Celebrating Canada’s 143rd Birthday

Today, Canada celebrates its 143rd birthday. As people all across the country celebrate Canada, we pause to reflect on what makes Canada worthy of celebration. Canadians have long considered themselves a multicultural success story. “The world seems to agree,” says Andrew Cohen, the President of the Historica-Dominion Institute.

A recent survey aimed at discovering the global community's perceptions of Canada and Canadians was commissioned by The Historica-Dominion Institute. The global survey was conducted by Ipsos-Reid and presented questions to over 18,000 citizens in 24 countries representing 75% of the world’s GDP.

On the topics of immigration, diversity and multiculturalism, a majority (53%) of people said they'd live in Canada if they had an opportunity to move, including 77% of respondents from China and 68% of respondents from India. An interesting result of the survey indicates that almost one-third (30%) of Americans would also choose Canada. On average, most survey respondents (72%) believe that Canada is welcoming to immigrants, while 86% in China and 84% in India agree, while almost all (94%) Canadians think so. Eight out of ten (79%) of survey respondents would describe Canada as being tolerant of people from different racial and cultural backgrounds – equal to the proportion of Canadians (81%) who say the same thing. Most (86%) global citizens agree that Canada is a country where rights and freedoms are respected and the same portion believe that Canadians are friendly people.

Eight out of ten (79%) respondents think that Canadians enjoy one of the best qualities of life anywhere in the world. Those in Canada agree most strongly (89%) that they have the best quality of life.

The survey also found that seven out of ten (72%) agree that Canada has one of the best health care systems in the world.

Happy Birthday to you, Canada!