A new survey of immigrants living in Canada’s three largest cities shows that they possess a powerful sense of belonging to their adopted country — an attachment that generally runs deeper than linguistic, ethnic or regional identity, reported the Vancouver Sun.

The poll was commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies and generated responses from immigrants in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Respondents were asked whether they had a strong or weak sense of belonging to Canada, their province, city, country of origin, ethnic identity and language.

Canada ranked highest, with 87 per cent of those surveyed expressing a “very strong” or “somewhat strong” attachment to the country. Eighty-one per cent of respondents conveyed a strong sense of belonging to their city, the same percentage of immigrants who said their language provided a strong attachment.

Province (78 per cent), country of origin (66 per cent) and ethnic or cultural group (65 per cent) were also strong sources of respondents’ sense of belonging.

In Toronto, “Canada” topped the list of attachments with 91 per cent of those surveyed expressing a strong sense of belonging to the country.

Eighty per cent of immigrant Montrealers said they felt strong attachments to Canada; both “city” and “language” ranked slightly higher at 81 per cent.

In Vancouver, which has a relatively high proportion of Chinese immigrants, language topped the list with 85 per cent expressing a strong linguistic identity. But a strong sense of belonging to Canada was also conveyed by 84 per cent of Vancouver’s immigrants.

7 Jul 2008