“It’s not because we offer democracy that these people leave everything behind. » If the repressive past experienced by immigrants can hinder their participation in political life, it would especially influence their confidence in revealing their contribution, according to a study by Concordia University.
“They are human beings, we cannot reprogram them. They bring with them baggage which, to a certain extent, can continue to haunt them,” explains Duty political science professor at Concordia University Antoine Bilodeau, who co-authored the study.
Based on a survey conducted in 2019 among around 2,000 immigrants settled in Quebec, Mr. Bilodeau wanted to understand how immigrants “adapt” to the federal, provincial and municipal political system after experiencing “repression”.
“Since the 1960s, the composition of immigration to Canada has really changed,” he says. At this time, “most [des immigrants] arrived from former British colonies, therefore still with a democratic past.” But “gradually, until the 1990s, the majority of immigrants arrived with almost no democratic experience.”
To quantify the level of repression experienced, the authors of the study focused on the first fifteen years of the participants’ lives, because it is during this period that we most assimilate “political knowledge”. Each participant is associated with a score which combines the “autocracy” indices at a specific period in the different countries where they lived before their 16the birthday.
If the authoritarian past does not have a major effect on voting, it seems to have one on non-electoral activities, such as demonstrations, petitions, or even volunteering for a political group, indicate the authors. If we rely on the people who were interviewed by telephone, “more [leur] past is repressive,” the less immigrants “report participation in any form of activity.”
But the result changes, if we look at the answers of the participants questioned online. An interview framework in which immigrants more easily assume their participation. According to the authors, the “inclination to abstain” from participating in political life would therefore hide “more of a fear of revealing” one’s contribution, influenced by the polling method.
Better survey immigrants
“What all immigration researchers should remember from our study is that, depending on the interview method, regardless of the reason, we draw conclusions that are diametrically opposed,” comments Mr. Bilodeau, who believes that the Researchers “need to have a discussion” in order to better survey immigrant populations. “You have to pay special attention because their voice is more likely to remain silent. »
The survey was conducted among Canadian citizenship holders and permanent residents. But “the new reality” is that today there are “more temporary immigrants, who we are just beginning to take into account, not only in research, but also in public debates”. For them, it would be “even more difficult” to express their opinion, warns Mr. Bilodeau, because their “level of vulnerability is greater”.
Perceptions of immigration are also changing in Canada, with 44% of citizens likely to say there are too many immigrants in the country — a record jump of 17 points since last year, which bucks trends. An “important change” to which we must “really pay attention”, says Mr. Bilodeau, even if the percentage is far from that of the time of the end of the 1980s, during which it was around “75%”. “We have not yet returned to an era of hostility,” adds the man who has been interested in immigration for almost 20 years.
It remains that “it is not easy for an immigrant to find their place in a new environment. There are barriers that come from the past, from traumatic experiences. It is certain that, each time the context becomes more hostile, the challenges for immigrants become greater.”
This content is produced in collaboration with Concordia University.
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.