Institute for Canadian Citizenship
2023 – 2024 Annual Report
Message from the Chair
Canada is a special place: a strong, resilient country built upon a welcoming, optimistic spirit. Since long before Europeans arrived here, the peoples of Canada welcomed others to live with them, put down roots, prosper and thrive. Our tradition of welcome is quintessentially Canadian.
But with public sentiment towards immigration faltering and fewer and fewer immigrants becoming Canadian citizens, Canada is at a critical fork in the road.
Either we deliver for newcomers so that they can come, stay, succeed, and build our mutual prosperity, or we can watch that prosperity wane.
The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) prefers the path of prosperity, and this report demonstrates some of the remarkable results we achieved this past year.
In 2024, we vastly increased the number of immigrants benefitting from our programs and released original research, revealing the decline in Canadian citizenship uptake as well as a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants leaving Canada. We advocated for greater immigrant retention and sought to improve opportunities for newcomers who wish to call Canada home.
This work could not have been completed without our generous donors, talented team, enthusiastic partners, devoted board, and most importantly, the newcomers we serve.
Canada needs us to succeed. I hope you’ll join us in this vital effort to secure Canada’s prosperity through the power of welcome.
Sincerely,
Irfhan Rawji
Chair, Institute for Canadian Citizenship
Year in Review 2023–2024
Message
from the
CEO
A great mentor once told me that not-for-profit is a legal status, not a management philosophy; people devoting their careers to the public good should be just as ambitious as those pursuing private profit.
This report captures a sensational year full of big ambitions realized. We’ve put newcomer retention on the map as a key issue and positively impacted the lives of over half-a-million newcomers, making it easier for them to stay in Canada, succeed, and contribute to their full potential.
In October, we published “The Leaky Bucket”, the first study of Canada’s immigrant retention rate. Its sobering findings were widely covered, generating over 70 million media impressions.
Our flagship Canoo Access Pass grew 243%. It now brings joy and belonging to over 604,000 people.
The Newcomer Skills Accelerator connected over 3,000 immigrant youth with high-skills internships at charities across Canada.
We launched a groundbreaking new partnership with Ipsos to survey 20,000 verified newcomers per year, to understand their Canadian experiences and seek direct input to improve them.
These big numbers are simply unprecedented for a Canadian charity. They demonstrate the skill, determination, and commitment of our exceptional team. This plucky bunch now serves more people than all other Canadian settlement organizations combined, for a fraction of the cost.
The best way to thank them is to support them. I hope you will.
With immense thanks,
Daniel Bernhard
CEO, Institute for Canadian Citizenship
Our Work
How We Do It
1. Canoo Access Pass
Since the original Cultural Access Pass launched in 2008, it provided immigrants with one year of free access to Canada’s best culture and nature attractions. This year that changed.
As of 2024, newcomers can now benefit from a lifetime Canoo membership, giving more immigrants more time to discover more of Canada.
Canoo unlocks over 2,000 of Canada’s greatest experiences for newcomers for free, including the best museums, galleries, national parks, science centres and historic sites. It unlocks heavily discounted classes, training, travel, kids’ activities, professional sports matches and concerts. Newcomers are also now connected to our growing partner network of legacy settlement service providers across Canada.
Serving more immigrants that all settlement agencies combined for about 0.5% of the cost, Canoo ended the year with over 604,000 newcomers, helping them fall in love with Canada so that they’ll want to stay, contribute and become citizens.
This year saw several exciting new partners joining Canoo, including major theatres, sports teams, education providers, and corporations extending timely, significant discounts for newcomers via Canoo. We increased our winter offerings to help newcomers’ discover more cold-weather activities, including discounts on downhill skiing at over 60 locations, skating at Montreal’s Old Port, and free cross-country skiing at Canmore Nordic Centre.
It’s not just newcomers who love Canoo. Our partners love it too. With powerful Canoo insights that we provide for free, the culture and recreation sectors can stay informed and engaged with their newcomer audiences, growing attendance and revenue alike.
In February 2024, we launched our inaugural Canoo Awards at the Art Gallery of Ontario, one of our first Canoo partners, to celebrate Canoo partners who went above and beyond in providing exceptional experiences for newcomers. Our 2023 award winners included Calgary’s TELUS Spark Science Centre, Montréal’s Biodôme (Espace pour la vie), VIA Rail and the Toronto Zoo.
– Amandeep, Canoo member
Impact
Over 350partners providing 2000+experiences to newcomers via Canoo.
Over 400,000delivered between March 2023 and March 2024 – about half of them for kids.
Over 604,000 total members (adults and children)
55% increase in Canoo sign-ups between Summer 2023 and Summer 2024
Canoo Member Growth
Future of Canoo
As Canoo membership continues to expand, we’re growing to meet newcomer demand and exceed expectations. We’ve come to recognize that while Canoo is a national program, it’s better described as “local everywhere”. It’s only as good as what’s happening in your local community. In response, we developed a localization strategy to ensure Canoo provides the best possible experience in every part of Canada. We established our first Canoo local hub in Alberta, hiring a locally based manager to improve the Canoo experience for newcomers across the province. We hope to add more local staff in the coming year, further decentralizing Canoo so it can be owned and directed by the communities it serves.
We continue to invest in technology, launching a partner self-service portal that makes it super easy for new partners to join Canoo. Stay tuned for exciting new additions in the coming year.
The Canoo app now has a 4.8-star App Store rating, but we are continuously improving it, most notably, by introducing new features that help Canoo members discover and enjoy new experiences they haven’t heard of before.
With a data driven approach, we’ll continue to grow and diversify Canoo’s experiences and build value for our Canoo partners.
– Kari, Canoo member
– Meilyn, Canoo member
2. Enhanced Citizenship Ceremonies
Becoming a Canadian citizen is a major life milestone. Since 2005, the ICC has co-hosted enhanced citizenship ceremonies that provide an elevated, participatory citizenship experience worthy of this momentous achievement. Our enhancements include storytelling circles where the new citizens share their experiences, as well as an Indigenous welcome, prominent guest speakers, and performers that make every ICC ceremony extra special.
We hosted 60 enhanced citizenship ceremonies across Canada last year in provinces and territories across Canada, at stunning venues such as the UBC Boathouse in Vancouver, Halifax’s Discovery Centre, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly.
These ceremonies celebrated key themes such as Human Rights, Truth and Reconciliation, Pride Month, International Women’s Day, and various ethnic and cultural heritage months.
A few highlights from the remarks of guest speakers at enhanced citizenship ceremonies:
Many cultures make up Canada and that is the beauty of our nation. You will find many opportunities to learn from your neighbours, people you meet at the supermarket, in transit or on your way to work or to school. I encourage each of you to reach out to create new friendships and find ways to contribute to your new home by becoming involved in community projects and volunteer opportunities.
Neelam Sahota, Guest Speaker
Welcome to the Canadian society. A place where you can share your many talents, skills and gifts with your communities and build a good life for yourself and your family. Active and engaged citizens like you make our country a better place. I would like to acknowledge your determination, hard work and perseverance by offering my deep and sincere thanks to each and every one of you for choosing Canada as your home.
Queenie Choo, Guest Speaker
Strength in diversity is a critical element of how Canada is strung. Diversity also means participation – your participation, your voice in that diversity. As much as you perhaps needed Canada to come here and call it your new home, Canada needs you.
Muraly Srinarayanathas, Guest Speaker
Impact
644 ceremonies hosted since 2006
Over 30,000 citizens attended
Over 7,600 special guests and performers
Ceremonies held in approximately 60 cities
Future of Ceremonies
The enhanced citizenship ceremonies experience was recently revamped to be even more participatory, transformative, and inclusive of the broader public. The result is more active audience engagement and lasting emotional impact for new citizens, their guests, and other ceremony attendees.
We will continue making our ceremonies even more impactful, with more ceremonies hosted at our key partner locations and inviting innovative guest speakers and special guests including community leaders and notable newcomers.
– New Canadian citizen
– New Canadian citizen
3. Ideas and Insights
The ICC is becoming Canada’s primary centre for original, cutting-edge research and expertise on citizenship and immigration. Our research is directly influencing the national discourse on immigration. Last year, we published novel and impactful studies on declining citizenship uptake and immigrant retention rates, newcomer perspectives on life in Canada, and immigrant and employer perspectives on immigrant labour market integration.
In October, we ignited a nation-wide conversation about newcomers’ experiences in Canada through our ground-breaking report, “The Leaky Bucket”, which revealed that since the 1980s, the rate of newcomers leaving Canada has steadily increased without attention, punctuated by a 30% spike in recent years. We learned that the risk of onward migration is highest between years four and seven after obtaining permanent residence. This reveals a critical window for intervention, reinforcing the essential nature of our Canoo program, which immigrants enjoy during these decisive years. Additional ICC research found that the number of permanent residents becoming citizens within 10 years of arrival dropped by 40% between 2001 to 2021. These trends form a growing pattern of newcomers becoming disillusioned with Canada.
“The Leaky Bucket” was the first report in decades to examine immigrant retention. We had great success mobilizing the findings on a very limited budget, starting with a packed launch event on Parliament Hill attended by 60 MPs, Senators, and senior public servants. Subsequent media coverage garnered 70M impressions, and inspired numerous debates and spin-off studies, including a follow-up by Statistics Canada, which confirmed our findings.
Launching The Newcomer Perspective in partnership with Ipsos was another significant milestone. It’s Canada’s largest and most extensive study of verified newcomers, consisting of 20,000 respondents and delivered in partnership with the research and polling firm Ipsos. Early results reveal major challenges during newcomers’ journey, particularly regarding housing and income levels. While this is no surprise, the level of detail and nuance we’ve captured in this extensive survey is unprecedented. By bringing findings to major corporate leaders, businesses, governments and public agencies, The Newcomer Perspective will positively impact the lives of newcomers. It now will be updated quarterly.
We also improved our infrastructure to track immigration trends. Working with immigration expert and former IRCC executive, Andrew Griffith, we published an updated analysis of citizenship rights and naturalization to keep track of immigration selection policies and processes.
Published 3 ground-breaking original research reports
Featured in over 2,000 media programs and articles in broadcast (radio and TV), print, and online media outlets in Canada and around the world.
Published Canada’s most comprehensive data visualization of citizenship rates using millions of lines of previously unpublished data from Statistics Canada
Future of Research
We will continue developing and growing our policy and advocacy approach as the go-to experts on citizenship and newcomer satisfaction and success in Canada. We’ll release an update to “The Leaky Bucket” this fall, building on the positive track momentum of the first installment.We’re also building increasingly sophisticated data products for a variety of audiences and investing in faster and more detailed evaluation capabilities to monitor our own performance and progressively enhance it.
A considerable amount of new original research is slated to launch in the fall. Through a partnership with Deloitte, we are conducting a national roundtable series with Canadian employers to better understand the barriers that keep them from hiring immigrant talent in skills-commensurate roles. Roundtables have been completed in Toronto, Halifax, Moncton and Calgary, Edmonton, Montréal, and Vancouver.
We will also publish a new report capturing newcomer perspectives on Canadian citizenship, shedding further light on some of the reasons for Canada’s rapidly declining naturalization rate. In addition, we are preparing to launch a follow-up study to tThe Leaky Bucket report to further highlight the issue of immigrant retention in Canada. This will also be accompanied by a separate study on Canada’s pull factor, exploring some of the reasons why newcomers continue to make Canada their home.
Financials 2023–2024
2021-2024 Projected Growth
Expenses
Revenue
Total Revenue
$6,081,129
$3,773,558
(62.05%)$1,999,850
(32.89%)$237,208
(3.9%)$70,513
(1.16%)Total Expenses
$5,398,989
$4,554,681
(84.18%)$737,789
(13.67%)$116,519
(2.16%)The figures above are preliminary, pending final approval from the ICC's 2023-2024 auditors, BDO Canada LLP.
Additional financial information relating to the ICC can be found on our website https://www.inclusion.ca/ or on the CRA website https://www.canada.ca/en/revenueagency.html. To view ICC Charity Return History on the CRA website, click here.
Our Community
The ICC is tremendously grateful for the growing community of generous and loyal donors and partners who have joined us in our mission to unlock Canada for newcomers. To our donors and partners – individuals, foundations, corporations, government – you support us through generous contributions, you tell others about our work, and you make us more powerful than we could ever be on our own.
Thank you for your unwavering support and generosity!
Our Team
– Kathryn Paige Hawco, Manager, Western Canada
How You Can Help
We’re working to unlock Canada for newcomers. Want to help us make it happen?
Like you, we believe immigration isn’t the cause of Canada’s ills but, in many cases, the solution. This is what our Canada’s Difference Makers campaign is all about and that’s the idea we broadcast: that immigrants make a vital difference for Canada every day and make the difference between a Canada that stagnates and withers and a Canada that renews its prosperity for the next generation.
See https://thedifferencemakers.ca for more information on the campaign.
With your financial support, together we’ll help immigrants fall in love with Canada, stay, and build their futures here – making Canada the most welcoming place on Earth.
Here are some ways you can make a difference:
Give
Participate
VOLUNTEER
Join us at an Enhanced Citizenship Ceremony, gain volunteer experience through our Newcomer Skills Accelerator for newcomer youth, or support us on our day-to-day work to make a more welcoming Canada for all.
SHARE
Amplify newcomer voices and opportunities by sharing the ICC’s work with your community.