Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - August 2009
A new poll has found that Canadians are less critical of immigrants than their British and American counterparts.
The poll, conducted by Angus Reid Strategies in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, asked respondents if they felt that immigration was negatively impacting their country. Canadians were least likely to share this view, with 41 per cent of people saying that immigration was having a negative impact. In the U.S. and the U.K., this perspective was held by 66 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively.
Approximately 60 per cent of British respondents said that the level of legal immigration should be decreased, compared to 40 per cent in both Canada and the United States.
Analysts say that many factors have influenced the British toward this negative view on immigration, such as media coverage, loss of British values and political policies perpetuating such negative images.
Recently the British have introduced new legislation that puts new arrivals under a probationary state, until they demonstrate an “active citizenship” through community involvement. Only then would they be eligible to receive a British passport.
There is also the British National Party, a political party who has publicly committed to “stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.” Recent gains by the BNP in national elections mirror the findings in Angus Reid Strategies’ poll.
Source: Vancouver Sun
