Raising the Bar For Immigrants

Changes to the citizenship test have caused failure rates to soar to nearly 30 per cent in some jurisdictions. That might not be such a bad thing.

Canada’s new tougher citizenship test is a welcome adjustment, says an editorial in the National Post: “Becoming a Canadian citizen should not be a rubber-stamp process.” The Post says that aside from ensuring that new Canadians have a basic grasp of our history and politics, harsher tests, which are available in only English or French, help weed out people who don’t have basic competency in one of the two official languages. That’s good for both the Canadian economy and immigrants themselves, because immigrants who don’t speak English or French become marginalized and dependent on the state. So kudos on the harder test, says the Post, but the real problem remains the fact that the majority of newcomers to Canada are unproductive family members sponsored by productive immigrants. The Post says a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of the system is needed to address this, but it’s worth noting that our generous family sponsoring rules are probably one of the things that makes Canada an attractive destination for skilled immigrants. This is a status we want to keep unless we wish to become a nation of Octomoms, churning out enough children of our own to replace our aging workforce.

The Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente has a similar take to the Post on the new test, but wonders why we’re not doing more to address the language requirement directly. “There are two ways to address the language problem,” she writes. “One is by requiring competence before people are admitted in the first place. The other is by offering generous language programs for newcomers — and encouraging them to take them.” We don’t seem to be doing either, which certainly seems like a large oversight. Wente also takes a shot at the “bureaucrats” who are trying to avoid the “administrative hassle” that has come with flunking 30 per cent of applicants under the new test. They’re trying to raise the pass rate to at least 85 per cent. Why she seems to think this is a plot by lazy bureaucrats to reduce their workload, Wente doesn’t explain. Don’t all countries have immigration targets?