Canada: More than one Canadian in five was born somewhere else, writes Denis Staunton in Montreal
It is 10 degrees below zero in Montreal, snow is everywhere and most citizens have retreated indoors or descended into the Underground City, a network of shopping centres below street level.
However, Canada's politicians are out and about, battling for votes in a January 23rd election forced on Liberal prime minister Paul Martin by a massive corruption scandal.
The Liberals and the opposition Conservatives were talking about immigration yesterday but in a way that is hard to imagine in the US or any European country.
Canada's main parties are outbidding one another with measures to encourage immigration and to help immigrants to bring their families to join them in the country. Mr Martin has promised to abolish a CAD $975 (€700) "head tax" paid by every immigrant who arrives in Canada, declaring that the government must support immigrants seeking family reunion.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper said yesterday that he would cut the head tax in half, pointing out that Mr Martin himself introduced the tax as finance minister in 1995.
More than one Canadian in five was born somewhere else and 44 per cent of Toronto's population is foreign-born while Vancouver will soon have an Asian majority.
The Irish Embassy in Ottawa estimates that 300,000 of Canada's 30 million people were born in Ireland, although few Irish immigrants have come since the 1980's when many doctors, engineers and IT specialists settled in Vancouver.
Most recent immigrants are from Asia, Africa and Latin America and they are arriving at a rate of more than 200,000 each year.
Despite the numbers, there has been little social unrest and no major political force in Canada opposes the pro-immigration consensus.
"The secret to Canada's success is that it's not Ireland," said Globe and Mail political columnist John Ibbitson.
"Canada has a very ambivalent, amorphous sense of nationhood. We're not a nation. We're a bunch of people living in a defined political space and it's very hard if you have a very strong sense of nation to bring in immigrants.
"It's very hard for a Moroccan arriving in Dublin to feel Irish. It may be very hard for that Moroccan's child or grandchild or great-grandchild to feel Irish." Mr Ibbitson argues that, as a post-national state, Canada can afford to embrace the large numbers of immigrants it needs to secure its economic future without asking too much in return.
"Obey the laws, vote if you get the chance, try to learn the words of the first verse of the national anthem and have a nice day. I think that the very thing that other countries cling to as the root of their identity is the thing that we most successfully lack and we've exploited it to our advantage," he said.
Along with immigration, Canada has seen a great internal migration from rural areas into the big cities, where 80 per cent of Canadians now live.
Urbanisation has brought liberalization, with comprehensive women's rights legislation and full marriage rights for homosexuals. The supreme court found recently that people who engage in group sex at "swinger parties" should not be guilty of a crime because they do nobody any harm.
The federal budget has been balanced every year for the past decade, the economy is growing at about 3 per cent annually and although Canadians complain that their health service is slow and understaffed, it remains free and publicly funded in full.
On the face of it, Canadians have little to grumble about and Mr Martin's Liberals ought to be coasting towards a fifth successive election victory. But in his book The Polite Revolution - Perfecting the Canadian Dream, Mr Ibbitson argues that the Liberals' dominance of Canadian politics is a threat to the country's future.
More and more Canadians agree, sickened by the corruption that has taken root in the party that has governed Canada for 70 out of the past 100 years.
The latest scandal started in 1995, when Quebec narrowly voted against separating from Canada and the Liberal government decided to boost the federal government's image in the province. It spent more than CAD $100 million (€71 million) on advertising campaigns, sponsoring community and sporting events and encouraging the use of the Canadian flag.
Much of the money went to advertising agencies close to the Liberals, some of which did nothing in return while others channelled part of their fees into party funds as kickbacks.
"It was obviously a way to buy votes in Quebec and Quebecers are very mad about that but it just confirmed the way politics was done in Canada for years, with the Liberals buying the votes in Quebec and not answering the fundamental questions such as - is Quebec a nation, is Canada a bi-national country or what can be done in terms of recognition of Quebec," said Guy Lachapelle, professor of political science at Montreal's Concordia University.
With the Bloc Quebecois expected to win most seats in Quebec on January 23rd and the Parti Quebecois likely to regain control of the province in regional elections within the next two years, Prof Lachapelle believes that Quebec will hold another referendum on secession by 2010 and will vote to leave Canada.