Saidullah: Cricket and Immigration (26Oct95)

PLAYING THE NUMBERS GAME: CRICKET AND IMMIGRATION By Ahmed Saidullah

THE EDITOR LOOKS AT THE GROWING DEMAND FOR AN OLD WORLD SPORT IN THE NEW WORLD

I.C.C. participants openly challenged the credentials of the United Arab Emirates team which won the recent ABN-AMRO Bank trophy in Kenya, alleging that most of their players were South Asians, not Arabs indigenous to the region. Our players` eligibility was also questioned since most of our players were born outside Canada.

Whatever the status of U.A.E. players, we need to recognise that some societies are now multiracial. Indians and Pakistanis live in the Gulf and many Blacks and South Asians call Canada their home. Are we still surprised by the Chris Lewises, Malcolms, Patels and Husseins who turn out for their countries of choice?

Cricket is, was, and will always be an `immigrant` sport in Canada. Did you know that cricket was introduced by the British as far back as the 1750s but that only two national cricket teams the 1932 squad against the Australians and the 1958 team that played against the Pakistanis have ever been all Canadianborn? For us to grasp who is accepted as a Canadian cricketer (or generally who is or is not a Canadian and who decides), a study of the politics of immigration, race and sport is warranted.

A brief history Interest in cricket in Canada peaks mostly in schools, colleges and universities, in the army and among the largely loyalist gentry as a game of leisure and means of political inculcation at the height of the global British expansion in the 1870s. As early as 1836, The Toronto Patriot writes of Upper Canada College`s win over Toronto C.C. in these terms: `British feelings cannot flow into the breast of our Canadian boys thro` a more delightful or untainted channel than that of British sports. A cricketer as a matter of course detests democracy and is in staunch allegiance to his king`. Tours to England become frequent around this time.

Later, Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. MacDonald, a selfdeclared Englishman, who designates cricket Canada`s national sport, aims to keep Canada racially pure: `I believe that it [the Chinese] is an alien race, in every sense, that would not and could not be expected to assimilate with our Aryan population`.

In the 1930s, the great West Indian fast bowler E. Jemmott plays for Verdun C.C. and Montreal against the touring Australians and Sir Julien Cahn`s XI, and West Indians settle mostly in Quebec and Ontario over the next thirty years. (An academic has hinted that, in the 1960s, Britain negotiated a secret deal with its former colony to open its doors to immigrants of colour while reducing its own intake.) In the `70s, come the South Asians, mostly to Toronto and B.C. Canadian cricket is now dominated by these two groups.

New challenges Planning for the future means recognising new demographic trends. Projections reveal that, assuming a constant fertility, mortality and emigration level, people of colour will make up 175,000 of federal immigration minister Sergio Marchi`s annual immigration target of 250,000 (0.25% of the population) until 1995 and of the 275,000 till 2001. Cricket administrators note: by 2001, South Asians and Blacks will be the largest immi- grant groups after the Chinese, and that half of them will settle in Ontario, with Toronto taking 44%, and 18.7% in B.C.

Carleton University statistics professor John Samuel reminds us that visible minority community is established in a certain city or region, others go to the same city or region either because of the presence of family members or because of the ethnic and socio-cultural infrastructure ethnic foods, films, media, entertainment, voluntary organizations, and even sports (e.g. cricket) available there`.

The new C.C.A. administration is aware that the federal government may stop funding cricket, our sole support. In these days of fiscal restraint, federal fitness and sports financing is, as NDP sports critic John Brewin notes, than the cost of one EH-101 helicopter`. We may focus on producing homegrown cricketers but factoring in the coming changes is essential to the future of cricket in Canada. Involving the relevant I.C.C. countries and communities in sponsoring and developing the sport is a far-seeing idea. Let`s start by dispelling the myths about immigrants.

Despite the beliefs of piltdown politicians and journalists, immigrants` fertility and mortality rates match the rest of the population`s. Studies of Canada and other jurisdictions show that immigrants have higher education levels, lower crime rates, higher earnings, lower dependence on welfare and unemployment insurance, higher GDP contributions and a more beneficial impact upon the economy than the rest of the population. Between 1979- 84, business class immigrants alone created 39,000 jobs and, by 1994, as many as 36,000 jobs could be created by entrepreneurs accepted in 1988. In 1988, approximately 3,500 accepted business immigrants intended to invest $3.1 billion in Canada. Yet, at present, such cultural needs of ethnoracial minorities as cricket remain underfunded, under-represented and under-resourced at all levels. Immigrants` rich cultural contributions to Canadian life have yet to be acknowledged.

The future of cricket in Canada may depend on our ability and willingness to provide access and opportunity to everyone in Canada`s changing, diverse population to participate fully and equally in the social, political and economic life of this country, regardless of age, race, sex or country of origin.

Source :: Canadian Cricketer