What's A Canadian Citizenship Worth These Days?

The United States takes its sovereignty vary seriously, arguably far more than most other democratic nations. This is precisely the reason why US presidents must be born and live within the country. In Canada, the only requirement to vote or run for office is simply having Canadian citizenship. A proposed plan by Toronto mayor David Miller would see that soon change. Miller wants to allow non-citizens, in other words landed immigrants, to vote in municipal elections. His argument is that if they pay taxes, they should be allowed to vote, going as far as to compare it to "taxation without representation." On the outset this makes some sense but if we allow landed immigrants to vote, what is the purpose of Canadian citizenship? If this goes through, citizens will only have the "privilege" to be conscripted against their will for jury duty. I'm hardly a nationalist but this bothers me because it seems as if we are throwing away both our sovereignty and identity. When I think of my parents coming to Canada and working hard to gain citizenship, I cannot help but feel a little screwed if this goes through. Citizenship privileges have been slowly dwindling over the past few decades and even now it doesn't give you special treatment when you travel. So basically, Canadian citizenship is meaningless. I would gladly do as Conrad Black did and have my own citizenship revoked just so I don't have to ever sit on a jury. It's not as if it is doing anything else for me.

The whole issue brings up a questions of immigration. Miller's obvious motives I'll leave for another discussion. The big issue this country is facing today is so called "Canadians of convenience". The media coined this term during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War when Canada mounted the nation's largest sea evacuation since World War II. Thousands of Lebanese-Canadians were evacuated from the war-zone. However, it turned out that most of them had few ties to Canada at all other than citizenship papers. Basically, they had only held onto citizenship for easy access to social services and relatives. However, these are not the only people who are Canadians of convenience. There is a small but growing problem within Canada's immigrant communities that involve people who are little more than long term tourists. They are those who remain in immigrant enclaves their entire lives without learning our language or even interacting with Canadians in general. A growing number of them are elderly relatives here simply to collect social services. Large numbers of whom do not work, do not contribute financially to the system, and most do not contribute to society in any other ways. In cities such as Brampton Ontario, they can be seen wondering the streets and malls in middle of the day during the week. It is well known that the majority of these people are only here to collect socialized medicine. This is painfully evident when going into places like Brampton Civic Hospital, which is sometimes referred to as the $750 million free walk-in clinic for Brampton's Punjabi community.

When questioning immigration, the left usually labels you as racist or against multiculturalism. However, Canadians of convenience throw a monkey wrench into their logic. An immigrant who never learns Canada's official languages and never interacts with the world outside ethnic enclaves does not fall under the umbrella of multiculturalism. Canadians are encouraged right from childhood to learn about and interact with other cultures. To me, this has always been the definition of multiculturalism. It is not enough to simply have multiple cultures in a society to call it multicultural if said cultures do not interact with one another. The problem is that we have to interact with Canadians of convenience eventually and due to the fact many of them cannot communicate in either official language, it has placed an enormous burden on businesses and governments. Is it right to accommodate people who make absolutely no effort to accommodate you? Of course it is difficult to learn a new language and embrace a new society but millions of immigrants have done so with great success. The problem is the people who simply don't care and are just here for the perks rather than trying to build a nation.

One way to solve the problem of Canadians of convenience is to change who is eligible for social services. In order to receive health care and welfare, I believe you must be either a full Canadian citizen or contribute to the system by paying income taxes. Non-citizens and landed immigrants who do not work should not be allowed to collect social services. Of course this would exclude children under 18. Is this harsh? I don't think so. The welfare system acts as a sort of state run insurance. Just like private insurance, if you don't pay into it and never did pay into it, you should not be able to collect. This would eliminate people coming to Canada for "free" health care. I would go even further to say that immigrants should have lived here for a minimum number of years before being able to collect social services, or even that only citizens can collect. Of course the left would never approve any of this but it would certainly raise the value of Canadian citizenship and encourage more immigrants to get their card. Another idea would be to require all new immigrants who cannot speak French or English to take a mandatory ESL or FSL course to be able to communicate with Canadians. As long as they at least make an effort to learn, they should be granted full immigrant status but those who do not should not be allowed in. Radical? Yes, but the current system is just throwing up more and more walls between peoples and is allowing a small but growing minority to take advantage of our generosity. This, quite frankly, is an insult to all those immigrants from every background who built this nation. Things need to change to keep the freeloading Canadians of convenience out.