A new survey has found that immigrants are generally more proud to be Canadian than their Canadian-born counterparts.
The survey, conducted and released this month by Environics Institute, is the first one of its kind to directly examine how Canadians view citizenship. The results indicate that the vast majority of Canadians believe that immigrants have equal potential to be good citizens.
The survey asked respondents to define “good citizenship,” and the top five responses included adopting Canadian values, tolerance, helping others, active participation and obeying the law.
However, these answers did contrast to the responses given when asked what respondents did themselves, in order to be “good citizens.” To that, the top responses included voting, volunteering, and paying taxes.
Approximately 90 percent of respondents agreed that foreign-born Canadians were just as likely to be a “good citizen” as someone born in Canada. Furthermore, the majority of respondents are satisfied with current immigration regulations and agreed that Canadians should be able to hold dual citizenship.
Immigrants echoed such generally positive views on immigration and tolerance; 88 percent of whom said they were proud to be Canadian, compared with 81 percent of Canadian-born respondents.
Source: CBC News