Juno News - There's nothing wrong with values test for newcomers

00:00:00.000 The other day, the Quebec provincial government confirmed that they are going ahead with one of

00:00:15.360 their campaign promises to implement a citizenship values test for newcomers to their province. This

00:00:22.560 is going to commence on January 1st. It'll be 20 multiple choice questions. They're going to have

00:00:28.000 to get 75% right if they want to pass. If they fail, they get to do it again. And if they fail that time,

00:00:34.620 uh-oh, you have to go and sit in a Quebec values course, an in-person instruction to learn the

00:00:40.340 Quebec values. The premier is pretty unapologetic and pretty nonchalant about it. He says, if you

00:00:46.100 want to live here in the long term, you got to learn Quebec's values. Quite frankly, this is not

00:00:51.400 a big deal. As I've written before a couple years ago, Northern European countries do this to quite

00:00:57.760 a degree. Countries that are generally held up as progressive nations, they do it successfully.

00:01:03.280 Nobody's complaining. And you know what? Nobody's actually complaining that Quebec is planning to do

00:01:08.580 it now. And yet just two years ago, we had massive outcry about how intolerant and awful this whole

00:01:15.260 thing was during the Conservative leadership campaign when Kelly Leach proposed the idea.

00:01:19.880 I remember the very day she proposed the idea and I looked at it and I thought, this is actually

00:01:24.180 pretty reasonable. And then she appeared on my radio program the next day and she said part of

00:01:29.320 what she wants to do is bring up the fact that here in Canada we have women's rights, we have gay

00:01:35.060 rights, we have tolerance for other religions and other ethnicities, and pointed out that to some

00:01:40.120 people coming from certain countries, they don't have it like that. So it just makes sense to instruct

00:01:46.040 them to that new reality when they come here. Basically a lay of the land. This is how things work in

00:01:51.420 Canada, just so you know. And when I heard it that first day, I said, you know, this is going to have

00:01:56.520 massive support. I mean, this is going to get majority support in Canada. Sure enough, it did.

00:02:01.420 Three quarters of Canadians support it. According to a number of polls, one CBC poll actually put the

00:02:06.740 support level in the 80s. 80% and more actually supported this. But this did not stop people from

00:02:13.220 defaming, libeling, vilifying Kelly Leach in really awful ways that I think she is still owed an apology

00:02:19.560 by many people to this day. Quite frankly, the idea of a values test, it's just not that big of a deal,

00:02:27.440 really. I mean, we already do similar things like this when people get their citizenship, different tests,

00:02:32.840 you ask them about Canada, the history of Canada, the questions change over the year, there were some

00:02:37.460 concerns that Justin Trudeau had watered it down a bit, and he did, but so what? I mean, it's not a big deal

00:02:43.800 in many respects. It's not offensive, it's not intolerant, and it's also not a magic bullet solution

00:02:49.280 to integration and social cohesion. Just because someone can pass a test like this doesn't necessarily

00:02:55.060 mean that they're going to be the perfectly integrated individual, and if they fail it, it

00:02:59.160 doesn't mean they're going to be an awful addition to society either. It is just one of many possible

00:03:04.860 things that can be done for integration. I'm actually kind of agnostic about it. I mean, I support Quebec

00:03:10.640 doing it, and I think we should consider doing it across the rest of Canada, but I also just don't

00:03:15.060 think it's a hill to die on. It's not that big of a deal, and it's certainly not worth vilifying people

00:03:21.300 over. One example of questions that the Quebec government released is they say, all right, here's

00:03:27.120 a couple illustrations of marriages. Which ones are allowed in Canada? And then they show opposite-sex

00:03:33.800 couples, a man and a woman married. They show same-sex couples. They show two guys, they show two women,

00:03:38.400 and then they show a couple polygamous arrangements. A man with two women and a woman with two men,

00:03:45.020 and they ask which one of these is acceptable in Canada. And it's actually a good question to ask

00:03:50.780 people. Two of the top immigration source countries for Quebec are Algeria and Morocco. Now those

00:03:56.840 countries, they do not have same-sex marriage. In fact, same-sex relationships in and of themselves

00:04:01.600 are illegal in those countries, but they do allow polygamous marriages. So it's a complete 180 for how

00:04:07.480 things work here. So people coming from those countries to Quebec, I mean, you just gotta let

00:04:12.840 them know that it's the complete opposite. To spare them the culture shock, and also because, well,

00:04:18.220 they don't know. This is not how things operate. Maybe some of them do know, and that's the exact

00:04:23.240 reason they want to go from those countries to Quebec, but others maybe go, oh, I like how things

00:04:28.160 work traditionally in my country. I hope it works that way in Quebec. And then they learn, oh, it does not.

00:04:33.220 And it's responsible, just on all different levels, to tell them about that, to tell them

00:04:38.260 these differences. Frankly, it was reckless of the media to make a big stink out of Kelly Leach's

00:04:43.480 idea. I'm glad to see they're not making a big stink out of the idea right now, because the hypocrisy

00:04:48.600 sure is glaring. But the thing Quebec's doing, well, the rest of Canada, pay attention to it.

00:04:54.160 Watch it after it's been implemented for six months or a year or two years, and then

00:04:57.580 other provinces or the federal government can decide if they want it for themselves as well.

Juno News - November 02, 2019

There's nothing wrong with values test for newcomers

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