One morning in May, John Pentland, a minister at Hillhurst United Church in Calgary, opened his newspaper and read about a group of Albertans who were trying to divide his country. 

Something inside of him felt like it cracked open. He started to weep. 

The best of Broadview straight to your inbox.

Δ document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );

“I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. He called a friend and told him: “I think I’m losing my mind.” 

Pentland has always believed in Canada — flawed as it might be — as a nation gifted with diversity and welcoming of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants. But recently that belief has been shaken as he’s witnessed right-wing ideologies charged with anti-immigrant sentiment take root in his province. It makes him angry and embarrassed for the country he loves. 

“I’ve never felt our worship and our sermons matter more than they do right now,” Pentland said in mid-September, sitting in a crowded coffee shop in Calgary’s Kensington neighbourhood, a few blocks from his church. “Right now, it feels very important that we’re speaking what I call good religion. Jesus has been usurped by the right wing. It’s not biblical. It’s not following Matthew 25: ‘I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’” 

On Oct. 19, Albertans will go to the polls in a referendum that has largely been framed as a vote on the province’s independence. 

But voters will receive a total of 10 ballot questions, five of which are about immigration. These questions ask whether the Alberta government should take more control of immigration “for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels”; whether health care, education and other social services should be withheld from people who aren’t Alberta citizens or permanent residents; whether newcomers should have to live in the province for a year before receiving provincially funded social support programs; whether non-permanent residents should be charged a fee for health care and education; and whether people should be required to show proof of citizenship to vote. 

“Are these questions proposing solutions or are they presenting scapegoats?” asks Chris Mah Poy, who works for the United Church of Canada’s Alberta region. 

Since June, Mah Poy has been holding workshops at churches to help people understand the referendum questions and prepare to vote. 

When Mah Poy’s great-grandparents came to Canada in the early 1900s, they had to pay the Chinese head tax, a race-based levy designed to restrict Chinese immigration after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mah Poy’s grandfather was born in Alberta but wasn’t recognized as a citizen until 1947. He paid taxes but couldn’t vote. 

“When........

© Broadview Magazine