A 35% reduction in the number of permits granted to foreign students, imposition of an entry visa for Mexican travelers, questioning of the "massive" regularization of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants... Under pressure from a public increasingly wary of migratory flows, the Canadian government has, since the beginning of the year, stepped up measures designed to show that it does not intend to be "overwhelmed." These measures are at odds with the image of a country traditionally open to immigration (mainly economic, i.e. selective) and to a welcoming policy that Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau considers necessary "to ensure the country's long-term growth." Some 985,000 new permanent immigrants are expected by 2025.
Sociologist and professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, Christian Bergeron, works on models for integrating minorities into society and has observed changes in public opinion regarding migration. Here, he explains how the nature of the immigration debate has changed in Canada, to the point of challenging one of the country's founding principles: multiculturalism.
Canada is indeed a land of immigration, but it's important to remember that immigration has come in waves, according to the country's economic needs. Strong until the beginning of the 20th century, it virtually dried up after the Great Depression until the Second World War, before picking up again. Between 1940 and 1991, immigrants represented an average of 15% of the total population; under Justin Trudeau's policies, this share has now risen to 23%.
Secondly, having long been concentrated in a few major cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, this immigration is now reaching the country's most remote towns. This means that it has become a reality for every Canadian. Finally, the face of immigration has changed radically in just a few decades. Until the early 1990s, almost three-quarters of immigrants came from Europe. Today, Europeans represent just one in 10 new arrivals, while the vast majority (62%) are coming from Asia and the Middle East. Concerns about a less buoyant economic situation than in the past, combined with the need to integrate people with different cultural and religious backgrounds to those of the first arrivals, explain the sense of destabilization felt by some Canadians.
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