More lack of precision in the Swedish debate about Canadian immigration...

Today, Hanne Kjöller reports from a Stockholm seminar hosting Howard Duncan from the Metropolis project. The question is why Canada succeeds why Sweden fails, but for some reason, the mentioned factors do not convince me.

Kjöller starts off by stating that the Canadian immigration system is vastly different from the Swedish, where Canada is much more picky about who it accepts. This is not a very good representation of what's going on. While it is true that refugees are a comparatively small group, it is not true that the rest of the immigrants arrive through the well-known points system. The points, which rewards people for high academic achievements and good linguistic ability, only apply to the highly skilled immigrant stream, but there are two other streams, too. One is the economic class, entrepreneurs that are moving their businesses to Canada when they come to live here. The other is the family class. No points are applied to this category, the only caveat being that the sponsoring family must be able to support the immigrant economically.

Even so, Canadian immigrants are generally highly skilled, but Canada, like Sweden, still does have a discussion about the problem with the fabled doctor cab-driver (though in my experience, occupations that require certification of some kind tend to be more generally problematic to enter for immigrants than others). It could also be noted that the Canadian debate often discusses to what extent the points system itself is too focused on letting academics in, when there is a serious skills shortage also in trades and crafts that is not addressed in the current points system. Calls have been made to reform it to allow a greater diversity of skilled immigrants to enter the country, but so far, there has been no real attempts by the government to address the issue.

Secondly, it's a myth that Swedish immigrants are all illiterate (and while Kjöller might not making this assertion, it certainly sounds like she thinks that the Swedish immigrants are much lower educated than their Canadian counterparts). Studies from the early 00s show clearly that academics are overrepresented among Swedish immigrants. Indeed, Swedish immigrant academics have been under-employed and unemployed to a higher degree than native Swedes ever since the mid 80s, according to an old SACO report from the early 90s. So the problem has persisted since a time when Sweden boasted practically full employment.

Thirdly, Canadians, and particularly researchers at the Metropolis Project, are quite worried about the socioeconomic development of immigrants there. It used to be like Duncan says, that immigrants economically catch up with native born Canadians after a few years in the country. Since the early 90s, though, that catch up time has become longer and longer, and some are started to worry that some groups of immigrants might not catch up at all anymore. This makes we ask why Duncan would say that this is no problem in Canada.

Fourthy, to say that there is no controversy about multiculturalism in Canada is patently false. The policy has been increasingly questioned during the last decade or so.

Still, even with all those caveats, Canadian immigrants are much less socioeconomically challenged than Swedish immigrants are. But given that academics are overrepresented in both groups, I have to ask if the educational levels in the immigrant population can adequately answer the question of why Sweden seems to lag behind Canada with regards to immigrants' economic integration.

The debate continues

The Integration blogg links to this debate  (at 4.30) between Integration Minister Sabuni and the representative of the opposition. "Why does the integration policy fail?", the reporter asks before going on to talk about the riotiing in Swedish suburbs that have been given a lot of attention for the past year or so. I ask myself if that question can ever be adequately answered without looking at mechanisms of empowerment and disempowerment. In that context, a key issue is to look at the civil society of immigrant communities. If I were to guess why this is never really given any attention over there, I'd link this to the Swedish political reflex of solving everything through the powerful welfare state, or the "strong society" as it is known over there. The problem with that, though, is that one size does not fit all, and one type of organizations cannot solve all types of social problem.

New Integration policy launched in Sweden

Today, the Integration Minister of Sweden, Nyamko Sabuni, presented the proposed Bill for a integration policy in Sweden. It states that the goverment will invest SEK 920 million (roughly CAD 150 million) for this policy and details a number of new measures to facilitate a quicker economic integration of immigrants in the country. The most important changes include giving the Swedish Public Employment Service the overall responsibility for the integration process, a new settlement action plan (my rough translation) drafted for the individual immigrant, and a settlement pilot will be assigned to guide the immigrant to the new labour market, as well as increased efforts to teach the newcomers basic civics about Swedish society.

From my perspective, I'd have to say that the only really promising part of this package is the addition of the new settlement pilot. This can be non-state actors (private companies or ngo:s), and if I understand the proposal correclty, the immigrant will be free to chose this guide freely. That would certainly be a step in the right direction. However, the funding system gives cause for pause, as it were. Guides will be remunerated according to how fast they can arrange employment for their clients. This will undoubtedly lead to "creaming" (as it already did in Canada), where agencies will a) only help those who can be quickly placed in work and b) place them in whatever work is quickly available, regardless of the competency of the individual. While it is important for immigrants to find work, the system will not solve the issue of under-employment, i.e. the fabled engineer/doctor who drives a taxi cab.

As for the Swedish Public Employment Service as the main coordinator, I really cannot say how great effect this move will have. On the one side, it is true that coordination of the efforts of government agencies have been severly lacking. On the other side, there is plenty of evidence indicating that the Swedish Public Employment Service has a tradition of paternalism vis-a-vis its immigrant clients, so it seems to me that its competence in this regard can be questioned. On that note, it is unclear to what extent the new individualist "settlement plans" will differ from the similiarly individual introdution plans that municipalities were obligated to draft when receiving immigrants, plans have been around for almost 20 years with very little effect (they are also comparable to the individual action plans for long term unemployed - a quantitative measure with absolutely no impact for employability whatsoever).

Finally, even if this plan, insofar as the settlement guides might succeed where government agencies have failed, might do something for the quicker economic integration of immigrants, one has to ask if the government has any plans for those immigrants are among the permanent unemployed and under-employed and who have been in the country for 10 years and more. In that sense, Swedish integration policy is still focused so much on newcomers that it tends to be blind for the barriers that persist for immigrants with longer residency in the country...