Canada needs to update its citizenship materials

More than a decade after its publication and at least four years after it was promised, an update is coming this year to the Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship study guide.

The current guide, created in 2009 and lightly updated in 2012, is provided to newcomers to learn about the nation’s history, culture and ethics in advance of the citizenship test they must pass to become Canadians. The study guide is, in essence, a distillation of how the government wants the nation to be seen and of the foundational touchpoints it wants immigrants to understand.

The guide has been criticized for its many misrepresentations about Canada, either by omission or parttruth, because it contains highly controversial statements that, critics say, have continued to whitewash the country’s historical treatment of First Nations and other minorities.

The entries for Indigenous and First Nations populations appear dismissive. Treaties, for example, “were not always respected.” Residential schools “inflicted hardship on the students.” The Inuit and Métis are together afforded just paragraphs.

The study guide provides a mere glimpse — by necessity — of many elements of our history and culture, but some topics are given greater weight than others. It emphasizes Canada’s relationship to the monarchy and our military history, while the section covering modern Canada presents just half that amount of information.

“We agree with many Canadians that the existing guide is significantly outdated,” said Alexander Cohen, press secretary to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marco Mendocino. “It hasn’t been updated for over a decade and contains outdated terminology and ideas — particularly regarding Indigenous peoples. The new guide ... will be comprehensive, diverse and honest — helping new Canadians get a sense of Canada’s long history and their role in shaping our shared future.”

The updates will focus on three themes: relationships, opportunity and commitment, Cohen said in an email.

“The new guide will include, among many other things, more information about a wide variety of historically underrepresented groups, like francophones, women, Black Canadians (highlighting the story of Africville in Nova Scotia), the LGBTQ2 community and Canadians with disabilities. It will also highlight the contributions of prominent individuals from these diverse communities.”

Cohen added that the process of updating the guide “included extensive consultations with leaders from the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council as well as groups and individuals representing racialized communities, women, Francophones, the LBGTQ2+ community, persons with disabilities, historians, academics and parliamentarians.”

The new guide is to include a section on anti-racism efforts in Canada, he said, including a discussion of the systemic racism that exists today, as well as the evolution of rights and freedoms.

In its 2015 final report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought to address statements in the citizenship study guide.