Whose city is it anyway? - Aliya Pabani

It seems to me that Sudbury is the kind of place you have to come back to several times to realize that things are actually changing. On a recent visit back to Sudbury, there seemed to be more visible minorities around town than about a decade and a half ago, when I was growing up. Granted, back then there were so few minorities that I was often called “black”—out of sheer confusion. My background is Indian. Given my optimism, I was disheartened to come across an online Northern Life article (“Forum to discuss attracting immigrants to Sudbury” Oct. 29, 2008) that quoted the proportion of immigrants in Sudbury to be a meager seven per cent as compared to the provincial average of 28 per cent. The responses that followed were jilting (though I must admit, not entirely surprising). A few readers complained about how the failing economy had hindered our access to social services and employment enough, and that we should not be “trying to import non-Canadians.” Another reader griped about Canada sending more money overseas than “on Canadians that need help.”

While some of these unsubstantiated claims might prove justifiable, I think they raise a more interesting question: In a country that was basically built on periodical waves of immigration, when does one become Canadian enough?

My mother came to Canada as an ethnic Indian immigrant from East Africa in the seventies. This was after former Prime Minister Trudeau had passed the infamous Immigration Act of 1976 that was meant to define entrance to Canada based on how likely candidates were to become a burden on social services. The process was (and still is) driven by a points system that calculates your current and potential “assets,” including such characteristics as degrees earned and work experience. In my mother’s case, there was a hitch: she wanted to get to medical school—so badly in fact, that she had worked illegally at a supermarket and card factory in England for a year, while waiting for the chance to get an interview with Immigration Canada. As a poor student with no relevant work experience, you can probably imagine how few points the immigration officer had to calculate in order to frankly tell her that she would be a burden on the Canadian people, and deny her application. She appealed the decision with the help of family members living in Canada, and has now been a practising physician in Sudbury for 23 years. Seeing her winding down her practice, almost completely burned out, it seems like the health care system has actually been more of a burden on her.

That was then. I wanted to find out how the experience of integration has changed, so I spoke to a nurse who had come about five years ago on a student visa, hoping to get registered to work in Canada. She was a bit luckier. Since she had been a nurse in her home country for three years before immigrating, approval was easier—money was a different story. At the time, it was mandatory to be a full-time student in order to maintain her visa, so she couldn’t work while studying. Only on-campus jobs were available for international students, but for a maximum of 20 hours a week. Ineligible for student loans, she ended up having to borrow money from her sister just to get through school.

Currently a practising nurse in Sudbury, she also noticed a growth in Sudbury’s immigrant community. She found out that many of them preferred Sudbury over larger cities like Toronto because they learn English faster and because it’s a better place to raise kids. I asked her if she felt the same way, and she said that, although Sudbury was sufficient when she was a student, it offers little opportunity for professional development. “There are too many nurses for just one hospital, and the hospital workers are a bit cliquey,” she said.

You might be compelled to ask, “Why didn’t they just practise in their own countries?” Although that might be a viable alternative, in light of Canada’s aging population, it might be time to look for alternative labour sources. This is especially true in the case of Sudbury, which has a much larger aging demographic than both provincial and national averages. I remember my mother coming home flustered one day after having to tell one of her elderly patients that she was closing her practice. Her patient had responded with tears, questioning how she would be able to find another family physician. My mother didn’t have a good answer for her.

The politics of exclusion that surround the experience of immigration and settlement in Canada gains further significance through a 2007 Statistics Canada survey indicating that new immigrants are far more likely to have low incomes than native-born Canadians, despite the fact that almost half of them arrive with a degree. Of course, you could argue that new immigrants are often placed in more volatile, second sector jobs or that competition is tight even among the Canadian-born these days, but how do you argue away the fact that the statistic affects visible minorities more than other immigrants?

I think it’s time that we’re more honest about the identity politics that shape Canada as a multi-ethnic nation. Our tendency to hide behind the veil of political correctness invalidates the lived experience of many immigrants who might face difficulties that they can’t openly address. More than trying to attract immigrants to Sudbury, we should be questioning the social systems that might cause them to leave or stay. Discussions like the one I found online should be happening in civic space because, unfortunately, communities can’t be changed by simply editing the html.

Aliya Pabani was born and raised in Sudbury, graduated from Lockerby Composite School and returns periodically to catch up with family and friends. She currently lives in Bangalore, India, studying and working at the Center for Experimental Media Arts. cema.srishti.ac.in