Around the world, Canadian Citizenship is one of the most highly sought after citizenships in the world. Canada is seen as a country of opportunity, which has a reputation of being friendly and welcoming. In fact Country RepTrack, the Reputation Institute, has always ranked very high: placing oftentimes first or second amongst their research. We sit amongst Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and the Netherlands from their 2016 research.
This study looked at 58,000 respondents around the world who took part in the survey, which focused on three main aspects: Effective government and quality of institutions, economic development, as well as lifestyle and environment.
Our reputation is high, however, because people looking for a better life see the opportunities that Canada represents, while a Canadian Citizenship is valuable as an international citizen as well. People see that you are Canadian and you are automatically held to a certain standard and treated with an unspoken respect – have you ever heard of Americans traveling with Canadian flags on their backpacks?
Canada has welfare programs, unemployment insurance, social welfare allowance, a pension plan, old age pension, childcare benefits, a strong public education system, and an excellent healthcare system. These are all things we as Canadians take for granted, but to someone a world away it becomes a dream to live in a country that takes care of its people.
It’s a country which is relatively safe, especially when we look around the world and see the war torn countries, we don’t have to worry about the same things here and hopefully we won’t have to.
It’s a country of opportunity. It’s true that we have problems: relations with our First Nations is strained and needs fixing, there are homeless people, people in need of basic needs; but, at the end of the day we – Canadians – are typically the type of people to rally together when in need.
We’re privileged to have simply been born within the borders of Canada and for those who immigrate to Canada they feel very lucky and thankful to be taken in.
Canada, although very similar to the United States, is a very unique place with an exceptionally caring population. For example, we hold the door for each other – oftentimes at that awkward distance where the person coming to the door quickens their steps a bit, we help our neighbours when they’re in need, and we do say “eh” to turn literally any sentence into a question.
I was in Toronto a couple of years ago and decided to head out to Niagara Falls, so I booked a spot on one of the tourist vans there, and off I went. The van driver asked us where we were all from. I was the only Canadian on board, but there were Americans, various people from Asia, and a couple with European roots. One of the Americans was quite sick, to the point of throwing up, so at our very next stop I got her a bottle of water.
I came back onto the van and gave the bottle of water to her, and for the next few minutes the American family discussed the Canadian stereotype: “That never would have happened back home,” one of the girls said.
I wanted to turn around and tell her that it could, she just had to be the one to start the trend.
Over 150 years Canada has managed to develop a great reputation amongst other nations and although we have dark spots in our past such as the 60s scoop, residential schools, and how our treaties were handled in general; it could be worse. And, when you look at other countries, this type of history is typical of Europeans thinking they would bring “civility to savages.” My hope is that we can make this right for everyone moving forward and I believe we can because we’re Canadians, our biggest stereotype is that we care, so with that, I do have hope.
