I myself believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over particularly the Orient than it is a veridic discourse about the Orient.-Edward Said[1]
Part One: Introduction
In January 2017 Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a public pronouncement via the Twitter social media platform stating, “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada“.[2] This pronouncement was subsequently followed by a photograph of him welcoming a young Syrian refugee to Canada. The Prime Minister’s statement was made against the backdrop of the chaos caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric which continuously labels non-white immigrants and refugees as unwelcomed interlopers generally[3] and his implementation of a travel ban on refugees emanating from six (6) Muslim majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen (it should be noted that the travel ban was subsequently amended to include two other non-Muslim majority countries- Venezuela and North Korea- and this iteration of the travel ban has been recently upheld by the United States Supreme Court).[4] The Canadian Prime Minister’s pronouncement was reflective of Canada’s recent commitment to incoming refugees and immigrants, the numbers of whom have risen quite substantially. For example, the Canadian government has recently announced that it will admit approximately one million immigrants over the next three years and will increase government assisted refugees to 10,000 a year (up from its current level of 7500 per year) and private assisted refugees to 20,000 by 2020.[5][6] As a result of the Trudeau government’s commitment to newcomers, especially in contrast to that of the United States under the Trump regime (which has labelled Mexican migrants and refugees as rapists and drug mules, followed through with the promise of a Muslim ban, and committed to building a sprawling wall on its Southern border), many have regarded Canada as a global leader in progressive immigration. However, in contrast to Canada’s current reputation, many scholars have noted that Canada’s historical record with respect to immigration has not only been quite restrictive, but incredibly harsh to immigrants and refugees emanating from non-European nations. Not only does the Canadian record seem to indicate a greater restriction toward non-Eurocentric immigration, but when newcomers from the East and Global South have arrived in Canada they have historically been subject to more punitive standards than their Western counterparts. In fact, many have viewed this differential treatment as built not simply on racism and xenophobia, but in large part due to a concept popularized by scholar Edward Said known as Orientalism whereby the East is depicted and understood in static ways which are devoid of reality and in a manner that acts as a tool of Western oppression. But is this true? In this piece, it is argued that Orientalism continues to have a significant role in influencing Canada’s approach to immigration and refugee law. After examining the concept of Orientalism in greater detail, the impact of Orientalism on Canada’s immigration regime pre-1976, and the impact of Orientalism on Canada’s immigration regime post-1976, it will become apparent that not only does Orientalism continue to play an important role in crafting Canadian immigration law and policy, but that it also hinders the ability for newcomers to successfully assimilate and resettle within their new societies.
Part Two: Orientalism
Before attempting an examination into Canada’s record with respect to immigration and its relationship with Orientalism, it is perhaps prudent to first engage with the concept of Orientalism itself. Published in 1978, Edward Said’s Orientalism has become a seminal work in the field of post-colonialism, with its resonance being felt across the social sciences.
Said’s work begins by stating that there is great interest from Western scholars to study the Orient, and introduces the concept by defining Orientalism as a manner in which the West defines the East (or Orient) based on its own understanding and experience. As stated by Said regarding an anecdote about a European journalist visiting Oriental locales:
The main thing for the European visitor was a European representation of the Orient and its contemporary fate, both of which had a privileged communal significance for the journalist and his French readers.
Americans will not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East (China and Japan, mainly). Unlike the Americans, the French and the British-less so the Germans, Russians, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, and Swiss-have had a long tradition of what I shall be calling Orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western Experience.[7]
Said further states that understanding the Orient is of central importance to the West because studying the East (as its Other) helps to define itself as well:
The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and riches colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural constant, and one its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (of the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.[8]
What is of critical importance in Said’s work is that the concept of Orientalism is described to be much more than simply an innocuous depiction of the Orient, with the West also being shown to be far from objective when it discusses, depicts and understands the East. While Said’s work clearly builds on that of Gramcesi (in its discussions pertaining to hegemony) and Roland Barthes (model of mythology),[9] it is evident that Foucault’s work on the knowledge-power equation and conceptions of discourse (or “discursive formations”)[10] serves as the foundation for Said’s work. More specifically, discourse, and the power dynamics by which it is surrounded, are of central importance to Said. He argues that how one speaks about the ‘Orient’ works to not only describe it, but that this discourse in fact serves to produce it as well.[11] For Said, it is not possible to speak ‘objectively’ of the Orient, or any other social science concept for that matter, given his contention that:
For if it is true that no production of knowledge in the human sciences can ever ignore or disclaim its author’s involvement as a human subject in his own circumstances, then it must also be true that for a European or American studying the Orient there can be no disclaiming the main circumstances of his actuality: that he comes up against the Orient as a European or American first, as an individual second.[12]
As such, for Said, Orientalism is indeed much more than a mere historical account and he underscores that the concept encompasses two other important dimensions: one that can be understood as a Worldview, representation, and “style of thought” based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and “the Occident”, and another as an instrument of domination, or as Said puts it, “Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.”[13] It is this latter dimension which has drawn scholars to Said’s work, and which has made his contributions invaluable to the fields of post-colonial studies, Middle Eastern studies, political science, legal studies and a host of other social science disciplines. As such, while Said’s work is not perfect due to the absence of quantitative approaches and empirical evidence, dense writing fraught with jargon, seemingly cherry-picked authorities, the absence of an alternative approach to Orientalism (something Said himself was embarrassingly absent from his work),[14] and critics who believe Said’s work is exemplary of scholarship that is, “based not so much on the nationality and religion of the scholars and intellectuals concerned as on their (own) attitude to history and the modern and post-modern philosophical ideas (deconstruction, truth as illusion, intellectual hegemony, and so on) which frequently influence it,”[15] the work remains a seminal work in the field of post -colonial studies (and others) because of the unique theoretical framework outlined by Said relating to Orientalism as a powerful tool of Western oppression. In reading and examining Said’s Orientalism in detail it is evident that the author’s central concern is that Orientalism is not merely an impartial or innocent way of looking at the Orient via harmless stereotypes and interpretations, but rather a powerful tool of domination by the West. As Said states,
“The relationship between the Occident and the Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, or varying degrees of a complex hegemony, and is quite accurately in the title of K.M. Panikar’s classic Asia and Western Dominance. The Orient was Orientalised not only because it was discovered to be “Oriental” in all those ways considered commonplace by an average nineteen-century European, but also because it could be-that is submitted to being-made Oriental… I myself believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is a veridic discourse about the Orient (which is what, in its academic or scholarly form claims to be)….Orientalism, therefore, is not an airy European fantasy about the Orient, but a created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been a considerable material investment… It is hegemony, or rather cultural hegemony at work, that gives Orientalism the durability and strength I have been speaking about so far. Orientalism is never far from what Denys Hay has called the idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying “us” as European as against all “those” non-Europeans, and indeed it can be argued that the major component in European culture is precisely what made that culture hegemonic both in and outside Europe: the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures.”[16]
With regard to the genesis of Orientalism, Said highlights that while inaccuracies of the Orient have abounded since the time of Homer, “the difference between representations of the Orient before the last third of the eighteenth century and those after it (that is, those belonging to what I call modern Orientalism) is that the range of representation expanded in the later period.” As such, for Said, (modern) Orientalism has its roots in the late eighteenth century and, according to him, it is no accident that this occurred during a period of vast colonial expansion emanating from Europe into the Orient. Said illustrates this point beautifully with a historical account of Arthur James Balfour’s lecture to the British House of Commons regarding England’s “problems” in Egypt.[17] When facing the question posed by Member of Parliament J.T. Robertson “What right do you have to take up airs of superiority with regard to people whom you choose to call Oriental?”, Balfour’s response, delivered under the guise of neutrality and altruism to support why England is duty-bound to intercede in the region, is in fact riddled with unsubstantiated demeaning claims about the people of Egypt. Said further notes that although Balfour claims to possess no feelings of superiority, his argument for occupation is fraught with them and premised on “our” (England’s) knowledge of Egypt and not principally on military or economic motivations.[18] After detailing Balfour’s account, Said distills the Western logic that justifies colonialism and domination of the East:
Balfour’s logic here is interesting, not least for being completely consistent with the premises of his entire speech. England knows Egypt; Egypt is what England knows; England knows that Egypt cannot have self-government; England confirms that by occupying Egypt; for the Egyptians, Egypt is what England has occupied and now governs; foreign occupation therefore becomes “the very basis” of contemporary Egyptian civilization; Egypt requires, indeed insists upon British occupation.[19]
By providing and analyzing the historical account of Balfour’s June 1910 speech before the House of Commons, Said achieves two things. First, he provides an excellent example of Orientalism in action and the logic by which it is underpinned, and second, he lays the foundation for his argument concerning how Orientalism continues to be an effective tool of domination by the West over the East. For Said, Balfour’s logic is certainly not unique to Balfour or the British experience, but actually passed down, virtually unchallenged, by Orientalists (Western “experts” who claim to study the Orient) into the very psyche of future generations of Westerners. As such, not only do Orientalists perpetuate fictitious, unsubstantiated and even racist accounts of the Oriental “Other”, but these claims remain static. As stated by Said:
The contemporary Orientalist attitudes flood the press and the popular mind. Arabs, for example, are thought of as camel-riding, terroristic, hook-nosed, venal lechers whose undeserved wealth is an affront to real civilization. Always there lurks the assumption that although the Western consumer belongs to a numerical minority, he is entitled either to own or to expand (or both) the majority of the world resources. Why? Because he, unlike, the Oriental, is a true human being… It (Orientalism) views the Orient as something whose existence is not only displayed but has remained fixed in time and place for the West.[20]
In terms of contemporary examples, one need only to look to the works of Lawrence Rosen,[21] Michael Ross,[22] Samuel Huntington[23] or Bernard Lewis as Orientalist writings that not only view the Middle East and its inhabitants as backwards and homogenous, as incompatible with modernity, and as a threat to Western ideals, but will that they remain as such. Said specifically addresses the work of Bernard Lewis, not only to highlight the flaws in his work Islamic Concepts of Revolution, but to demonstrate that Lewis’ writing and recognition as an “authority” on the Middle East is a microcosm of the Orientalist problem:
The entire passage is full of condescension and bad faith. Why introduce the idea of a camel rising as an etymological root for modern Arab revolution except as a clever was of discrediting the modern? Lewis’s reason is patently to bring down revolution from its contemporary valuation to nothing more noble (or beautiful) than a camel about to raise itself from the ground. Revolution is excitement, sedition, setting up a petty sovereignty-nothing more; the best counsel (which presumably only a Western scholar can give) is “wait till the excitement dies down.”…But it is this kind of essentialized description that is natural for students and policymakers concerned with the Middle East: that revolutionary stirrings among “the Arabs” are about as consequential as a camel’s getting up, as worthy of attention as the babblings of yokels. All the canonical Orientalist literature will for the same ideological reason be unable to explain or purport one for the confirming revolutionary upheaval in the Arab world in the twentieth century…I mention his recent writing as a perfect exemplification of the academic whose work purports to be liberal objective scholarship but is in reality very close to propaganda against his subject material. But this should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of Orientalism; it is only the latest-and in the West, the most uncriticized -of the scandals of “scholarship”.[24]
While Said’s analysis in Orientalism is largely fixated on the Orientalist interpretation and conceptions of the Middle East, several scholars have highlighted that the genius of Said’s work is its flexibility and applicability to various studies. More specifically, according to scholar Chris Richardson, what truly distinguishes Said’s work is his model or interpretation for performing the examination of power-knowledge and myth on a geographic level.[25] Richardson builds on this premise to articulate that Said’s theoretical framework is applicable in a myriad of ways and attempts to examine the concerns regarding Toronto, Canada’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood through an Orientalist lens.[26] As stated by Richardson:
The irreducible element within Said’s work, however, is his model for performing this kind of examination of power-knowledge and myth on a geographic level. This is the value of Said’s work and one of the ways in which he goes beyond the frameworks set out before him. This grounding in geography is the indispensable aspect of Orientalism that I argue allows scholars to interrogate more deeply the marginalisation of certain Canadian communities.[27]
As such, Said’s theoretical framework with respect to Orientalism appears to be a flexible one that can guide scholarship in examining other political, economic and/or social concerns. Given the juxtaposition between Canada’s reputation as a progressive global leader in immigration and the horrors of the actual immigrant experience of people originating from the East, an examination of Canada’s immigration history through an Orientalist lens is warranted.
Part Three: Orientalism and the Canadian Experience, 1815-1976
Immigration to present-day Canada stretches back thousands of years when ancestors of Canadian indigenous peoples arrived in North American crossing the Bering strait.[28] However, for the purpose and scope of this paper, the immigration record of interest will include the years from 1815 to the present. This section will examine Canada’s immigration history from 1815 until 1976, when the Immigration Act was revised, setting of the fifth great wave of Canadian immigration.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the industrial revolution triggered an incredible change in Britain. It improved life in many ways, particularly with regards to economic growth, higher standards of living, and a reduction in infant mortality. However, with greater advances in technology, England’s manual labour economy moved towards machine-based manufacturing, resulting in great unemployment. This particularly impacted labourers and peasants, who found their traditional forms of employment rendered redundant by machines who could perform the work at a fraction of the cost. As a result, the industrial revolution in Britain led many to seek work in the colonies in the Americas.[29]
Coupled with the end of Napoleonic Wars, the industrial revolution resulted in large numbers of migrants from several countries looking to the colonies of North America for work.[30] In fact, the period from 1815 to 1850 become known as the Great Migration of Canada, during which more than 750,000 immigrants entered Canada, with the largest portion emanating from Britain.[31]
In 1828, in response to the large wave of emigrants to Canada, Britain, still a monarchy and in firm control over Canada, passed legislation which sought to impose certain limits on immigration. The legislation, An Act to Regulate the Carrying of Passengers in Merchant Vessels, which limited the number of passengers that could be on board ships, mandated the amount of space passengers were to be allotted and sought to ensure adequate sustenance for passengers.[32] Despite this legislation, large influxes of immigrants, mainly of British origin, continued to pour into Canada.[33] According to scholar Valerie Knowles, it was primarily due to the immigrant tide from Britain that “the population of the northern provinces grew from less than 500,000 in 1812 to approximately 2.4 million in 1850.”[34] Knowles further highlights that by 1867, the year of Canadian Confederation, two-thirds of British North America’s population was of British Origin.[35]
With the turn of the century, Canada would decisively continue its commitment to English immigration seeking to retain its colonial roots.[36] For example, as stated by scholar Janice Cavell in her work, The Imperial Race and The Immigration Sieve: The Canadian Debate on Assisted British Migration and Empire Settlement, “a major aim of Canadian immigration policy in the first decades of the twentieth century was to preserve Canada’s predominantly British character.”[37] Cavell also highlights that favouritism within the Canadian immigration system was boosted by a number of pieces of legislation in the early twentieth century, and prominently featured with provisions for assisted (British) migration contained within the Empire Settlement Act of 1922.[38] This attempts at fostering (European) immigration were no doubt successful as, according to legal scholars Mary Liston and Joseph Karens, “the years between 1896 and 1914 saw the largest influx of immigrants in Canada’s history, resulting in an increase from13 to 22 per cent in the immigrant share of the population between 1901 and 1911.”[39]
However, while the record demonstrates that Canada’s early immigration history was very favourable to the British, the record is also clear that non-British immigrants, particularly those of non-European descent, were subject to a much different experience.[40] In fact, it became clear that parliament and policy makers had a different vision and appetite for the non-British and Oriental “others.”[41] More specifically, the Immigration Act of 1906 stated that Cabinet may provide as a condition of entry into Canada that immigrants possess money to a prescribed minimum amount, which may vary depending on the class of the immigrant.[42] This legislative provision was subsequently weaponized in a discriminatory manner against Asiatic immigrants when a January 1908 Order in Council initially mandated a $25 minimum for everyone entering Canada, only to subsequently raise this minimum to $200 in 1914 via another Order in Council for immigrants of Asian descent, with a waiver permitted in exceptional circumstances.[43] While this policy is both racist and discriminatory, what is most interesting are the Orientalist underpinnings of the Order; the rationale provided was simply that the language and mode of life of immigrants from Asia were believed to render them unsuited for settlement.[44] It is precisely this mode of approaching the other which Said underscores repeatedly in his work; that Orientalism is much more than an innocent manner of viewing “others”, and is a tool of oppression used to maintain the imperialist project and white/euro-centric dominance.[45]
Subsequent to the 1906 legislation, the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910 went even further. It boldly gave Cabinet the power to prohibit immigrants belonging to any race, based again on the unsubstantiated belief that Asians and other Oriental others were incompatible with British North America.[46] Additionally, while the wording was amended in subsequent iterations of the Act, the power to prohibit immigrants remained in place from 1910 to 1976.[47][48]
Given these early pieces of legislation, it is clear that Canada’s early approach to immigration placed several barriers on non-European immigrants, with Chinese and Indian immigrants being specifically singled out.[49] In the Chinese context, not only did the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 require Chinese immigrants to pay a $50 head tax (increasing to $100 in 1900 and $500 by 1903),[50][51] in 1923 Chinese immigration was prohibited altogether.[52][53][54] It should be noted that $500 dollars in the early twentieth century was not an insignificant amount of money as early Chinese immigrants noted that with that amount they could have purchased two houses in Canada or two hundred acres of prime land.[55]
In addition to explicit prohibitions on entry and financial impositions, the Immigration Act of 1908 gave Cabinet the power to impose a third power, a continuous passage rule. According to scholar David Matas this rule while “neutral in appearance” was “discriminatory in intent.”[56] The continuous passage rule (a power which lasted until 1978), which sought to limit immigrants from landing in Canada in situations where their voyages necessitated more than one stop. According to Matas, the Governor in Council instrumentalized this power to pass an order expressly prohibiting the landing of any immigrant who came to Canada without a ticket that confirmed a continuous journey from their native country. While this power seemed neutral on the surface, it was meant to curb immigration from far reaching (Oriental) locales like India, where continuous travel to North America was impossible at the time. While outright prohibitions and financial requirements towards immigrants from the East are certainly overt dimensions of Orientalism, laws which appear neutral, sensible and even altruistic in theory but are actually discriminatory in practice are definitely another dimension as well, and were specifically underscored by Said in his examination of Balfour’s 1910 speech to the British parliament concerning England interventions in Egypt.[57] Furthermore, if there was any doubt as to Orientalism’s high level of influence on Canada’s early immigration laws, particularly towards Indians, one only has to examine the case of Komagata Maru (a ship originating from India that carried 376 passengers and was denied entry resulting in many deaths) to Canada and Munshi Singh.[58] Mr. Singh, a passenger of the Komagata Maru arrived at a Vancouver port with only $20 dollars in his pocket shortly after the 1914 Order in Council was passed. He was detained and ordered deported on the grounds that he was of Asian descent with less than $200 dollars with him.[59] Mr. Singh was also from India and as such, did not make a continuous journey to Canada. Mr. Singh appealed this decision to both the Superior Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal, but lost both times.[60] However, what is perhaps most interesting is not the fact that Mr. Singh lost his appeal, but the rationale given by the British Columbia Court of Appeal. In a long judgement delivered by McPhillips, J.A., the court stated that, “the better classes of the Asiatic races are not given to leave their own countries…and those who become immigrants are undesirables in Canada.”[61] McPhillips speaking for the court went on to state:
The Parliament of Canada…may well be said to be safeguarding the people of Canada from an influx which it is no chimera to conjure up might annihilate the nation…introduce Oriental ways as against European ways…and all the results that would flow therefrom….In their own interests their proper place of residence is within the confines of their respective countries in the continent of Asia, not Canada, where their customs are not in vogue and their adherence to them here only gives rise to disturbances destructive to the well being of (Canadian) society…Better that people of non-assimilative…race should not come to Canada, but rather that they shall remain of residence in their country of origin, and do their share, as they have in the past, in the preservation and development of the empire.[62]
The aforementioned statements from McPhillips, J.A. on behalf of the British Columbia Court of Appeal are of note not only because it is hard to fathom that such pronouncements were ever made in a liberal democracy like Canada, but because they perfectly encapsulate the essence of Said’s work on Orientalism. It is almost as if Said contemplated this decision prior to writing his seminal work. The British Columbia Court of Appeal’s unsubstantiated views regarding people of Asiatic descent being both incompatible with Canadian values and a danger to them as reasons for necessitating the need to reinforce white/Western supremacy in immigration, with the juxtaposition of the terms “Oriental ways” and “European ways”, is a direct link to Said’s thesis and theoretical framework concerning Orientalism.
By 1954, Canadian immigration regulations expressly limited admission to citizens of the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, the U.S. and France, all of which were notably occidental countries (South Africa at this time was occupied by a white minority in the full throes of Apartheid).[63][64] In 1956, other Western countries were added to the safe list and while immigrants from Africa and Asia could also attempt to immigrate, they could only do so if they had immediate family in Canada. Such restrictions of course did not apply to Occidentals, but only Oriental “Others”. Prohibition by implication would last until 1962 when the general entry requirement was applied to all immigrants. However, without question Canada’s early immigration history was not only racist, but deeply ensconced in Orientalism with non-Occidental immigrants consistently labelled undesirable and Occidental immigrants given preference. As stated by Stephen Kaduuli in his work entitled, Pointers to Discriminatory Canadian Immigration Policies:
From 1867 to the 1960s, the selection of immigrants to Canada was based on racial background, with British and Western Europeans being deemed the most ‗desirable‘ citizens, while Asians and Africans were considered ‗unassimilable‘ and therefore ‗undesirable‘ (Guo & Andersson 2006: 4). Therefore, in that period Canada had a white racist immigration policy which restricted Asiatic migration, prohibited black migration, and encouraged only white migration (Lynch/Simon 2003: 57) with the aim of keeping Canada ‗Lily White‘.[65]
However, what is important to note is that even after explicit legislative prohibitions were removed, preference regarding immigration was still given towards people from Europe, the Middle East or the Americas who already had extended family living in Canada.[66] On the surface, the 1962 change towards egalitarian general entry, coupled with the revision of the Immigration Act in 1976, helped to increase the prospects for more visible minorities from non-Western locales to successfully immigrate and resettle in Canada.[67] However, while these changes were responsible for the large and overwhelming immigration to Canada beginning in the 1970s of visible minorities from the developing world,[68][69] the evidence suggests that non-white immigrants are still subject to barriers of discrimination, albeit less overt than earlier Canadian history.[70] And of course, this difference appears to continue due to the influence of Orientalism. Before proceeding to the next section, this work would be remiss if it did not illustrate the plight of Jews and their Canadian immigration experience, as it is a perfect example of the fact that even in the absence of legal prohibitions and/or barriers, abuses of power can still transpire. During the rise of Nazi Germany, many Jews sought to flee to Canada in order to escape persecution. However, scholars have noted that Canadian authorities did all they could to prevent Jews from entering Canada under the unsubstantiated belief that they would be a corrupting force within Canada.[71] However, in contrast to other Oriental experiences, like that of the Chinese for example, there was no legal basis for denying Jewish immigrants. There was no head tax, no financial requirements, no continuous journey clause or any legal authority that justified the prohibition of Jews. As legal scholar David Matas notes, the prohibition on Jews was carried out not through reliance on express legislative powers, but through abuse of power.[72] At the time Canadian immigration was headed by Fred Blair, a notorious anti-Semite, and he directed the processing of Jewish applications from other government offices to his own, wherein he personally reviewed each application. Unsurprisingly in almost every case he decided against the Jewish applicant. While the mid-twentieth century Jewish experience is a tragic account, it is also a reminder that Western nations do not need laws to have racial discrimination grounded in Orientalism in relation to immigration. According to Matas, “all you need is unlimited discretion. An unsympathetic public, or unmotivated public leadership or racists in office are enough to lead to racism in immigration even with laws neutral on their face.”[73]
Part Four: Orientalism and the Canadian Experience, 1976-To Present
As stated in the preceding section, radical changes to Canada’s immigration laws in the 1970s served as a catalyst for immigration to Canada by a large number of visible minorities from the global south.[74] As articulated by scholar Valerie Knowles in her work entitled Strangers at Our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540-2006:
As the 1970s unfolded, the changes set in motion by the abolish of racial discrimination in Canadian immigration policy and the introduction of the points system began to assert themselves. While 87 percent of Canada’s immigrants in 1966 were of European origin, only four years later 50 percent came from new regions: the West Indies, Guyana, Haiti, Hong Kong, India the Philippines and Indochina. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, newcomers would more often than not be from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, or Latin America.[75]
The impetus for the drastic approach to Canadian immigration was Canada’s Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) and his desire to remove the statutory and systemic barriers facing many immigrants from non-Western locales.[76] To that end Trudeau appointed Robert Andras, an extremely capable minister who had a strong voice in cabinet, as Minister of Manpower and Immigration in 1972. Both Trudeau and Andras recognized that Canada’s immigration system was failing and not reflective of Canada’s new international obligations (1951 UN Convention on Refugees etc.), and sought to promptly reform the system and the antiquated Immigration Act of 1952. The 1952 Act was remarkably reflective of Canada’s nineteenth century efforts to limit immigration from Orientals and operated as a gatekeepers act. More specifically, “it was primarily concerned with the listing the kinds of people who should be refused admission to Canada, and with outlining mechanisms for controlling the entry into this country or stays of persons who had no legal right to be here or who were considered undesirable”.[77] In addition to explicitly barring homosexuals, and providing broad discretionary powers to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration over decisions of admission and deportation (with the ability to grant or cancel immigration permits and overturn the decisions of immigration officers and immigration appeals boards),[78] the Act continued Canada’s long tradition of discriminatory policies against non-European and non-American immigrants.[79] As such, Orientalism continued to be on explicit display with the passage of this legislation.
The (Pierre) Trudeau government’s signature attempt to address the inequities and inadequacies of Canada’s immigration laws, was the Immigration Act of 1976. According to Knowles:
The Immigration Act, 1976, the cornerstone of immigration policy from 1978 until 2001, broke new ground by spelling out the fundamental principles and objectives of Canadian immigration policy. Outlined in Section 3, Part1 of the act, they included the promotion of Canada’s demographic, economic cultural, and social goals; family reunification; the fulfilment of Canada’s international obligations in relation to the United Nations Convention (1951) and the 1967 Protocol relating to refugees, which Canada has signed in 1969; non-discrimination in immigration policy; and cooperation between all levels of government and the voluntary sector in the settlement of immigrants in Canadian society. All the act’s other provisions derived from one or more of these national objectives.[80]
While it is clear that progressive legislation like the Immigration Act of 1976 were significant steps to remove explicit barriers towards Oriental immigration during the 1970s,[81] several experts have noted that a considerable amount of discrimination would nonetheless continue to hamper immigrants from the East. For example, according to William Ging Wee Dere in his work Being Chinese in Canada, racism would still abound in Canada in less overt ways:
Racism in Canada has taken on many forms. We had the early naked state racism against Indigenous peoples and Chinese immigrants, but racism became more subtle and insidious as history progressed. I came to realize that the politics of racism required some intellectual understanding of how the economic system perpetuated racist ideas-both to exploit and divide people, and to maintain the system among oppressed and marginalized people.[82]
And just as racism would become less overt beginning in the 1970s,[83] post-1970s barriers in relation to Oriental immigrants would also become more understated, yet nonetheless fraught with Orientalist undercurrents. For example, beginning in the 1980s Gerald E. Dirks in his work entitled, Controversy and Complexity: Canadian Immigration Policy during the 1980s, highlights attempts by the Global North to come together and attempt to curb the tide of international migration from the Global South, “In the 19805, First World governments began to discuss the possibility of joint action and cooperative policies to cope with actual or threatened massive population upheavals originating in the Third World.”[84] Canada of course was party to this scheme and although numerous examples abound in the years since the early 1980s, two in particular stand out: Canada’s enduring commitment to the Safe Third Country Agreement, and the passing of Bill C-24.
Although enthusiasm for Canada’s new approach to immigration was high during the 1970s under the (Pierre) Trudeau government, this enthusiasm would be tempered considerably in the 1980s under the Conservative Mulroney government who strongly restricted independent immigration.[85] During the 1980s, Canada, like many other developed countries (including the United States, Australia, and Western Europe) was experiencing a high influx of refugees. For example, the number of the world’s refugees in the early 1960s stood at 1.2 million, but by 1989 this number had risen to approximately 14.9 million refugees globally, due to a combination of events in the Third World including, but not limited to civil war, ethnic conflicts, persecution, natural disaster and political upheaval.[86] This dramatic increase sent the international refugee system into deep crisis. In the wake of the global rise in refugees, the Canadian government under Mulroney scrambled to address public outrage and prevent what it perceived as excessive refugee claims. One attempt by the Mulroney government was to amend the Immigration Act, which resulted in the crafting of the Bill C-84 Refugee Deterrents and Detention Bill. This legislation was met with intense scrutiny by critics who found it riddled with draconian provisions, including one that allowed the Canadian government to turn away ships that were suspected of carrying “illegitimate” refugees in Canadian waters.[87] Although this specific provision was subsequently dropped due to efforts spearheaded by human rights groups, this Bill, like other (anti)immigration initiatives of the 1980s and early 1990s (for example, Bill C-55 and Bill C-86, which were radical, punitive attempts at reforming Canadian immigration law), succeeded in galvanizing the public to the Mulroney government’s narrative that Canada was under siege by (Oriental) foreigners who sought to cripple the nation financially, posed a threat to their personal security, and endangered Canadian values. It is important to note that this rhetoric remains in place today as many (cultural) conservatives continue to fear that immigrants will change Canadian character and identity.[88]
Before being driven out of office, in its ongoing attempt to curb immigration in the 1980s, the Mulroney government would even attempt to move most immigration functions to a new Public Security ministry before this plan was abandoned due to critics denouncing it for equating immigration with public security, which would promote a backlash towards immigrants. Of course, as noted by Said, securitizing the other is part of the Orientalist playbook that seeks to assert Western domination over the Orient through false narratives.[89]
Although discarded, both Bill-55 and Bill-C-86 had contained provisions known as “safe third country” provisions that sought to prevent refugee claimants from entering Canada if they arrived from a “safe” third country that was willing to grant them refugee status.[90]Although on the surface these provisions were framed under the guise of helping to curtail “asylum shopping” by refugees, there was an incredible backlash from critics and human rights organizations who saw these provisions as being inhumane and illegal under international law. Other critics, like then NDP immigration critic Dan Heap highlighted that although posing as neutral and sensible, the safe third country provision was actually highly discriminatory in practice given the fact that many refugee claimants originated from countries that do not have direct routes to Canada, including many African, Asian, and Central American countries.[91] As such, as Mr. Heap astutely pointed out, refugees from these locales had to pass through the United States and/or Europe before reaching Canada. In contrast of course, refugee claimants from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe could access direct flights. As such, without many of the more overt hallmarks prevalent in Canada’s early attempts to curtail immigration from undesired locales, the safe third country provision was nothing more than an updated version of the continuous passage rule complete with Orientalism’s fingerprints because both legislative initiatives effectively maintained Canada’s historic preference for the Occidental over the Oriental. Although defeated at the time, the safe third country provision would re-emerge by late 2002 when the Canadian Government would partner with the United States to implement the Safe Third Country Agreement. This Agreement prohibited immigration for refugees transitioning through one country before seeking haven in another, and would instead require refugees to claim asylum in the country they reached first, either Canada or the United States.[92] The impact of this agreement became evident by 2006 when the number of asylum claims would fall dramatically over the previous year.[93] In this regard the Orientalists had won.
The Safe Third Country Agreement was not the only post 9/11 legislative initiative that attempted to address immigration and refugee issues where restriction would be the practical effect. Heavily influenced by the American propaganda machine that sought to securitize Muslims and other allegedly backwards Others who posed a threat to Westerns,[94] Canada would implement several anti-terrorism measures. These measures, while promising greater security for Canadians from blood thirsty Orientals, in reality only increased the Canadian public’s apprehension toward people of non-European descent, including toward people who were already Canadian citizens. Some of the prominent pieces of legislation whose stated objective was to counter terrorism included Bill C-36 (the Anti-Terrorism Act), Bill C-35 (An Act to Amend the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act), Bill C-55 (Public Safety Act), and Bill C-11 (the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act). In addition to these legislative initiatives, the Harper government introduced several other pieces of legislation that attempted to underscore and allegedly address the existential threats from undesirables. For example, according to scholar Peter J. Carver the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, and the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act were all meant to resist the threat from outsiders who threatened Canada’s values.[95] As noted by Carver, these pieces of legislation usually followed high profile, yet isolated incidents, involving Canadian visible minorities and non-European entities. However, of all the initiatives of this type to spring from the Harper Government, the one that caused perhaps the greatest backlash due to its effective implementation of two-tier citizenship, was the passage of Bill C-24.
Coming into effect in May 2015, Bill C-24 was a legislative initiative spearheaded by the Harper government that allowed the government to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism, high treason and other serious offences. Also known as the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, the act was deemed necessary by Conservatives in order to address terrorism and security concerns. According to then-Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, loyalty to Canada was of the utmost importance. As such, his view was that stripping Canadian citizens of their citizenship was justified when certain crimes were conducted against the state:
[C]itizenship is founded upon the premise of reciprocal loyalty. . . . If citizens are convicted of serious terrorist offences, if they take up arms against Canada, or if they are convicted of high treason, those individuals have severed the bonds of loyalty that are the basis of their citizenship.[96]
A notable aspect of Bill C-24 was that it came into effect mere months after a Canadian-born citizen of mixed ethnicity with mental health issues and a history of drug addiction shot and killed a soldier at the War Memorial in Ottawa. After the incident, the shooter- who was born Catholic and claimed to have converted to Islam- stormed Parliament Hill and began firing within the Centre Tower, only steps away from where Prime Minister Harper was meeting with members of his Cabinet. In the aftermath of the October 2014 incident, there was intense media coverage of the event and Conservatives and conservative groups instrumentalized the incident in order to pass several pieces of controversial legislation alleged to address terrorism. While Bill C-24 is an example of this type of legislation, another was the Anti-terrorism Act of 2015 which considerably broadened CSIS’s mandate and the state’s surveillance powers.
After it was introduced by the Conservative government, the legislation was intensely criticised by the official opposition the NDP, as well as the Liberal Party, legal advocacy groups, immigration and refugee lawyers, and several human rights organizations and civil rights organizations including Amnesty International.[97] The most prominent concerns were not only that Bill C-24 would allow Canadians to be stripped of their citizenship, but due to the long standing prohibition against creating stateless people, Bill C-24 would only apply to dual-citizens effectively creating two-tiered citizenship. As articulated by legal scholar Craig Forcese in his work A Tale of Two Citizenships: Citizenship Revocation for “Traitors and Terrorists”:
Revocation for terrorism or treacherous activity presents different but equally complex issues. For one thing, the new revocation provisions will distinguish between types of citizens, applying to dual-nationals but not to Canadians with single citizenship. To revoke the citizenship of someone who is Canadian-only would render that person stateless. Because stateless people are anathema in modern international relations, this would run counter Canada’s treaty obligations. Yet opening the door to revocation for dual-nationals raises problems of its own. It would create two classes of citizenship: those who have only one nationality and cannot be stripped of it, and the others (of whom there are hundreds of thousands in Canada). This apparent double standard raises important constitutional issues, especially under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[98]
Another problematic aspect of Bill C-24 is that the under the Act the majority of revocation cases would be decided by the Citizenship and Immigration Minister (or a delegate), instead of a Federal Court judge. And while the Conservatives felt that this would help make cases more efficient and cost effective to process, critics vehemently protested that it would deny people the right to due process while affording immigration officials far too much discretion with respect to revoking citizenships.
Even without a firm grounding in Orientalism, it is obvious that creating two-tiered citizenship will favour one class of citizens over another. In the Canadian context, Bill C-24 places dual citizens at risk of having their Canadian citizenship stripped by the state, and according to Amnesty International, “the law discriminates against dual citizens by suggesting they are ‘less Canadian’ and not necessarily entitled to the same rights as Canadian born citizens.”[99] Not only did Bill C-24 fuel discrimination, but it also violated international law, particularly section 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which confirms that Citizenship is an inalienable human right. Amnesty International stated that it was imperative for Bill C-24 to be amended, calling on the sections proposing loss of citizenship on the basis of a number of specified criminal offences (sections 10 and 10.1) to be withdrawn from the Bill. As stated by Amnesty International:
the proposed new revocation provisions are divisive and buy into and promote false and xenophobic narratives about “true” Canadians and others, which equate foreignness with terrorism. This will have a detrimental impact on the environment in which many Canadians of foreign origin or certain racial/ethnic/religious groups of Canadians will be able to enjoy their human rights on the basis of equality. Government legislation should instead focus on eliminating such stereotypes, consistent with Canada’s duty to fulfil the right to non-discrimination under international human rights law.[100]
Following the 2015 Federal Election, the newly elected Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau set about repealing the controversial provisions of Bill C-24, namely sections 10 and 10.1 relating to the revocation of citizenship.[101] The Trudeau government achieved this goal via the passage of Bill C-6 in May 2017.
Although the Trudeau government succeeded in repealing the revocation of citizenship provisions, the Bill C-24 experience illuminates how Canada is still subject to the trappings of Orientalism that has plagued much of its history, particularly in relation to immigration law. The fact that legislation could be passed in the 21st century that effectively favours one group of Canadians over another, where the primary differentiating feature is the latter group’s linkage to the East, is not only a painful reminder of Canada’s historic favouritism towards Occidentals, but that Orientals (even those who are Canadian citizens) must remain in a constant state of insecurity due to forces that continuously seek to assert Western domination over them. As such, while the Canadian government may make public apologies relating to its historic discrimination and treatment of Indigenous, Jewish, and Chinese communities,[102]until the roots of hatred and Orientalist domination are fleshed out and unmade, visible minorities living in Canada will remain in a perpetual state of fear and subordination.
Part Five: Conclusion
After examining the concept of Orientalism in greater detail, the impact of Orientalism on Canada’s immigration regime pre-1976, and the impact of Orientalism on Canada’s immigration regime post-1976, it has become apparent that not only does Orientalism continue to play an important role in crafting Canadian immigration law and policy, but that it also hinders the ability for newcomers to successfully assimilate and resettle within Western societies. Although Said’s Orientalism is not without imperfection due to dense writing fraught with jargon, the absence of quantitative approaches and empirical evidence, seemingly cherry-picked authorities, and the absence of an alternative approach to Orientalism vis-a-vis the knowledge power dyna(something Said himself noted was embarrassingly absent from his work),[103] the work remains a seminal work in the field because of the unique theoretical framework employed by Said relating to Orientalism as a powerful tool of Western dominance. In examining Canada’s historic approach to immigration through Said’s lens of Orientalism, two notable conclusions can be drawn. First, Canada’s immigration system, even in the contemporary period, has always been titled to favour the Occident over the Orient, with legislation and policy continuously hampering immigrants from the East from entering or assimilating within Canadian society. Second, Orientalism would remain an important undercurrent that would continue to prejudice immigrants from the East attempting to arrive and assimilate within Canada, even following the removal of explicit discrimination from Canada’s leading legislative authorities on immigration in the 1960s and 1970s.[104] Fittingly, according to Valerie Knowles, proponents of reduced immigration are angered that newcomers continue to be non-Occident:
Among those Canadians eager to see immigration levels reduced are those who abhor the fact that immigration from the Third World now constitute 75 percent of new arrivals each year. Vehemently opposed to more ethnic and cultural diversity, they view Canada’s present immigration policy with nothing but misgivings. If this country needs more people, they argue, the Government should take steps that will encourage Canadians to have more children. Such measures might be costly they concede, “But, we must decide whether we want the Canada of the future to be made up of our children or those of others.”[105]….Then there are those, such as Martin Collacott, who oppose Canada’s present immigration levels. Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador and now a senior fellow in immigration studies at The Fraser Institute, has repeatedly denounced Canada’s immigration strategy, citing the stagnation of incomes in larger Canadian cities since the 1990s and the fact that recent immigrants earn much less and have higher poverty levels than earlier newcomers. “While a number of factors are involved,” claims Collacott, “one that few have been prepared to acknowledge is that we are bringing in far more people than we need or can absorb.”[106]
There are also Canadians who fall into none of these camps but who are deeply concerned about the fact that many recent immigrants, particularly those from South East Asia, India, Pakistan and Africa, hold ideas about the role of women in the family, and the organization of society, that are very different from those espoused by the majority of “established” Canadians. Even many Canadians who are not racist in any way deplore the penchant of some newcomers to import quarrels from their homeland into Canada.[107]
Knowles’ passage is both powerful and illuminating; powerful, because it highlights the prominence of Orientalism that continues to be present in the rhetoric of anti-immigration proponents (even down to the enduring perception regarding our and other), and illuminating, because it highlights the tools used by Orientalists to ensure Occident domination. More specifically, even in contemporary discourse, right-wing figures and opponents of immigration continue to peddle the notion that immigrants from the East or global South are both a threat to the security of Western nations and an incredible drain on their economies.[108][109] However, in both Canada and the United States, where anti-immigration rhetoric and Islamophobia is also incredibly high,[110] study after study confirms that not only do immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than “natural born” citizens,[111][112][113][114] but that they are actually a tremendous boon to the Western economies.[115][116][117][118] For example, despite President Donald Trump’s racist and xenophobic discourse (i.e. Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug traffickers as the justification for a border wall,[119] the need for a Muslim ban,[120] and repeatedly referring to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas”), his own Department of Health and Human Services issued a report in 2017, which found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost.[121] As such, it would appear that once opponents of immigration, who spout off about the existential threat posed by immigrants and refugees on security and economic terms, are met with facts, the reality becomes evident: these contentions are nothing more than tired tropes utilized as a tool of Western domination – with no basis in fact, and with intent to demonize “the Other”. But what to do?
Fortunately, although Said is extremely critical of Orientalists and Orientalism as a means for Occidental domination, and although Orientalism is rampant in academia and passed down (virtually unchallenged) to society, Said offers hope that it can be unmade. As he states:
On the other hand, scholars and critics who are trained in the traditional Orientalist disciplines are perfectly capable of freeing themselves from the old ideological straitjacket…Positively, I do believe-and in my other work have tried to show- that enough is being done today in the human sciences to provide the contemporary scholar with insights, methods, and ideas, that could dispense with racial, ideological, and imperialist stereotypes of the sort provided during its historical ascendancy by Orientalism…The worldwide hegemony of Orientalism and all it stands for can now be challenged, if we can benefit properly from the general twentieth-century rise to political and historical awareness of so many of the earth’s people.[122]
As such, just as Angela Davis in her own seminal work, Women Race & Class, is emphatic about the critical role of education in countering oppression,[123] it appears that Said too is confident that education, and specifically, more rigorous academic research and writing based on sound evidence and methodological techniques, are keys to undermine the imperialist tool that is Orientalism. However, there appears to be an activist element to this as Said challenges not only academia, but society at large to exercise their agency and mobilize against Orientalism and existing Orientalist scholarship. Indeed, if Canada is ever to have a chance at removing Orientalism from its immigration system, and Occidental domination from society as a whole, the people will have to come together, rise up and demand accountability from their government institutions, academia, and political leaders. While the current wave of (ultra) conservative leadership and rising xenophobic rhetoric around the World renders this prospect minimal, there is always hope that the quest for truth will become powerful enough to break the chains of ignorance and oppression. One can only hope.
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