New Canadian immigrants find no fascination with their new country. They return to their homes as they feel that the newly adopted country cannot assuage their worry about future uncertainty. People settling in new places feel like second-rate denizens. Canada cannot be a USA. While immigrants in Canada have only uninspiring stories to tell, the immigrants in the US have many things to boast about. Canadian migration can no longer be an expedition to find a fortune. It is like a customer visiting a big mall where a customer buys and pays half the bill by seeking a job in the mall itself.
Migration is not a new phenomenon. It began two million years ago after the homo erectus crossed the African continent. When we delve into history to explore what set a foundation for many discoveries that led to agricultural and industrial revolutions, we may miss the contribution of immigration. The regional industrial revolution further rekindled migration, and the migrants could successfully integrate themselves with the local society unidentifiably over a period. That was an inevitable and accidental migration as people moved from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance and from a place of no opportunity to another place of immense opportunities.
Since the 19th century, migrants changed the country they migrated to, while invaders annihilated everything they disliked. Centuries ago, migration was not an issue because it was a natural process of colonizing new geographies based on the resources available to support life. Today, newfound geographies have exhausted resources due to over-exploitation.
The United States of America (USA) remains the best example of how well migrants change the profile of a country. The US systematically encouraged migration, first from Europe and later from Latin America and Afro-Asian regions. Today, the US is the home for 20 per cent of migrants worldwide. Around 14 per cent of the US population constitutes migrants. Surveys show the local population is receptive to the immigrants, who contributed significantly to making what the US is today. Immigrants built nearly half of the top US companies appearing in the list of Fortune 500. They head most of the most valuable US companies.
No country in the world has a history of such fascinating migrants’ contributions that changed the profile of a country. How did this wonder work with the US alone? The answer lies in selective encouragement and opportunities the immigrants enjoy.
Sparsely populated Canada, which is slightly bigger than the US and three times the size of India, has a population of 38 million, less than three per cent of India’s population. Roughly a quarter of them are immigrants, thanks to the consistent Canadian policy of populating the country. After a success, the new immigrants find the country no more fascinating. Immigrants are emigrating back to their country of origin. The reason is understandable. Canadian migration is no longer an expedition to hit any gold and build a fortune, but like a customer visiting a mall, a customer buys and pays half the bill by seeking a job in the mall itself. Such a customer is not a guest but a worker looking for odd jobs to meet expenses.
There is no wonder in the unsatisfactory findings of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the Conference Board of Canada. A large landmass is no guarantee of sustainability of life. Something is seriously wrong with Canada, where new immigrants might have felt like second-class citizens as immigrants in most countries in the world. This is a classic example of how the inorganic way of populating a vast stretch of desolate geography can bounce.
On the other side, where non-natives invaded and settled permanently by eradicating and expelling the natives there are troubles, be them in any form, are natural. West Asia is an example. Within the country also migration has been a multi-pronged challenge. There are plenty of interesting examples of how migration can be potentially challenging in future either because of the consequent undesirable change in social structure and sharing of local resources.
(Sajikumar is a Mumbai based blogger)
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