Conservative MP Kellie Leitch wants potential immigrants to be screened for their values. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
If I were to be screened for “Canadian values” I would probably fail the test.
I don’t listen to the Tragically Hip. My interest in hockey is limited to when Vancouver is in the playoffs, and even then, it’s tepid. I think ketchup chips are nasty. I’ve never watched the Trailer Park Boys. I hate camping. Honestly, this list could go on for a while.
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Aside from feeling left out of the occasional water cooler conversation, this hasn’t really been an issue for me. And if it comes up, I just blame my immigrant parents.
If Conservative MP—and hopeful party leader—Kellie Leitch has her way though, perhaps people like my parents won’t even make it into Canada. In a survey her campaign sent out last week, she asked, “Should the Canadian government screen potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values as part of its normal screening for refugees and landed immigrants?” After the survey made headlines, Leitch doubled down, telling the CBC, “Screening potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values that include intolerance towards other religions, cultures and sexual orientations, violent and/or misogynist behaviour and/or a lack of acceptance of our Canadian tradition of personal and economic freedoms is a policy proposal that I feel very strongly about.”
Hmm OK. Maybe Leitch has never heard of Steinbach, Manitoba, which held its first ever Pride parade in July that local Conservative politicians refused to attend. Or how about her own former leader Stephen Harper’s proposal to ban the niqab during citizenship ceremonies—aka “intolerance towards other religions.” As for “violent and/or misogynistic behavior,” one in five female post-secondary students in Canada will be sexually assaulted. In fact, today a Federal Court judge is facing a hearing because he asked a sex assault complainant in a trial he was overseeing why she couldn’t keep her knees together.
By the sounds of it, we’re doing a great job promoting shitty values on our own. What is Leitch’s recommendation? Should we deport all of those assholes out of Canada?
Just like its predecessor, the completely useless “barbaric practices hotline,” (another one of Leitch’s winning ideas), the values screening test exemplifies racist dogwhistle politics. It provides an opportunity to further villainize and otherize Muslims looking to gain entry into Canada as well as those who already live here. As fellow Conservative Rona Ambrose has pointed out, we already screen potential newcomers to check for criminal backgrounds.
The truth is, aside from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians don’t have to abide by any one set of shared values. That’s kind of the whole point—we’re all free to believe what we want, so long as we aren’t harming other people.
Leitch’s views aren’t far off from those of Republican US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who wants to see “extreme vetting” for new immigrants to determine if they share “Western liberal values” (values like religious tolerance that he himself, with his proposed ban on Muslims, clearly doesn’t share.) And here’s how that turned out:
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