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Dear CG-1 Resident;
Following article appeared in the Saturday Sept 28/02 Vancouver Sun. The article was accompanied by a great photo of them.
Martin and Tuyet are Citygate 1 homeowners.
A mild-mannered man wants to right Canada's immigration wrongs?
Deborah Jones
Special to the Sun
Caption under the picture:
Martin Collacott has personal knowledge of the immigration system that he wants to reform. His wife Tuyet Collacott is an immigrant from Vietnam.
From the intense publicity this week, one might expect Martin Collacott to have the proverbial two heads -- or at least the slick, fire-in-the-belly demeanor of a fundamentalist right-winger.
Instead, the man who meets me at Vancouver's Epicurean bistro at First and Cypress looks like somebody's sweet grandfather.
"This is the guy who's got the whole country stirred up about race riots?" I think as we shake hands and order a latte each (he gets decaf).
This month, the Fraser Institute released Collacott's report Canada's Immigration Policy: The Need for Major Reform (read it online at http://
www.fraserinstitute.ca/). The report slams abuses of Canada's immigration and refugee system, examines the economic consequences of immigration policies and strongly criticizes the government's positions.
The immediate knee-jerk reaction by a handful of immigration critics was to toss out the R word and dismiss the report as inflammatory.
"Racist," said people interviewed on the street for Moe Sihota's TV program. Liberal MP Sophia Leung dismissed the report with a personal anecdote from when she arrived from Taiwan in 1962: "I didn't start any race riots."
"This is a country of tolerance, a country of opportunity, and there's no way I'm going to let anybody say the opposite," Immigration Minister Denis Coderre weighed in.
So who is this rabble-rouser?
Collacott is a friendly, polite, mild-mannered 69-year-old. His look is casual, even a tad rumpled. He is no thundering orator.
Instead, his power of persuasion relies on a mind that's a steel trap for details and analysis -- and an utterly passionate dedication to the kind of complex public policy issue that usually makes Canadian eyes glaze over.
Collacott's mission is to right the wrongs of what he considers egregious abuse of Canada's immigration policies. A retired public servant, whose career included stints as our ambassador to several Middle East countries and director general for security services, Collacott could be enjoying his retirement by golfing, reading or just kicking back.
Instead, he spends his time furiously writing newspaper articles, giving interviews to journalists from around the world and using all his skills to foster public interest in immigration.
Collacott is, in fact, a policy guy who has come to his life's mission in his senior years. "I intend to spend the rest of my active working life on this," he says simply.
To back up his arguments, he cites arcane facts and detailed figures from the top of his head and, just to make sure he gets his point across, hauls clippings and reports to back them up from a soft cloth briefcase he carries about with him.
"I think Canada has made huge progress to becoming a more tolerant society," says Collacott. "When I grew up it was not enough to just be white, you had to be (a WASP) from the United Kingdom. Poles hardly existed, Jews were beyond the pale and non-whites were invisible. Now, we haven't eliminated racism, but most Canadians are compassionate and tolerant."
Yes, things have changed during Collacott's 69 years.
As we sip coffee at a sidewalk table, mixed-race couples walk by, a glance at the other patrons shows a kaleidoscope of nationalities and across the street the Flower Buggy Market, where nary a European face is found behind the counters, proudly proclaims on its awning, "Proud to be part of the Community."
But using the government's own data, Collacott sees danger signs on the horizon. His report, for the record, doesn't warn about "race riots." Instead, in the back pages, it talks about tensions, and cites government statistics and reports to back it up.
Over-all, it's an economic and political analysis of the impact of Canada's generous and, compared to most other countries, inordinately open immigration policies.
Collacott cites the damaging impact of immigration policy on the economy, but he's clearly also worried that Canada could experience the kind of racial tensions now plaguing Europe.
"We've made great progress in becoming a more tolerant society. But I don't think we can take it for granted. We really don't want to get where Europe is going."
Collacott's role in the immigration debate is enhanced by his personal life. He is married to Tuyet Collacott, an immigrant from Vietnam, has two mixed-race sons and personally sponsored 30 family-class immigrants to Canada, a class that he now thinks should be scrapped.
When asked how he responds to being called racist, he replies, "They have trouble
labeling me that way because my wife is a visible minority."
His goal is nothing less than to start a sweeping, informed, non-partisan national debate and analysis of the issue.
Whether Collacott is right or wrong in his analysis -- I think we need much more information in front of us before we come to any conclusions -- I think his warning should be taken seriously.
The worst thing we can do is respond to this provocative report with knee-jerk dismissal. At the very least, we should pay enough respect to Collacott, an experienced, intelligent and committed public servant, to carefully read his report.
"People can shut up the debate by yelling racism," worries Collacott.
Yes, they can, and have in the past. But we Canadians are better than that. Aren't we?
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