Regional disparties and prejudicial government policies

Hello, Not to trek too far off course from our current discussions, but does anyone have any thoughts on considering the accessibility to successful immigration from the perspective of respondents from different regions of the world? For example, measuring the presence of Canadian embassies and Canadian involvement in emigration campaigns in Latin/South America versus regions or states on reportedly much better diplomatic and economic terms with the Canadian government?

We could hypothesize that respondents will report an 'easier' time in emigrating to Canada from their home country based on accessibility to Canadian immigration standards and requirements information, availability of Canadian government services to expedite or otherwise better facilitate a smooth transition out of their country, etc. Example questions could include:

What region of the world would you most identify with as having emigrating from? (answer in the space provided)

____________________

In your opinion, how accessible were Canadian government services in providing all the information, requirements and documents needed for a successful immigration to BC?

(a)Not at all (b)Services were available, but difficult to navigate (b)Services were readily available, all the information was given to me up front, including additional services that I wasn't previously aware I could utilize

I think this might provide us with a greater understanding of the relative prejudices of the government's immigration policies, if there are any. Feel free to comment or edit.

Hey Alex,

The only concern I have is that perhaps the area of research you're looking into is actually more relevant to the research on immigration admission, rather than actual immigration settlement. Although it would be interesting to look into how admission experiences affected the settlement thereafter immigrants experienced, that would require researching into both admission and settlement. Immigration admission itself is a whole other issue (thus I'm sure that's why Professor Owen split immigration into two), and within 5 questions, it just wouldn't be realistically doable.

Unless perhaps you want to structure and propose a RQ, theory and hypothesis (along with the variables), and maybe give a quick rough sketch of the 5 survey questions, in which I would be more than interested in reviewing and seeing put into work.

Hi Minjeong,

Your absolutely right... those questions I posed earlier pertain to 'issues of admission'. Though I personally suspect that the respondent or immigrant's experience settling into BC would most definitely have been impacted in some way by the admission process, we're still limited in the depth and scope of this particular exercise; focusing on the settlement aspect.

Perhaps the idea was a little premature after all... a nevertheless thought provoking notion in my opinion; the reality quite possibly involving the two aspects as much more closely related phenomena. Thanks for you input.

Couldn't we tweak the questions to make them address settlement? I actually think it would be really interesting to think about looking at immigrants based on origin rather than the amount of time spent in Canada, which seems to be the primary suggestion so far. We could formulate questions to try and see if there is a difference in the ease of settlement based on the size of the origin community. This could really work in different ways for different individuals: 1) a larger community base from their country/region could provide new immigrants with support systems and employment opportunities within the community or 2) it could simultaneously work to segregate them from the larger society (other immigrant groups, locals). We could ask questions about the amount of time spent in Canada, country of origin and perhaps ask them if they primarily interact/socialize/work with people from their own region or a mixture of people.

Hey!

Alex, although I am totally for your interesting topic, I have to agree with Minj in that it is a little but better categorized within the admission of immigrants. However, that being said, I do think it is important to ask the immigrant's background. Whether we like it or not, governments may have some prejudices with certain immigrant groups. For exemple, A Colombian immigrant vs. another, even Mexican immigrant has an easier time assimilating or being allowed to, by that I mean, requesting citizenship or residency etc takes longer for groups like Colombians or others compared to one with a Swedish background. But like I said, although this may be more on the "admission" of immigrants, I think their background influences the immigration process and assimilation process in places in Canada and BC.

Hey,

I think that this is definitely an interesting topic to go with. If we can tweak the question to fit our theme I would be totally for it. Has anyone considered the possibilities of selective immigration? In that the Canadian government seems to admit the cream of the crop type of immigrants. It's easy to immigrate to Canada through investment or skill. Because of this, immigrants in Canada(specifically Vancouver) may find it easier to integrate/assimilate into local culture because they are more educated of and open to the cultures of developed countries. Compare this to countries in Europe that take shiploads of refugee status immigrants who come with no money or viable skills and large language barriers. These refugee immigrants may find it harder to adjust to local culture and probably need more government assistance than the immigrants in Canada. Also difference fosters discrimination. So response to immigration in Canada may be better since we are admitting skilled labour whereas European countries may look down at immigrants since they may consider them to not be a productive part of society. I don't know if I'm branching too far by suggesting we compare to other countries. But it's just a thought.

There are certain criteria that the Canadian Immigration Department follows when considering applicants. Specifically, besides skill and capital (in the form of investments), familial relations or political reasons among others are also taken into account. That being said, if cases are judged on an individual basis, there may be certain factors within an immigrant's application that will be valued more favorably by the Canadian government. In that case, our focus becomes one that deals with prevalent trends in immigrant admission. However, there could indeed be a link between immigration admission and immigration settlement. One idea I had was what if "prejudices" (if there are any) in the admission process led to sentiments within immigrants that caused them to leave? Within this causal relationship then, the time an immigrant stays within Canada could perhaps be attributed to their perceived level of treatment within the admission process. Just a thought.

Hey thanks for all the feedback on my idea guys, with all this constructive criticism there might be room in our survey (after a little tweaking) for a correlation between admission and settlement after all...

I'd like to work off Jessica's point for a second and consider the notion of the Canadian government accepting 'cream of the crop' immigrants. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but lets say hypothetically we could associate this type of immigrant to one of the admission categories or criteria; linking an immigrant who utilizes one of the criterion as a 'preferred' immigrant of the government to one who chooses say, familial ties to get into BC. If we then survey respondents based on their chosen method of immigration, categorizing them into 'preferred' or 'not preferred' types of immigrants I think we may soon find not only that the former number of immigrants will exceed the latter, but that those preferred immigrants may indicate far easier times settling into BC (ie: successfully applying for permanent residency).

I think Hiram was also on the right track suggesting that immigrants who have stood up to the challenges of immigration and stayed in Canada might closely relate their success to their perceived difficulties during the admissions process. In other words, the (hypothetical) bias or prejudice of the government's admissions standards may share a direct relationship with the immigrants settlement experience.

What do you guys think?

@ViaraGioreva

I think that's a very intriguing idea, though I have some worries about whether or not we'd be able to fit something like that in 6 questions. We may as well try though- later on when I have a bit more time I can, if you haven't, create a sub-forum for that discussion, since I think it diverges enough from this one to merit it's own topic. Volume of reported immigrant community and social connections would certainly be something very interested to look at it in terms of cultural assimilation, since I can see how it could entrench immigrants into their own community and make them feel segregated, or provide a means to feel more integrated in the country and "Canadian".

@Alex

Heh, we may have to alter "preferred" and "not-preferred" to avoid a bit of stigma, but this achieves a fair bit of parsimony that would be, in my opinion, valuable in a survey like this. I'd be interested to know if the relationship you hypothesize exists, but not to get all negative-nancy, we'll still probably want to narrow it down a bit better. One of the areas that stands out to me is distinguishing between people who came for both familial ties and skills, or who came initially and brought their family over (as they would find themselves simulatenously existing in both groups). Going with Hiram's thought though, it might be more tangible and possible to explore whether or not perceived injustice at admission processes affect feelings of integration among immigrants.

I definitely think this topic is worth continuing to explore though, it's very interesting.