Canadian Citizenship Applications Decline Among Recent Immigrants

Obtaining a citizenship brings benefits to immigrants as they are granted voting rights and be a part of the political influence. It also indicates the commitment of the immigrants’ towards the country and their dedication to adhere to the values and laws.

A recent study by the Statistics of Canada has discovered that there is a significant decline in the number of immigrants applying for Canadian Citizenship. The study, accumulating data from 1996 to 2021, revealed that there was a nearly 30% drop-in citizenship rate among recent immigrants, with most of this reduction occurring in the last 10 years.

The study found out that the citizenship rate among the immigrants has been declining since 1996 from 75.4% citizenship pursued to 45.7% in 2021. This has been noticed to be the greatest reduction in this rate happening since 1996.

With the varied groups of immigrants, it has been revealed that there is a variance in the citizenship uptake rates. For instance, the immigrants with an income varying from $50,000 to $100,000, were 14% more likely to acquire Canadian citizenship as compared to the lower income group with earnings of $10,000.

This trend also demonstrated that more recent immigrants were educated—among those with a high school degree as their highest education level, 30.4% took up citizenship, as compared to 51.8% citizenship uptake among those with a university degree.

Over the last two years, significant changes were observed to acquire citizenship in Canada which can be a contribution to the declining citizenship rates. From 2006 to 2016, a few changes such as the language requirements increased, citizenship application fees rose and the physical presence requirements to be eligible for citizenship were changed from three to four years preceding application from six to four years.

This further resulted in the decline of the number of citizenship applications. However, in 2017, some of these changes were reversed in order to make the process lenient for the immigrants. Some changes included the residency requirement was restored from five to three years, and the upper age limit to meet the language and knowledge requirements was moved from 64 to 54.

Almost half of this decline occurred from 2016 to 2021, with approximately 40% of the most recent decrease possibly related to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. However, even after accounting for such possibilities, the citizenship rate declined faster from 2016 to 2021 than during any other five-year period since 1996.

The newcomers believe that the permanent residency can be more beneficial while some countries like India do not support dual citizenship which states that the immigrants have to choose between the previous and the new passport.

Navneet Kaur