An interesting new report, “What’s So Special About Canada?” from the Migration Policy Institute explains a number of reasons. Canada emphasizes economic reasons for immigration, including the aging of their population. They promote policies that help the economy, rather than focusing on humanitarian immigration. They’ve done a good job of including federal, provincial and local governmental bodies, and the private sector and nonprofits in decision-making and implementation, and don’t just hand down policies from on high. They adapt policies as needed. They also actively promote multiculturalism, don’t mix up immigration and national security, and have immigrants from many different countries so no one nationality is the focus.
But some characteristics make it easier for Canada: there are oceans on three sides, and the U.S. to the south, so Canada doesn’t have a large number of immigrants on their border trying to escape poverty or war. It’s much easier to control their borders because of this geography. Nonetheless, in October 2015, Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal party actively campaigned to allow 25,000 Syrian refugees to immigrate – far more than the U.S. which has almost 10 times Canada’s population – and his party won the election and he became Prime Minister. In the past, all three major parties have largely agreed on immigration issues and all have actively wooed immigrant voters. In 2015 the Conservative party broke with this tradition and were noticeably negative on immigration – and they lost.
