Where would you draw it, then?
Is it OK for a host country to demand monogamy but not FGM, for instance? Or vice versa?
Is it OK for a host country to demand that you speak the dominant language but not subscribe to the dominant religion?
How do you feel about transnational loyalties like the Muslim brotherhood or international Zionism? Is it OK for a prospective citizen to have divided loyalties or not?
Canada requires that if people are married, it's to one person at a time. Note that same-sex marriage is legal in all 10 provinces and 3 territories. If they want a second spouse, they are expected to either divorce the first or be widowed (and not by killing their spouse!). FGM is an obscenity that has no place in any civilized part of this world. It's just
wrong. And please don't derail the thread in that direction, as we have an old one on that topic you can bump if you have something new to say about it.
Canada does require new citizens to speak, read, and write either English or French. If they choose to live in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories it would be best if they tried to learn some Inuktitut as well, as that language is official in both those territories.
Canada does not require new citizens, or anyone at all, actually, to be of any particular religion. There are some issues in various regions, however, as to whether or not people get adequately served according to what they do or don't believe in.
Sure, Canada has the right to decide what the immigrant must be in order to be welcomed into Canada. Their clothing, their religion, their eating habits, their sexual preference, their skills etc. Canada has the right to regulate all of of those in the people coming into their borders. Should it, though? The immigrant really has no right to protest. They're strangers, and this isn't their home yet.
But maybe Canada should consider being a little more thoughtful, and understand that some concessions are not the end of democracy, and will ease the immigrant into the transition rather than make it harder.
The Charter protects people here from being discriminated against on the basis of sexual preference. The sodomy laws were struck down a long time ago. Granted there are bigoted people who haven't noticed what century we're living in (ie. two women got kicked out of a local restaurant here because they kissed in public)... but I'm reasonably sure that citizenship can't be denied to a non-straight person on that basis alone.
Canada has the reputation for being one of the most welcoming countries in the world, though.
All they really ask of the immigrant is that they become Canadian.
That can be a bit ugly when 'become Canadian' is essentially code for 'be white and Christian'. I would suggest that the sort of sentiments that Warpus is coming out with often end up disguising just that idea.
That's... just... I can't even think of a suitable word.
I've met immigrants and refugees from many parts of the world, and as long as they make an effort to learn English, obey the laws, behave with common courtesy, and don't scare my cats if they happen to come to my home, I do not give a damn what religion they are, or what color their skin is.
Of course it would be dishonest to say that there aren't Canadians who do prefer that immigrants be white and Christian, or at least learn to fake it. My mother was a bigot like that. The day I was with her when she pulled into a gas station and asked the kid at the pump "Is this gas station owned by whites?" was the day that I was ashamed to be seen with her. The kid was flabbergasted, to say the least.