Is the 'market value of becoming Canadian' dropping? Fewer immigrants are becoming citizens

Andrew

March 1

One discussion point that has arisen in social media is the extent that Harper-era changes, making citizenship "harder to get and easier to lose," are responsible for the decline.

The 2021 study is based upon the 2011-15 period, when all immigrants have met the residency requirements (5-9 years since landing). So while the Conservative government changes to language and knowledge were implemented in 2010-11, increased residency requirements and fees were not implemented until 2015, thus not impacting this study.

One area that needs to be considered is for the settlement sector to provide citizenship test preparation courses, given that the study confirms that lower levels of language fluency and education attainment correlate with lower naturalization.

It is unlikely that the current government will implement its 2019 and 2021 election commitment to eliminate citizenship fees (virtue signalling) but there is a case to waive these fees, at least partially, for lower income applicants.

... The findings confirm the worrisome trends identified by the research of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship that found a strong decline in the "market value of becoming Canadian."

"This study shows that some of the people who are most likely to naturalize are the wealthiest and best educated," said the institute's CEO, Daniel Bernhard. "But we saw just a few weeks ago from Statistics Canada that the (recent) immigrants who are most likely to leave the country are exactly those.

"No matter which way you look at it, it's clear that Canada's appeal in the eyes of immigrants is fading. And if our growth strategy continues to be dependent on immigrants, that's a real problem for our future viability."

Although office lockdowns and public health restrictions have caused backlogs and contributed to the disruptions of citizenship application processing, Statistics Canada said that only accounted for 40 per cent of the decline between 2016 and 2021.

The study compared the citizenship takeup among recent immigrants who arrived in Canada five to nine years before each census. It found that 75.4 per cent did so in 1996 and it gradually declined from 2006, when the Conservatives took power.

In the decade with the Tories at the helm, the "knowledge of Canada" test was strengthened, language requirements increased, citizenship application fees rose and the physical presence requirements for citizenship were changed from three of four years preceding application to four of six years. The naturalization rate subsequently dropped to 60 per cent.

After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals came into power, the federal government restored the residency requirement to three of five years, and moved the upper age limit for the exemption to the language and knowledge test from 64 back to 54, the report notes. The citizenship fee for minors was also reduced in 2018.

However, these changes have failed to reverse the trends, with the citizenship naturalization rate falling a further 14.7 per cent between 2016 and 2021, said Statistics Canada, which, in an earlier report, also found a significant number of immigrants are leaving the country after initial arrival.

"Other more global events also likely play a role," said the report. "Significant economic development in some source countries, such as China and India, could encourage immigrants from these regions to maintain their source-country passports and reduce their motivation to become Canadian citizens."

The study also found the fall in citizenship rates over the past 25 years varied by demographics:

•Families with household income between $10,000 and $30,000 annual saw a 35.9-percentage-point drop, compared to a 13.5-point decline among those making over $100,000 a year;

•Those who did not complete high school saw a 39-percentage-point drop compared to 29 points for those with a university degree;•Newcomers whose mother tongue was not an official language registered a 32-percentage-point decline in naturalization rate versus just a 19-point fall among those with English or French as first language;

•Before 2006, StatCan calculated that the group of immigrants with all three characteristics of low income, education and language skills was more likely to acquire Canadian citizenship than the most advantaged group, but the pattern reversed after that; in 2021, the citizenship rate was 1.5 times higher among the most advantaged group than among the disadvantaged.

•Immigrants from some non-western countries who traditionally were more likely to acquire Canadian citizenship now more closely resembled their counterparts from developed nations in citizenship uptake.

Bernhard said the report speaks to the need for greater policy intervention to address the question of why people want to become Canadian, as well as their experience here and commitment to the country, and what they're getting from and giving to Canada.

Some advantages that used to be reserved for citizens such as jobs in the federal government and military are now open to permanent residents, which removes the incentive for some to acquiring citizenship, said Bernhard, adding that immigrants need to have positive experiences and strong connections to feel belonged.

"That's the difference between residency and citizenship," he said. "That's the difference between, you know, Dubai and Canada, both of which have large foreign-born populations. Only one of them allows you to be an owner of the society.

"That's Canada, where citizenship remains very accessible. And if that ownership is no longer desirable, that's a really shocking signal to the rest of us that we have deeper issues to reflect upon and resolve."