Younger Canadians think values test needed for potential immigrants

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OTTAWA — Gen Z and millennials are split on whether Canada’s aggressive immigration targets are good for the country, and 70 per cent say the government should be ensuring new arrivals “share common Canadian values,” such as respect for minority groups, according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll.

Since 2021, Canada has been aiming for an intake of 500,000 new Canadians each year and the government plans to keep this steady until 2026. But only 11 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 39 say this is overall a good thing, while 34 per cent say it is generally good for the country but has also created some problems.

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Twenty per cent say it has created more problems than benefits, while 19 per cent say it is overall a bad thing. Atlantic Canadians are more likely to be skeptical of the higher immigration levels, while people in B.C., and the Prairies are more likely to favour it.

“The attitudes are shifting a little bit with respect to immigration. I think it’s actually becoming a little easier for people to start to raise the concern about immigration, because it’s not necessarily about the people coming into the country, but it’s the country’s ability to support the people coming in,” said Leger vice-president Andrew Enns.

Women are more likely to say the current immigration levels are generally good for Canada, at 38 per cent, compared to 31 per cent for men. Men are more likely to say it has created more problems than benefits, at 24 per cent, compared to 17 per cent for women.

Canadians are seeing the effects of the government’s intentional increase of permanent residents, but also a largely unanticipated cohort of millions of temporary immigrants who arrived through student visas and the temporary worker program, said Mikal Skuterud, a labour economist at the University of Waterloo.

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“I think most Canadians understand that the absorptive capacity may be pushed a bit. We might be pushing up against it too much in the past couple of years. And there’s concerns around that,” said Skuterud.

The biggest divide on the question of immigration is between younger Canadians who say their life has been easier than their parents and those who say it has been harder. Among respondents who say life is harder for them, 23 per cent say the current immigration plan is overall a bad thing for Canada. Only six per cent of Canadians who say life has been easier for them agree that current immigration rates are generally bad.

Among younger Canadians who say life has been easier for them than their parents, nearly 65 per cent say immigration is either overall good or generally good for the country.

Gen Z and millennial voters overwhelmingly tell pollsters they had a harder time starting their adult life than their parents, with 68 per cent saying they have had a harder time.

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The poll comes amid debate over mass immigration levels driving up housing costs and straining social services, as well as a shocking spike in public displays of antisemitism following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack against Israel as well as resurgent push back against gay rights from certain ethnic communities.

The poll found that 70 per cent of Gen Z and millennial Canadians think the government should ensure immigrants and permanent residents “share common Canadian values such as respect for different minority groups.”

The response to this question is steady across the demographic and geographic divide, with men and women both agreeing in similar numbers and provinces all hovering around 70 per cent. The poll found that visible minorities were even more likely to agree, with 72 per cent endorsing a values test compared to 69 per cent of white Canadians.

As populism continues to sweep across the Western world and anti-immigrant sentiment rises in the U.S. and in Europe, some observers worry about a similar backlash in Canada.

“I worry that people are going to conclude that all the problems were through immigration, and then we’re going to start to have the opposite problems,” said Aaron Wudrick, the domestic policy director at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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“If we don’t let immigrants in, it’s not like there’s suddenly going to be more native born Canadians. People aren’t having kids. So there’s just going to be less people and so we’re going to have a whole different set of problems,” he said.

Younger Canadians are also split on whether politicians should be celebrating diversity or leaving it to Canadians.

Twenty-nine per cent of respondents said that politicians should be encouraging people to focus on things that unite us rather than divide us. Twenty-seven per cent said politicians should be encouraging Canadians to celebrate our differences with programs designed around diversity and racial equity. Twenty-five per cent of respondents said that Canadians should responsible for promoting Canadian culture, including diversity and racial equity, rather than politicians.

The poll was conducted May 24-26 via using an online panel method, with a sample size of 938 of Canadians aged 18 to 39 who are eligible to vote. A comparable probability sample would yield a margin of error of no greater than plus or minus 3.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

National Post
stthomson@postmedia.com

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