Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/9/2016 (1468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Everyone enjoys an "I told you so" moment, which is why Canadians have been relishing the U.S presidential elections with more than a hint of schadenfreude. We’ve always thought Americans could be extreme in their politics. The Republican party putting Donald Trump forward as its presidential nominee has only confirmed our suspicions. At night, we sleep easier knowing we don’t have an American-style health-care system, an American-style gun culture and most importantly, American-style elections.

We are wrong.

Trump’s brand of nativist politics is not an American phenomenon, although in typical American fashion, he may be the most boisterous of his contemporaries. Politicians throughout the West have been appealing to a demographic that has become known as the "alt-right" with success over the past decade. France’s Marine Le-Pen and the United Kingdom’s Nigel Farage are only two examples.

These politicians have been building support for their nativist agendas (or even worse, hijacking the nativist agenda) by stoking the public’s fear of immigration, unease over foreign competition and a desire to preserve their country’s distinct national character. Farage’s nativist-Brexit movement led the historic U.K. vote to leave the European Union, and recent polling has found Le-Pen may win France’s next presidential election in 2017.

Canada is not immune to the fears that have fuelled the candidacy of Trump in the U.S. One need not look further than Conservative party leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s recent trial balloon to screen new immigrants for "Canadian values."

This country is a cultural mosaic drawn from all parts of the globe, a country of immigrants who subscribe to a common set of values. Many of our values are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, such as our respect for the rule of law, the right to speak our mind and practise our own religion; others are informal, such as our emphasis on family. Those values are not always shared by the countries many immigrants come from, and in fact, that is why many immigrants come to Canada in the first place.

Make no mistake, Canada wouldn’t be Canada if, over time, immigrants did not adopt the values that make us proud to be Canadian. That was as true in 1916 as it is in 2016. Many Manitobans, myself included, have relatives who came a century ago from the former Soviet Union. But a values test cannot be enforced through a test at the border, nor should it be.

We should continue to screen for immigrants who may have plans to harm others, but it is impossible to screen for intolerance or other skewed values. Moreover, new Canadians are given a citizenship test on arrival that instils values such as justice, equality and tolerance and, over time, are exposed to Canadian values through experience and osmosis. We have to rely on our criminal law system and intelligence services to protect us from offenders, whether immigrants or natural-born citizens, caught up in an anti-western ideology. The most recent terrorist incidents on Canadian soil were committed by individuals born in Canada.

Therein lies the problem of politicians promoting nativist agendas. On the surface, they seem reasonable. Illegal immigration is a problem that needs to be addressed in the United States, stagnating economies pull manufacturing jobs away to foreign markets, and without a distinct Canadian ethnicity, a shared set of values is all we have to bind us together as a society. However, what makes a politician nativist is the solutions they propose are dangerously impractical and incendiary.

Blaming our problems on immigrants from autocratic countries is like giving a shot of heroin to an otherwise demoralized and fearful voter base.

The nativist agenda can turn otherwise legitimate issues into divisive race-baiting. Notice how the conversation in the United States has shifted from the best way to deal with illegal immigration to Trump’s ridiculous deportation plan.

Parties on the right, such as the Republicans or Conservatives, are not inherently nativist. In fact, Rona Ambrose, the leader of the Conservative party, has openly criticized the proposal to screen for Canadian values at the border. However, in "big-tent" politics, fringe voters need to be denounced, lest they hijack the party’s message, as the Tea Party did to the Republican party. Moreover, political parties need to resist the urge to expand their tent by stoking the fears of the electorate.

We can no longer sit back as smug third-party observers to nativist political movements; we are not immune. Our values are at stake.

Joshua Morry is the 2016 Gold Medalist at Robson Hall faculty of law at the University of Manitoba. He is currently enrolled in a post-graduate masters of law at the University of Oxford.