PM sees no crisis in immigrants keeping old ways..

Canada has typically been a mosaic--a vertical mosaic as on sociologist put it. Unlike the US we have not adopted a melting pot view of immigration. The backlash among some people against immigration has been there for generations. One problem with immigration is the tendency for immigrants to concentrate in large cities. I suppose this is natural since sections of cities come to have immigrant communities with their own networks and support systems.
Attention seems to concentrate upon Muslim immigrants even though they are I expect a small minority of the total numbers of immigrants and radicals an infintesimal number of Muslim immigrants. The largest group of immigrants are from China and probably very few of them are Muslim. This extract is from Wikipedia.
In 2004, Canada received 235,824 immigrants. The top ten sending countries, by state of origin, were People's Republic of China (37,280), India (28,183), Philippines (13,900), Pakistan (13,011), Iran (6,491), United States (6,470), Romania (5,816), United Kingdom (5,353), South Korea (5,351), and Colombia (4,600).[1]
Harper's remarks are actually quite sensible for once in my opinion.



This is from CBC.


PM sees no crisis in immigrants keeping old ways

Last Updated: Monday, December 24, 2007 | 2:55 PM ET
CBC News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government two months ago moved to require veiled Muslim women to show their faces before voting, has dismissed the idea of a crisis involving immigrants who don't adopt Canadian ways.

"Notwithstanding the debate in Quebec and some of the debate during the Ontario election campaign, I first of all think immigrants come to this country to belong to this country," Harper said in a year-end interview with the Canadian Press.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada's approach to immigrants is a 'mixture of integration and accommodation.'
(CBC) "I also think that the Canadian approach to this — which is a mixture of integration and accommodation, for lack of a better term — is the right approach."

He distanced himself from Quebec politicians who want immigrants to pledge to embrace what they call the province's core values, CP said.

"I know there's a popularly expressed view that immigrants come here and they should change to suit the country. I think they overwhelmingly do," he said.

"But I think the fact is our country also consciously changes somewhat for new immigrants and new cultures, and I think that's a successful model.



"I think if you look around the world for issues of immigration and cultural integration, Canada is as successful as any other country in this regard."

Even so, his cabinet has been discussing issues of Canadian identity and how to foster a sense of Canadian values, he said.

"We probably need to have some thought about what the shared values really are, and how we strengthen those. But, that said, I don't see a cultural fragmentation in this country. I just don't see it."

In Ontario, he said, there has been "some concern about radical elements in the Muslim community, but these are at the margins.

"The fact of the matter is there aren't cultural tensions in the country, there generally is a healthy process of integration along with accommodation.

"And if you focus on the Islamic community, yes, there are extremist elements, but they are small and marginal, and the problems we face in this country compared with other countries are tiny."