After reading the new Canadian Citizenship Guide, all I can say is that I am so glad I was born here so I don’t have to go through the process of becoming Canadian. It’s tough and expectations are high.
For migrants to Canada, citizenship is one of many steps that government and society require to ensure that people are truly integrated and contributing members of the national body politic. The release of the new Citizenship Guide this week, coinciding with Remembrance Day, is a timely reminder of the inherently political nature of citizenship and the tremendous power the state exerts over rites of citizenship. Citizenship tests give the Canadian government an opportunity to mold people in a way that, ironically, it never gets to do with Canadian-born citizens. And granting citizenship makes people grateful in ways that do not occur amongst the native-born. There is a reason that books such as The Triumph of Citizenship, which celebrates the granting of citizenship for Japanese and Chinese Canadians after the Second World War, proliferate.
Because citizenship in liberal democratic societies offers protection and security, it is a truly powerful incentive for encouraging particular behaviour and views. This summer, the British government introduced legislation requiring ten years of residency and a decade of “British behaviour” before people can obtain citizenship. The Canadian requirements aren’t so demanding but a perusal of the Citizenship Guide reveals how hard the state (this is above and beyond Harper’s Tories) works to make sure that it gets the citizens it wants. To quote the guide, “The prosperity and diversity of our country
depend on all Canadians working together to face challenges of the future. In seeking to become a citizen, you are joining a country that, with your active participation, will continue to grow and thrive. What contribution will you make?” And by the way, “barbaric cultural practices” will not be tolerated. Ouch. Pressure is on.
Democracies require informed citizens to function well. Informed and educated citizens. The trick with the citizenship ritual is that it is the state that both tells people what they need to know to be good citizens and through citizenship tests determines whether they meet the grade. I don’t envy the bureaucrats tasked with putting together the guide. How do you decide what people need to know about to be good Canadians? History? Politics? Sports? Arts? Geography? Yes, all of the above. Can you get away with providing the “what” answers without tackling the “why” and “how”? Again, the answer is yes. Unfortunately.
The new Citizenship Guide is a 62-page mix of solid building blocks that emphasize the responsibilities of citizens above all else. Case in point: the rule of law is mentioned three times in the first four paragraphs of the guide lone. A significant portion of the document is devoted to the practicalities of voting, which given the recent voter turnouts, is probably something all Canadians should read. But above and beyond the instructions on nuts and bolts democracy, the guide instructs would-be Canadians on what it sees as the most important elements of Canadian history and society. From the perspective of value-transmission, it makes for fascinating reading. Military history such as the war of 1812 or the rebellions of 1837 fall appear next to the “Beginnings of democracy”, raising questions about the relationship between peace and democracy. Residential school abuse, the internment of the Japanese Canadians, and the Chinese head tax are all mentioned and the government’s recent apologies for these incidents is also noted. So Canada might do something wrong, but then it apologizes and everything is okay.
Ironically, one of the main points the guide does not cover is the history of citizenship in Canada. The 1947 Citizenship Act, which not only created the distinct category of Canadian citizenship but also inspired other Commonwealth countries to do the same is not discussed. This was a major innovation and sent London into a panic resulting in a compromise whereby where citizens of Commonwealth countries are also “British subjects.” More importantly, the 1947 Act enfranchised Chinese and Japanese people who had lost their right to vote in 1875. I happened to be at the Chinese Canadian Military Museum the day after the Citizenship Guide came out where many of the exhibits how important the Chinese soldiers’ sacrifice was to the Canadian war effort and how wartime service was a major factor in the community getting citizenship in 1947. I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate the nature of rights and responsibilities than by telling the actual history of Canadian citizenship. Maybe it’s too hard to test.
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