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Should we screen immigrants to ensure that they hold “Canadian” values? According to Tory leadership candidate Kellie Leitch, we should. Or, perhaps more fairly, we should at least talk about it. Voters will perhaps remember Ms. Leitch from her star turn as the Tory spokesperson for a barbaric cultural practices hotline in the last election. Leitch’s latest proposal seems to be more of the same.

Leitch’s proposal has certainly generated substantial heat. She has faced substantial criticism not only from outside of her party, but also from within it. Unfortunately, those critics miss the more important point. The reason such a test is wrong is not because it would be unpopular and even repulsive, it is because of the opposite possibility: because it could work to engender more division in our society.

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For those outside of her party, the criticism seems mostly to have taken the form that such screening is perhaps illegal and almost certainly would be ineffective. First, it is rather unclear how one would actually screen for values. Beliefs are easily misrepresented. Second, the data on integration of Canadians is clear: We do this well. The generation that follows immigrants parents is more or less indistinguishable in its broad values from Canadians born to non-immigrants.