Swedish News comments Canadian immigration policy

It turns out that the Aktuellt, a Swedish equivalent of CBC's The National, visited my hometown of Edmonton recently, to do a feature on Canadian immigration policy (ironically, nobody had informed the journalists that I live here).

There is one trait that stands out to me from the piece: It repeats something that is turning into a truism in the Swedish debate: Canadian immigration is so selective, and does not accept many refugees (implication: so no wonder it works better than in Sweden).

That's certainly comforting for Swedish commentators, but it is also, alas, far too simplistic and ignores some important facts that need consideration:

First, while it is true that it is harder for refugees in Canada to find jobs than it is for those who come through the work force immigration stream (in Canada called the Highly skilled stream), it is still quite possible for refugees in Canada to find entry level jobs. In other words, the difficult for Swedish immigrants is to find jobs, period. For a Canadian refugee, entry to the labour market is more challenging than for those who immigrate through other streams, but entry-level jobs are still quite achieveable.

Secondly, this is reflected in the single-minded focus of the Swedish debate, where the issue of whether immigrants there can ever work in their own level of competence (for instance, can an immigrant with a BA find academic level work?) is rarely, if ever addressed.  Swedish commentators seem to be content that integration on the labour market works if immigrants just find some kind of job at all, which is indicative of very low levels of ambitions, indeed. The debate in Canada is, instead: how can immigrants reach the same income levels as the native born population, and find jobs in their own competence level. The debate is thus qualitatively different in that regard.

Thirdly, one should not lose sight of the fact that a substantial number of immigrants to both Canada and Sweden come through family class immigration, even though these numbers have dropped somewhat in Canada during the past few years, (a fact which, by the way, have created a lot of frustration in immigrant communities).

There is, thus, no reason for Swedish commentators to feel look at Canada and become complacent about integration in Sweden because of the work force stream employed by this country. It is an incomplete comparison, at best.