“Becoming Canadian, No thank you!” Newcomers falling out of love with Canadian citizenship

BY PAUL JUNOR

For many years, Canadian citizenship was highly sought and prized as one of the best-kept secrets in the world. However, things have changed drastically as reported by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC).

According to the website: https://inclusion.ca/, ICC is committed to ensuring equal access and participation for all people. We strive to provide events and services that are welcoming and accessible to everyone. The organization was founded by Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralson Saul in 2005 and since then it has been involved in programs for newcomers to ensure they participated in the: social, cultural and political life of Canada. Their goal is simply to unlock Canada for newcomers.

Danie Bernhard, CEO of ICC states, “Societies that welcome new people as full and equal participants in: economic, social and political life will discover the path to renewal, and so far Canada seems poised to lead the world in this regard. We only will meet the challenges of our time with new ideas, born of new experiences, applied with new energy. There is no other way.”

Some of the programs and activities that ICC has been involved in are:

Citizenship Ceremonies

Our Enhanced Citizenship Ceremonies mark the life-changing moment of citizenship with celebrations centering the plethora of: culture, diversity, and languages that constitute Canada.

Canoo App

This mobile app helps new Canadian citizens celebrate their citizenship by providing free admission to over 1,400: museums, science centres, art galleries, parks, and historic sites across Canada. It is available for free on the App Store and Google play.

Ideas and Insights

As the world’s leading voice on citizenship and inclusion, our research, insights and events shape discourse and drive positive change.

Advocacy

We are advocating for a more inclusive Canada through: research, insights and live events.

ICC highlighted a significant drop in the percentage of permanent residents obtaining Canadian citizenship based on data obtained from Statistics Canada. Information obtained from the 2021 Census show that only 45.7% of permanent residents went on to become citizens in the last 10 years compared to 60% in 2016 and 75.1% in 2001. This translates to an overall 40% drop in citizenship uptake over 20 years. The source of the data can be seen in a report titled, “Trends in the Citizenship Rate Among New Immigrants to Canada 1991 to 2016” (Statistics Canada, 2019).

In response to this data, Daniel Bernhard states, “To go from 75% of newcomers obtaining citizenship to only 45% is shocking. It goes against everything we tend to think about Canada. It raises all sorts of questions that will have no easy answers, but it is certainly a wakeup call. Canada’s future depends on newcomers becoming Canadian and contributing their energy and talents to our shared success. We should be extremely alarmed that newcomers are falling out of love with Canadian citizenship, which has for decades been highly desirable.”

George Carothers, Senior Director, Ideas and Insights at ICC states, “The declining citizenship rate has the potential to harm Canada’s long-term economic, social and democratic resilience. Immigrants are not just workers, but future voters and civic leaders. What’s certain is that the future of Canada’s democracy depends on this issue being addressed. The ICC is working hard to identify the causes behind this apparent crash in the market value of being Canadian and we encourage Canadians to join us.

We should want those who are contributing to Canada to stay here and become citizens.”