What does it take to be a ‘true’ Canadian?'
Researchers found language was the most critical factor for how people defined a “true” member of their nation while others said sharing Canadian customs and traditions was key.

thestar.com
By Jennifer Yang
Feb. 1, 2017

Who is a “true Canadian?” For the majority of respondents in a new survey, it’s somebody who not only speaks English or French but also “shares Canadian customs and traditions” - a marker that Canadians prioritized more than even the Australians, French or Americans.

With an eye on nationalist movements and rising anti-immigrant sentiment, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of more than 14,500 people in 14 countries to investigate global perspectives on a thorny idea: What does it take to be “one of us?”

In a report released Wednesday, Pew researchers found language was the most critical factor for how people defined a “true” member of their nation, with the Netherlands, Hungary and United Kingdom placing the highest premium on speaking the native tongue.

Canadians and Italians were the least likely to link language with national identity, though nearly nine-in-10 Canadians (both Anglophone and Francophone) still felt speaking French or English was “very” or “somewhat” important - despite the fact 20.6 per cent of Canadians did not consider either to be their mother tongue, according to the 2011 census.

In Canada, 54 per cent of 1,020 respondents also placed a high premium on shared “customs and traditions” when defining the Canadian identity, with only Hungary, Greece and Poland showing larger proportions of people who prioritized shared culture - something that “jumped out” for Bruce Stokes, the author of the report.

“For whatever it means, Canadians seem to value customs and traditions more so than even people in the U.S. or in many of the European countries,” said  Stokes, director of Global Economic Attitudes with the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C.

“And while the majority say the ability to speak French or English is important, relatively speaking, it’s not that important to Canadians (compared to) even Australians or people in the U.S.”

Like all polls, this one has important limitations, including the fact the nebulous phrase of “national customs and traditions” was not defined and left for individual respondents to interpret.

Canadians in the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories were also excluded from the Canadian survey, which was conducted in April and May 2016 and had a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points at a 95 per cent confidence level.

Nevertheless, the Pew report arrives at a time when pitched debates over national identity are shaping political battles around the world, fueling nationalist movements in Europe and the rise of President Donald Trump in the United States.

In Canada, federal Conservative Party leadership candidate Kellie Leitch has also seized on the debate, proposing that immigrants be screened for “Canadian values.” She is also pitching the “unified Canadian identity” as a centrepiece of her campaign - though her interpretation of the Canadian identity remains both divisive and elusive.

The Pew report found a generational gap in most countries, with older respondents placing a higher value on shared language, culture and birthplace.

In North America, divergent views also split along party lines. Both Conservatives in Canada and Republicans in the U.S. placed a higher value on language and culture when it came to defining national identity, compared to people who identify with parties on the left side of the political spectrum.

And in the U.S., there was also a partisan split on religion, with 43 per cent of Republicans saying Christianity is “very important” to being American, versus just 29 per cent of Democrats. (In Canada, some 15 per cent of respondents felt Christianity was critical to being Canadian - and on the other side of the spectrum, 54 per cent of Greeks said Christianity was a crucial piece of their identity.)

But interestingly, there wasn’t much difference between the value Republicans and Democrats placed on birthplace - in both groups, roughly a third said place of birth was “very important.”

Most countries also placed a relatively low premium on birthplace compared to things like language and culture - though 21 per cent of Canadians still considered a person’s place of birth to be very important. In Hungary, Greece and Japan, half of respondents said birthplace was very important.

Stokes believes that no matter how “shared customs and traditions” were defined by respondents, the survey shows they’re top of mind right now for many Canadians.

“We don’t know what Canadians were thinking when we asked this question,” he said. “But (candidates like Leitch) are picking up something in their own polling, or their own conversations with constituents, that this is an issue on Canadians’ minds.”

But for Jack Jedwab, who has also done polling research on the Canadian identity, the Pew report doesn’t convince him that Canadian politicians like Leitch are picking the right strategy by focusing on national identity and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migration, notes that the Pew survey asked Canadians how they felt about “sharing” customs and traditions, which he considers the operative word. He notes the word “sharing” in his own polling research has skewed answers in the past.

“It’s very hard for me to comment on this question - on the issue of othering or ‘us and them,’ which is what this poll is trying to get at - when we’re not defining what people mean by national customs and traditions,” he said.

“It’s like ‘values.’ Once we get into defining ‘customs and traditions,’ we may find more disagreement than we realize.”

Nigel Barriffe, president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, also thinks the survey results, while unsurprising, only scratch the surface when it comes to defining how most Canadians define our national identity.

“This report does not actually give us a definition of what it means to be Canadian, and I think that’s what continues to be problematic,” he said. “We want people to feel like they belong, and yet we don’t have a clear definition of what it means.

“We still haven’t said, ‘What does it really mean to be Canadian?’ ”

The countries polled include the Netherlands, Hungary, the U.K., Germany, France, Greece, Japan, the U.S., Australia, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Canada and Italy.