Migrant rights are not about hospitality

In case you haven’t heard (that’s a joke, of course you’ve heard), Alberta is holding a referendum this month. The most high-profile question Albertans are being asked concerns whether or not the Government of Alberta should initiate the legal process of holding a binding referendum on separating from Canada (whatever exactly that means; the Constitution says virtually nothing about any legal basis for a province actually separating from Canada, and even the Supreme Court’s reference and the Clarity Act are very unclear about it).

But there are other very important questions. We Albertans are going to be asked whether non-permanent legal immigrants in Alberta should be eligible for provincial services (including schooling and healthcare), whether they should be required to wait 12 months before being eligible for these services, and whether they should have to pay a fee or premium for them over and above the provincial taxes they already pay. (Currently, non-permanent residents who work in the province pay taxes at exactly the same rates as everyone else.)

There’s a lot that’s wrong with these questions, including the fact that, whatever fiscal challenges Alberta faces in paying for provincial services, the impact of non-permanent residents on those services is minimal. But there’s a deeper problem and it’s in what these questions reflect about our fundamental attitudes toward migrants and “our” land.

Not our land

Christians who advocate for migrants’ interests often use the language of hospitality to connect their work and their faith. The mandate to treat “strangers” or “wayfarers” as one of your own is a frequent refrain throughout scripture, from Leviticus 19:34 to Matthew 25:35 to Hebrews 13:2 (to name but a few). But there are downsides to the rhetoric of hospitality when thinking about the rights of migrants in Canada and our duties toward them.

First, it seems to make the question of welcoming the stranger a matter of generosity rather than rights. I don’t think this is what scripture actually implies, but we tend to think of hospitality as a sort of kindness moved by warm feelings rather than a matter of people’s rights and our basic obligations toward them. Treating migrants fairly and well shouldn’t be something we do merely because we’re nice and generous, lest we feel justified in withdrawing that treatment when times get tough for us; “we’d love to share, but there just isn’t enough to go around; no hard feelings!”

Most importantly, when it comes to the Alberta referendum, this rhetoric of hospitality can lead us to think that our own right to the land and its resources (from which we fund “our” services) is straightforward and uncontestable. It can lead us to think that we are masters and unchallengeable owners of this place to do with as we please.

But that’s doubly problematic. Anywhere we are, we are stewards on behalf of the Creator whose world (and hence whose land) this is (Lev. 25). And for those of us who are settlers here in Alberta, our own “right” to be on this land is premised on our treaty relationship with Indigenous peoples. This land and its riches are not simply “ours” to give or withhold at will; it’s not our ball – we cannot just pick it up and take it home when we don’t like the way the game is going. Let’s keep these things in mind as we look at the Alberta referendum questions.