If I told you immigrants were prouder Canadians than Canadians that were born in the country, would you believe me? Well, according to a joint survey by Environics, the Maytree foundation, the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, CBC News and the Royal Bank of Canada, it suggests that immigrants are much prouder to be Canadian.
According to the survey, 88 per cent of respondents who were born outside of Canada, or immigrants, expressed that they were very proud to be Canadian, whereas only 81 per cent represented the “proud Canadian” pool for people born in Canada.
Vikram Kewalramani, who immigrated to Canada in 2006 from India, told CBC News that non-Canadian born citizens are prouder because they had to immigrate over, whereas Canadian-born citizens are born into it.
“It wasn't something that, literally, was a birthright. We consider it a privilege,” he said.
The survey assessed what a good Canadian symbolized, and found that the top beliefs were actively participating in the community, helping out others, obeying the laws, being tolerant of others, and sharing or adopting Canadian values.
To go further, the questionnaire also asked what people did to become good Canadians, and the respondents said that they volunteered, paid taxes, was kind and generous to others, obeyed laws and voted.
Sara Jhangiryan, an Armenian-born resident of Toronto who became a Canadian citizen last year said that, “to be a good citizen, it means to contribute to the society, to obey the laws of the country, to help other citizens, to volunteer, and it's a rewarding feeling when you do all those things,” CBC News reported. “It's not only to take what the country offers but to give back, as well.”
But one of the most important findings of the survey was that the majority -9 out 10 to be exact- of Canadian-born citizens saw immigrants as their equals and believes that someone whom was not born in Canada can be as good of a citizen as someone whom was born inside the country.
“There's no real evidence of people feeling threatened or a sense that, 'Well, people can come live here from other countries, but they're not quite the same,” said Keith Neuman, executive director of the Environics Institute.
2,376 adults were conducted between Nov.18 and Dec. 17 for the study, and it has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points 19 times out of 20. There was a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points for the foreign-born subsample group.
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