Executive Summary
Prepared for: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
Prepared by:
Will Daley
Vice President
EKOS Research Associates, Inc.
(613) 235-7215
wdaley@ekos.com
Contract Number: B8815-170622/001/CY
POR Registration Number: #125-16
Contract Award Date: 2017-3-29
Delivery Date: March 29, 2018
Contract Value (including HST): $209,095.20
For more information on this report, please email: IRCC.COMMPOR-ROPCOMM.IRCC@cic.gc.ca
Ce rapport est aussi disponible en français.
I hereby certify as Senior Officer of EKOS Research Associates, Inc. that the deliverables fully comply with the political neutrality requirements outlined in the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada and Procedures for Planning and Contracting Public Opinion Research.
Specifically, the deliverables do not include information on electoral voting intentions, political party preferences, standings with the electorate, or ratings of the performance of a political party or its leaders.
Signed:
Will Daley
Vice President
EKOS Research Associates, Inc.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) conducts an ongoing research program to help the Department develop a better understanding of Canadian attitudes toward the issues surrounding citizenship and immigration. In light of this, IRCC commissioned EKOS Research to conduct a combined quantitative and qualitative research project to investigate the following issues:
The following report provides the detailed findings of the research. The information gained through this public opinion research will be shared throughout the Department to assist it when establishing priorities, developing policies and communications products and strategies, and planning programs and services.
The research project included 2 phases: a quantitative telephone survey and a series of qualitative in-person focus groups.
To meet the research objectives, EKOS conducted telephone survey research between July 31, 2017 and August 30, 2017 among a sample of n=2,503 Canadian adults obtaining an overall margin of error of +/-2.0 percentage points (calculated at a 95% confidence interval). Each survey took, on average, 21.5 minutes to complete. Respondents were offered the survey in the official language of their choice.
A full quantitative methodology report, including all information about the execution of the fieldwork that is needed to replicate the research initiative, may be found in Appendix A. The quantitative survey research instruments in English and French may be found in Appendix B.
Fourteen in-person focus groups were conducted nationwide between January 22 and January 31, 2018. Each group was 1.5 to 2 hours in length. Two groups were conducted in each of the following locations:
The proposed approach involved segmenting the groups by income level, with a high-income group and a low-income group in each location. This approach was revisited following the quantitative survey. In consultation with IRCC, the screening instrument was designed to segment the groups on the basis of views towards the Government of Canada’s management of the immigration system.
Given the interest in testing communications messages, the segmentation was designed to eliminate individuals with firmly held views unlikely to change as the result of a communications campaign. To this end, the screening criteria defined participants as either “moderately satisfied” or “moderately dissatisfied” as follows:
Participants were contacted by telephone with random digit dialling as the method of selection. Between 5 and 10 participants took part in each discussion. Participants were provided an incentive of $75 for their participation.
A full qualitative methodology report, including all information about the execution of the fieldwork that is needed to replicate the research initiative, may be found in Appendix C. The qualitative research instruments in English and French may be found in Appendix D.
Qualitative research is designed to reveal a rich range of opinions and interpretations rather than to measure what percentage of the target population holds a given opinion. These results must not be used to estimate the numeric proportion or number of individuals in the population who hold a particular opinion because they are not statistically projectable to the general population.
The final value of this contract, including HST, is $209,095.20.
Immigration levels
Impact of information
Immigration categories
Impact of immigration
Satisfaction with Government’s management of immigration
Rationale for immigration
Attitudes towards societal impacts of immigration
Canada first
Integration and settlement
The contributions of immigrants
Refugees
International students
Sense of economic well-being
The following draws on the findings of the advanced analytics which summarize the major themes and dynamics of public opinion within the data set.
Two stages of advanced analysis were used to explain IRCC’s key research question.
IRCC key research issue:
What influences support for immigration/immigration levels?
While the overall outlook on immigration and the Government’s performance is favourable, there remain areas of concern.
In order to identify the critical themes and dynamics of opinion towards immigration, we conducted a series of advanced analysis on the data. The advanced analytics were conducted to help answer 3 basic questions:
Research methods and rationale:
The results of this analysis identify 5 major factors within the data that provide a reliable distillation of most of the questions that were asked. These 5 factors include:
Amongst these five factors, the first two, immigration concern and immigration benefits are the most powerful in terms of predicting support or opposition to immigration. In particular, immigration concern has the largest impact on perceptions of immigration and refugee levels. Movement along this factor, either up or down, will have the greatest impact on whether Canadians feel that the levels of immigrants and refugees is appropriate. While the immigration benefits factor has a modest impact on immigration and refugee levels, this factor has the greatest impact on perceptions of the Government’s management of the immigration system. Increasing the level of agreement with the benefits of immigration will have the greatest impact on improving perceptions of the Government’s management of the immigration system.
Amongst the other factors, the duty to help is a less influential factor overall, but is strongly linked to the view that Canada is admitting an appropriate number of refugees, or that it should admit more refugees. Comfort with diversity is a less influential factor in determining support.
Other attitudinal questions, or demographic questions like age, gender and education, generally have a minimal impact on support.
Top of mind
Refugees (particularly Syrian refugees) and asylum seekers (arriving on foot at the U.S. border) were the most common top-of-mind response among both moderately satisfied and moderately dissatisfied participants when they were asked what they have heard, seen or read lately about immigration. Other immigration streams were less often mentioned as the initial, top-of-mind association with immigration.
The conversation about refugees and asylum seekers was varied somewhat between the moderately satisfied and moderately dissatisfied groups. Some of the moderately satisfied participants tended to point to Canada’s acceptance of refugees as the fruition of deeply felt national values of compassion and tolerance. With respect to asylum seekers, moderately satisfied participants expressed concerns about the situation, but were largely sympathetic and confident that they would be treated fairly in Canada.
Some of the moderately dissatisfied participants, on the other hand, tended to view Canada’s approach towards refugees as very generous and expressed concerns about the impact refugees would have on public security, the provision of government services and the expense to tax payers. Moreover, it seemed to some of these participants that Canada’s generosity to refugees could be unfair to immigrants who applied to come to Canada in other ways and also to Canadians in need of government service and support. Apart from questions about whether accepting a large number refugees is right or wrong, many moderately dissatisfied participants questioned if Canada could accommodate a large influx of people in need of assistance.
Myths and misperceptions
During the opening conversation, participants were also asked to describe “myths and misperceptions” about immigration that they may have encountered in the media or in conversations about the issue. Examples of myths and misconceptions commonly offered included:
The discussions shed light on how “myths and misperceptions” can take root among those who are untrusting of immigrants or refugees. In several cases, moderately dissatisfied participants presented their own anecdotal experiences and observations, or information seen on social media or in news stories, as corroborating evidence of their broader fears and concerns about immigrants.
Message testing
The focal point of the groups was an exercise in which participants were asked to review several pages of information containing 7 key messages about immigration that they might hear, see or read in the media. The messages tested may be found in Appendix D.
The results of this exercise found that both moderately satisfied and moderately dissatisfied participants were closely aligned with respect to their preferred messages. Both groups most often identified “Built on Immigration” (a message about Canada’s long history of immigration) as their top ranked message. Other messages that performed well included “Economic Immigration” (about the economic need for immigration) and “Compassion, Opportunity, Protection” (a statement of Canada’s approach towards immigration).
In terms of the method of delivering a communications campaign, participants offered a wide variety of specific ideas, including a range of traditional, social and other online media. Among the suggestions for how to reach them, many emphasized a preference for in-person opportunities to hear from government, such as through a town hall-style meeting. In-person events were seen as a way that government could inform them and provide a means for the public to air their concerns while also making their case for immigration. For moderately dissatisfied participants who often felt their concerns were ignored, in-person communication with government seemed to offer a means of holding officials accountable for decisions made in Ottawa.
Communicating about immigration
For many participants, their perceptions of immigration which may or may not be based on facts or personal experiences underlines a particular challenge in communicating about the benefits of immigration solely from the perspective of aggregate data points. It is important to remember that the perceptions of participants may be based on misperceptions which may be fed by misinformation on immigration and Canada. As well, their concerns about refugees, asylum seekers and “Canada first” perspective may obscure their receptivity to campaign messaging.
When asked what sort of campaign the Government should run, participants often suggested the following ideas:
Our analysis provides an essential anatomy of support and opposition to immigration both in terms of the themes that shape the dynamic of opinion as well as the critical population segments oriented in both support and opposition to immigration.
Ultimately, the quantitative data suggest that the public are positively disposed towards immigration with the gravity of opinion disposed to recognize the benefits of immigration.
Despite this, the quantitative data identifies concern amongst those who are uneasy with immigration. Moreover, the percentage of Canadians who feel there are too many immigrants being welcomed to Canada has increased slightly in the last year.
It is, in short, an environment in which more communication and more information about the benefits of immigration can help to allay concerns among those who may be inclined to support immigration, but whose opinions are neither firm nor fixed.
The quantitative data show that support is fairly high for Canada’s approach to welcoming refugees. The qualitative focus groups highlight the interchangeable way in which asylum seekers and refugees and, at times, immigrants are described represents a challenge to efforts to communicate the rationale for mainstream, merit-based economic immigration as a distinct phenomenon from refugee resettlement.
Focus group participants said the government should convey both the personal, human side of immigration while also providing credible indicators about the success or failure of the system in meeting its goals. Participants’ broad notions of how a communications campaign should work reflect 2 very different desires: to be provided with facts and information about the impact of immigration on one hand, while localizing and personalizing the impact of immigration on the other. Although participants often said they wanted factual information, few demonstrated any clarity or command of factual information about immigration. Rather perspectives on immigration were usually explained through a combination of things they had heard, on social media or news media, but could not clearly recall. While the use of data points and other hard facts can serve the goal of communicating the need for immigration, and to balance opinions formed through personal encounters, anecdotes, misinformation (via social media or blogs, etc.) or a lack of information, these indicators need to be presented sparingly and in terms that are very direct and straightforward, from well-known, domestic sources (that is, Statistics Canada). Overall, communications on immigration that bring national trends and policy objectives down to a local and personal level and include observational evidence seem appropriate.
Above all, participants expect communications from the government to be credible and delivered in a way that identifies the needs, highlights the positives, but also acknowledges areas where challenges exist accompanied by plans to address those challenges. In short, participants are looking for government to describe immigration as a planned effort to achieve objectives and outcomes and to communicate what the outcomes are.