MTown and Tewder are right. I am an immigrant. And I know many an immigrant who have used this country simply to get a western passport. I for one support tightening up immigration standards so there is more of a focus on getting migrants who want to make a life here. And I also support increasing the time it takes to get citizenship. 3 years is ridiculously short.
Three years is short relative to other countries (the standard is ~5 years?), but I don't think that really matters. From what I gather, that's a big reason why a lot of immigrants chose Canada over other countries and if we want to attract the best we need incentives for them to come here (rather than a more well known country like the US or UK). If an immigrant can pass the test after three years, why make them wait a few more? Besides, countries that have a longer wait time for citizenship are no better at integrating immigrants than we are, and in many cases, integration is remarkably poorer.
To put this into perspective I've put next to each country the amount of time an adult immigrant needs to spend in the country before they are eligible for citizenship:
Canada - 3 out of the past 4 years
Australia - 4 years, no more than 12 months of which could be spent outside of the country including no more than 3 months outside the country in the year preceding the application for naturalization
France - 5 years, although immigrants coming from Francophone countries may have this requirement waived
Germany - 8 years
New Zealand - until 2010, 3 years, after 2010, 5 years (keep in mind that permanant residents in NZ already enjoy the right to vote)
United Kingdom - 5 years
United States - 30 out of the past 60 months (during which the applicant cannot have spent more than 6 continuous months outside the country)
Our time period is pretty much the same as Australia's, which makes sense as I believe our two countries have the highest per capita levels of immigration. To get Australian citizenship, one has to intend to remain in the country, which is something we could potentially implement here and would probably do more good than an extension of the waiting period. Honestly though, I think while there are problems with integration in Canada, we do a much much better job than a lot of other places. Integration requires an effort on the part of both the immigrant and the people born in that country. I think this is our leg-up over much of the world - increasingly more Canadians are being exposed to more cultures, the various cultures are mixing, and most immigrant groups already have well established communities here that can act as bridges towards integration. Our image of Canada needs to change as much as it did with the arrivals of Jews, Ukrainians, Italians, etc. in that our culture changed as they all became a part of it.
The article about the Iranian community in Toronto sounds to me like a woman complaining about "the kids today," nothing different from when my sixth generation grandmother complains about the shortness of girls' skirts, the rudeness of waiters, etc. This is all rather irrelevant to the original post though and really should belong in a thread about immigration.
