Portraits 2017: Immigration & Diversity

Produced by the Mowat Centre at the School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto.Most Ontarians remain comfortable with current levels of immigration and with the province’s growing diversity, and there is increasing support for welcoming those fleeing conflicts. These are some of the main findings in the latest report from Mowat’s Portraits 2017 survey series. The report analyzes data from a survey of 2,000 Ontarians and 1,000 Quebecers conducted in November 2017 – a significantly larger sample of Ontarians than is typical for national opinion polls. It also finds no evidence of cleavages in attitudes along ethnic lines or between immigrants and non-immigrants. At the same time, Ontarians cannot afford to get complacent. Our report also finds significantly weaker levels of support for immigration and diversity among those more worried about economic security, potentially weaker levels of support in some cases in 2017 than were displayed in polls fifteen years ago, and lower levels of openness towards some minority groups. These are signals that should be monitored in future surveys