On Canada Day, more than a thousand people will be pledging their oath to the country as new Canadian citizens.
Ceremonies for 1,130 citizenship recipients are scheduled to take place across the country on Saturday, according to numbers Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada shared with Global News.
Passing a citizenship test is one of the requirements to officially becoming Canadian – and the majority who took the exam this year were successful, recent IRCC data shows.
Between January and May 2023, a total of 119,053 tests were completed – out of which 92 per cent passed, while the rest failed.
It was a similar story last year, with 91 per cent of the people passing among the roughly 260,000 citizenship tests that were completed.
By comparison, Canadians would be less successful, recent polling suggests.
A Leger survey of 1,512 Canadian adults found that only 23 per cent would pass the citizenship test, based on their answers to 10 randomly selected questions.
The average score of the Canadians who were surveyed was only 49 per cent – where 75 per cent is needed to pass the test.
What does the citizenship test involve?
The test is in English or French and includes 20 questions about Canada’s history, geography, economy, government, laws and symbols. They are multiple-choice and true or false.
The government has an official study guide that is available for free online and in paper form to help applicants prepare for the test.
To pass, you have to answer at least 15 questions correctly.
Those who fail on their first attempt get at least two more tries, after which their application is rejected and they have to re-apply.
Canada’s population recently surpassed the 40-million mark, as immigration has soared.
Last year, the country welcomed a record number of immigrants, which make up nearly a quarter of all people in Canada.
The federal government has set a target of welcoming 1.45 million new immigrants over the next three years, with the goal of 500,000 newcomers in 2025.
Data from IRCC shows that citizenship numbers are also rising.
A total of 375,413 people became Canadian citizens in 2022 – which was a 63 per cent jump compared with the previous year.
As of April 2023, 100,161 people became citizens of Canada.
Among them, those who were born in India make up the highest proportion of new citizens, followed by natives of the Philippines and Nigeria.
— with files from The Canadian Press