One-quarter of Canadians say immigrants should give up customs: poll
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Dissatisfaction with the government’s immigration policy has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic
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As two-thirds of Canadians have indicated that there are “too many” immigrants in the country, a new national survey highlights another aspect of the immigration issue: concerns about newcomers’ integration in Canada.
Conducted by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS), the poll found that one-fourth of Canadians believe immigrants should give up their customs and traditions, a sentiment shared by one-third of Canadians over the age of 55. In Quebec, one-in-three respondents feel that immigrants should give up their cultural practices.
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Jack Jedwab, the chief executive of ACS, was not surprised by what the survey found.
“Top of mind, Canadians will cite economic reasons when expressing concern about numbers of immigrants, but there is an underlying concern about newcomer integration and the exacerbation of inter-group tensions,” Jedwab told National Post in an email.
While 76 per cent of Canadians agree that it’s important to transmit customs and traditions to future generations, Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34 are — at 65 per cent — less likely to agree.
Jedwab said it’s “ironic” that Canadians simultaneously support passing on culture and traditions while, in a country “where nearly half the population are immigrants and their children,” they believe newcomers should give up their culture and traditions.
“But it’s likely a function of some discomfort with certain manifestations of religious identities,” he said.
Indeed, one-third of Canadians believe that the quickest way for religious minorities to integrate is for them to stop wearing overtly religious symbols. This view is held most strongly, at 39 per cent, by those over the age of 55. Thirty-five per cent of men believe that’s the case, compared to 29 per cent of women. Those between 18 and 34, at just 22 per cent, are least likely to hold that belief.
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Twenty-eight per cent of Atlantic Canadians hold that view, as do 26 per cent of Ontarians, 31 per cent of those in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and 28 per cent in Alberta and British Columbia. This sentiment is especially strong in Quebec, where 47 per cent of respondents agree that discrimination is avoided by not displaying such symbols publicly. (Paradoxically, Quebecers are also the most likely to believe that the transmission of customs and traditions to children is important.)
The result is “troubling” for Jedwab. “It’s a view that risks promoting stigmatization of persons for whom their religious identity is important,” he said.
Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with the government’s immigration policy has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada’s ministry of immigration, refugees, and citizenship announced last month a significant cut to the annual immigration targets, dropping from 500,000 in 2025 to 395,000, with further reductions to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.
Recent surveys showed a steady rise in the proportion of Canadians who feel there are “too many” newcomers in the country, increasing from 49 per cent in September 2023 to 64 per cent in September 2024.
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The survey also shows that the rapidly growing percentage of Canadians who feel there are too many immigrants are also “expressing more negative sentiment to newcomers,” indicating that their anxieties go beyond just economic issues, Jedwab said.
“It suggests that there is a link being made by an increasing number of Canadians between the numbers that are being admitted to the country and the effectiveness of newcomer integration, a view held widely in the U.S. and Europe and too often accompanied by toxic debates that stigmatize newcomers and that (we) want to avoid at all costs,” he said. “We’ll see if the federal government’s recent reduction in immigration levels modifies the perception. That said, the reduction in levels does have some ramifications for our future demographic well-being.”
Among Canadians who believe there are too many immigrants, a majority — 51 per cent — say there are too many Muslims in Canada. Nineteen per cent say there are “too many” Jews in Canada, and 24 per cent say there are too many Indigenous people in Canada.
Among poll respondents who hold negative views of immigrants, 77 per cent view Muslims very negatively, and 31 per cent view Jews very negatively.
“The survey reveals that underlying negative sentiment towards immigrants in Canada is a disproportionate degree of negative sentiment towards Muslims,” said Jedwab. “It suggests an exacerbation of a persistent trend and rise of a worrisome backlash accompanied by more stereotyping of Muslims.”
The polling was conducted between Sept. 20 and 22, surveying 1,612 Canadians. While a margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample for comparison purposes, a panel of that size would have a margin of error of ± 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
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