provide a comprehensive framework that covers all aspects of immigrant adjustment and associated public endeavour” (p. 5), and by briefly describing the policy implications of tensions such as integration uncertainty, social exclusion, shifting power balance, and new management priorities. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the editors is to have successfully pulled together nine chapters that stand up well as individual pieces on integration, and that collectively illustrate how immigrants and mainstream society must work together in a “two-way street” approach “where both immigrants and current citizens are expected to adapt to each other, to ensure positive outcomes for everyone in the social, cultural, economic, and political spheres” (p. 4). From a logistics perspective, the editors did a great job by organizing this volume into two distinct yet complementary sections.

The four chapters in the first section of the book collectively perform an “environmental scan” of the concept of integration in Canada, and propose measures for evaluating the nature and extent of integration in the country. The first chapter in this section, by Arthur Sweetman and Casey Warman, provides an economic assessment that reveals increased poverty among new immigrants, and calls for the need to conduct more research to examine the economic impact of immigration on the Canadian economy so all can benefit from Canada’s relatively high standard of living. In the second chapter, Christopher G. Anderson and Jerome H. Black discuss the two-way interaction of political integration—naturalization, political participation, and representation—from a long-term perspective and ask the more immediate questions of whose integration and what standards of integration are at stake. While the authors find that immigrants generally carry out their political integration responsibilities quite well, they believe that more research and analysis is needed to help the Canadian mainstream demonstrate greater leadership in the two-sided approach to integration in general, and with respect to remedial measures to deal with disadvantaged groups in particular. Complementing the political analysis of Anderson and Black, James Frideres presents an extensive review of the literature showing the need to promote social integration in Canada through the creation of an inclusive society. In the final chapter of this section, Marjorie Stone, Hélène Destrempes, John Foote, and M. Sharon Jeannotte examine immigration and cultural citizenship in relation to responsibilities, rights, and indicators, and conclude that the topic needs to be further investigated by various levels of government. According to the authors, governments should also support initiatives of writers and artists from minority groups, and works dealing with inter-cultural exchanges, to foster greater receptivity and space for immigrants and minorities in Canada.

The five chapters in the second section address the question of societal integration in Canadian contexts. The two chapters on integration policy, by John Biles and the Conseil des relations interculturelles, respectively, focus on the situation in English-speaking Canada and French-speaking Quebec, and similarly conclude that more coordinated approaches need to be implemented. While John Biles stresses the need to tackle challenges of continuity and evaluation in government-funded initiatives in general, the Conseil des relations interculturelles suggests that Quebec needs to specifically implement evaluation mechanisms to assess practical elements of immigrant integration in the province. The following three chapters of the section provide a solid overview on how the general public perceives immigrants and how the latter are represented in media coverage. Jack Jedwab’s chapter reviews a large body of public opinion polls showing that there is a great deal of convergence around the two-way street relationship for immigrant integration in Canada, but that supporters have some conflicting opinions about immigration levels and how integration gets defined and implemented. In their chapters, Minelle Mahtani and Chedly Belkhodja respectively present the results of their content analysis of major English-language and French-language media. According to Mahtani, immigrants are widely misrepresented in the media, notably through stereotyping and under-representation. She identifies a need to conduct more immigration research in the arenas of production and consumption. Belkhodja discusses the debate over what constitutes reasonable accommodation, and considers some of the broader implications of the growing competition between Quebec pluralist sentiments and the rise of criticisms over diversity and accommodation.

As a whole, this is an important and timely book that contributes to broadening our understanding about how immigration integration is addressed in Canada and why. The concluding chapter of the three editors—John Biles, Meyer Burstein, and James Frideres—is particularly well done from a Canadian public policy perspective as it presents a solid working framework for identifying immigrant integration with the two-way process model, and discusses currently available empirical indicators for measuring immigrant integration in economic, social, cultural, and political sectors. Still, what was not covered in the book raises the question of potential knowledge gaps. Interesting comparative work between the situation in Quebec and English-speaking Canada is present in the book, but we still know very little about legal immigration issues as they relate to the civil and common-law systems of the country, or about the settlement and integration realities of immigrants and refugees who migrate from Quebec to English-speaking Canada. More gender-based analysis and qualitative research would also be welcome. While it is my hope that these topics get picked up in the next volumes of the anticipated Metropolis collection and/or in future research projects and discussions, I fully recommend this first volume as it provides an excellent introduction to the topic of Canadian immigration and integration and has great appeal for a broad audience.