Issues of the 1980s and the 1990s

As the 1980s drew to a close, the national mood showed signs of hardening over the issue of refugees. After the frenzied activity during the crisis of Southeast Asia’s boat people, a highly charged sense of public concern for the admission of refugees proved difficult to sustain. Perhaps exhausted by the magnitude of their generosity of spirit, Canadians seemed drained. As the economy weakened, some had neither the strength nor will to concern themselves with the trials of others. One could almost feel the Canadian welcome for refugees ebb as more and more uninvited claimants arrived on the country’s shores and demanded refugee status. These newcomers were choosing Canada; it was not choosing them. As the line of claimants grew longer, the refugee review system became clogged. Fears that the system was overloaded were complicated by reports of fraudulent claimants with no legitimate fear of persecution in their country of origin using Canada’s refugee program as a way to jump the immigration queue or otherwise bypass regular processing. It was not long before talk about the need to tighten up procedures could be heard. But how could Canada maintain its international commitments on refugees and yet quickly separate out bogus claimants from real ones?

The refugee issue was dramatically brought home to Canadians when two ships illegally landed their respective cargoes of Sikh and Tamil refugee claimants on the east coast. In the media-inflated near panic over the threat of more boatloads of refugees being deposited on Canadian beaches in the dead of night, and over the protest of pro-refugee advocates, new legislation was rushed through Parliament in 1989 to prevent individuals from claiming refugee status once they were in Canada and to narrow other aspects of the refugee program. Amid growing fears that the country was turning its back on the plight of legitimate refugees, a constitutional challenge to the new legislation was mounted. Early in 1990 the Supreme Court of Canada threw out the restrictive legislation as incompatible with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In the aftermath of the court’s ruling, the government’s options seemed unclear. Anti-refugee sentiment was being given political voice by the Reform Party, and the government was determined to slow the influx of those entering Canada while streamlining the refugee-determination process. A series of measures was implemented that made it more difficult for would-be claimants to reach Canada and, once here, to have either applications drag on for years before they were either approved or removed from the country. Refugee advocates lament that Canada is now less accessible to legitimate claimants, but the government argues that its program meets the country’s international commitment to extend assistance to those genuinely in need.

Throughout the early 1990s, public attention remained fixed on the high-profile issue of refugees, but not to the exclusion of other issues related to immigration – the growing reality of visible minorities in Canadian cities and the social and economic impact of entrepreneurial immigrants, accused by some of buying their way into the country. Each of these issues is clouded by questions of race and is played out against the backdrop of a deteriorating Canadian economy. But while spokespersons for some visible minority groups may disagree, public discussion of immigration has not yet turned into a referendum on race.

Since 1985 the arrival of non-Europeans has topped 60 percent. To its credit, the larger Canadian civic culture has rejected appeals to racism, even during the severe economic recession of the early 1990s. Few would deny that there is anxiety about the changing ethnographic face of the country, especially in the urban centres, and Canada has a long way to go before systemic racism is eliminated. But there is virtually no credible support for turning back the immigration clock to an earlier era of racial and ethnic selectivity. However, as long as the Canadian economy remains in the doldrums, debate over appropriate levels of immigration, the balance of family reunification against business and other economically resourceful newcomers, the degree to which Canada remains a high-profile player in refugee resettlement, and questions about its absorptive capacity is sure to continue.