Large survey shows two thirds of Canadians unhappy with how immigrants are adopting Canadian values

A new wide-scale survey published by The Environics Institute shows that 65% of Canadians believe that too many immigrants are not adopting Canadian values.

All the provinces, except Nova Scotia (49%), showed results where a majority of residents agreed that new immigrants were not doing enough to adapt to Canadian values, with Quebec leading the way at 72%.

Notably, this sentiment held true across both first generation Canadians and  third plus generation Canadians, with the 63% of the former and 68% of the latter agreeing that immigrants were not doing enough to adopt Canadian values.

Across the age groups, a majority of both young Canadians, 54% of those aged 18 – 24, and older Canadians, 72% of those aged 55 and up, agreed with the poll statement.

However, this widely held concern about immigrants not adopting Canadian values is not driven by race or religion, as three quarters of Canadians agreed that a person with a strong attachment to their ethnic or religious community is no less Canadian than anyone else.

On the topic of Canadian values, close to six in ten Canadians feel that Canadians share a common set of values no matter where they live in the country.

The two notable exceptions in this regard were Alberta and Quebec, where only 47% of Albertans and 45% of Quebeckers strongly or somewhat agree that Canadians basically have the same values regardless of which region of the country they live in.

The agreement in shared values regardless of location was most strongly held in Ontario (67%), Nova Scotia (65%), Yukon (64%), and Manitoba (63%).

The Environics poll, which surveyed over 5,700 Canadians across the country from December 2018 to January 2019, also found that feelings of Western alienation and separatism are on the rise.

The feelings are strongest in Alberta, with 56% of Albertans saying that Western Canada gets so few benefits it may as well go on its own. People in Saskatchewan feel similarly, with 53% of them agreeing with that statement.

While the numbers in British Columbia and Manitoba did not constitute a majority, they have risen sharply since 2010, reaching highs not seen since the 1980’s.

This desire for separation holds true across age groups in the West, making a change from 2010 when the push for Western separation came mostly from older Western Canadians.