By Vancouver Sun |
Fewer newcomers from disadvantaged groups became Canadian citizens during a 10-year period that coincided with the previous Conservative government’s changes to the citizenship program, new Statistics Canada research shows.
The decrease was part an overall trend in declining citizenship rates among those who have been in Canada less than 10 years, despite the fact the actual citizenship rate in Canada is among the highest in the Western world, Statistics Canada said in the study released Wednesday.
The researchers found that between 1991 and 2016, the citizenship rate in Canada — the percentage of immigrants who become citizens — rose about five percentage points, but the increase was largely driven by people who had been in Canada for over a decade.
But beginning in 1996 and until 2016, the citizenship rate for those who’d been in the country for less than 10 years began to fall.
Using adjusted income measurements, Statistics Canada found that for those with incomes below $10,000, the drop was 23.5 percentage points, compared to just three percentage points for those with incomes over $100,000.
In the same decade, the citizenship rate fell 22.5 percentage points among people with less than a high school education, compared with 13.8 percentage points among those with university degrees.
In the case of both income levels and education, the gaps widened between 2011 and 2016.
Between 2011 and 2015, the Conservative government of the day overhauled the citizenship program, hiking citizenship fees from $100 to $630 and implementing stricter language, residency and knowledge requirements.