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...

Multiculturalism or integration? Why are they seen as oppositional?

In a recent essay in the Globe and Mail, Daniel Stoffman argues that Canadian multiculturalism is more an ideology than a fact. His piece asserts that for having seemingly different official approaches to immigration, Canada (multiculturalism) and the US (melting pot), assimilation rates and political actions come across as remarkably similar. His examples include both countries acting against the cockfighting which some Hispanic communities seem to regard as essential to their culture, as well the debate on Shariah laws.


The piece in interesting insofar as it asks pertinent questions about how multiculturalism is defined, and points out that the term certainly seems to be used in a relatively vague fashion in public space.

Yet, Stoffman seems to conceptualize multiculturalism, and the cultural mosaic it aims to achieve, in a way that is not without problems. Commenting on the Minister's of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism words concerning integration as the new way to avoid creating isolated ethnic silos, Stoffman concludes:

"But if we don't want silos, then we don't want to be a mosaic either. Both
images suggest a society composed of separate groups rather than an integrated
whole. If the Minister of Multiculturalism is rejecting silos, he is also
rejecting multiculturalism. Maybe it's time the Department of Multiculturalism
was renamed the Department of Integration. "

This dichotomization of multiculturalism and integration seems to assume that cultures somehow are internally homogenous and clearly externally bounded, as well as static, unchanging. This is a very reductionist, even simplistic, view of how cultures actually work. Cultures, it seems to me, are highly dynamic, always changing in contact with others and their borders are seldom easilty drawn. Stoffman's treatment also seems to imply that integration means the radical abandonement cultural plurality, which transforms the concept from one of mutual negotiation between equal parties to one very close to assimilation.

If nothing else, the essay does bring attention to the need to clarify what is actually meant by terms like multiculturalism and integration, which see common usage in the public debate.

Confused Swedes..

Just listened to Swedish radio, which discussed the pros and cons of introducing a language test requirement for immigrants who want to become citizens. Helena Bergholtz, a Liberal MP, said that many succesful nations employ such tests and went on to claim that Canada is a country that uses language tests for such requirements. This is not true. A person who wants to become a Canadian citizen has to pass a test in civics, which probes your knowledge in Canadian history and (to some extent) politics. This is not the same as a language test and the difference is an important one, even if the test itself is written in one of the official languages. It's amazing how persistent this misconception of the Canadian procedure is among Swedes. One would think that someone would check the facts at some point.

It is also discouraging, seeing as accuracy is important when making legislative proposals, particularly in an issue of such significance as citizenship and ethnic integration, where mistakes risks aggravating ethnic relations and cause unnecessary tensions between the majority and the minorities...

Canadian developments

Some interesting new developments in the Canadian debate on immigration and integration. Canadian Press has a piece about Kenney's visit to Calgary earlier this month. He says that the federal government's new focus is on integration:

"We don't want to create a bunch of silo communities where kids grow up in a community that more resembles their parents' country of origin than Canada."

He also talks about the dangers of immigrants developing an new identity which would somehow be at odds with their Canadian identity if they lived in such communities.

These comments are somewhat obscure, but ominously echo Bisoondath's critique of multiculturalism from back in the '90s. The real problem is how the Conservative seems to dichotomize between multiculturalism and integration, and between maitaining your cultural heritage and being Canadian. These two will only be at odds if politicized. Indeed, since integration by definition is a process that takes place between two (or more) equal partners in mutual dialogue and negotiation, it seems to me that multiculturalism is a necessity to be able to achieve ethnic integration. Anything else risks leading to assimilation, where the minorities are forced to abandon certain legacies or parts of their identity in the process of becoming Canadians.

The second piece is more recent and discusses how immigrants are hard hit by the recession. What surprised me here is that Canadian employers seem to rely on the last hired, first fired principle. Unlike in Sweden, where it is the law of the land, this rather seems to be a practice of convenience. If anyone could enlighten me further with regards to its status in Canadian working life, I'd be most grateful. But even when the news are these grim, I still have to say that Canada appears relatively succesful in comparison to my native Sweden, because over there, I doubt very much that Mr. Lobana or Mr. Muqtadir would have found any employment in jobs on their own competence level in the first place...

Rest in peace, professor

It had completely passed my by that one of the truly great philosophers of our time passed away on Friday, July 17 at age 81. Leszek Kolakowski was a Polish thinker whose work Main Currents of Marxism must be seen as one of the most important contributitions to political theory during the 20th century. It constitutes the most thorough and relentless analysis of Marxist thought. Covering the development from the beginnings in the late 18th century to its later incarnations in the 1970s, it clearly exposes fundamental weaknesses in the ideology. In my comprehensive examination paper on comparative politics, I summarized some of his points like this (p. 17):

"My critique is that several central operative terms of these [Marxist] approaches suffers from X-and-Not-X-problems, including ‘human dignity’, ‘higher forms of culture’ and in some cases the use of the term Capitalism itself. Thus the central claim that Capitalism is the historically most dehumanizing mode of production rests on a particular framing of human dignity. This, as Kolakowski argues, can only be substantiated if it has been conceptualized (Kolakowski, 2005, 217). Since this has not been done, the project of its restoration is impeded. The same reservations can be made regarding Marcuse’s higher forms of culture."

In other words, Marx claimed that Capitalism was dehumanizing without ever defining what he meant by human dignity.

The work is a must for anyone interested in political theory in general or Marxism in particular and the significance of this contribution can hardly be over-estimated.

Rest in peace, professor.

P.S. Wolodarski has a good note in Swedish on Kolakowski's contribution here