On dual considerations

Both CBC and Ipsos-Reid give top billing on a new opinion survey to the 39% of respondents who think that dual citizenship should be eliminated. But it's worth noting that nationally - and indeed in each province - a significant majority of Canadians are in favour of allowing dual citizenship.

From the Ipsos-Reid press release:

As Canada celebrates its birthday this Canada Day weekend, a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of the Dominion Institute finds that four in ten (39%) Canadians are against the current policy regarding dual citizenship, and believe that Canadian citizens should not be allowed to simultaneously hold citizenship of a country other than Canada. On the other hand, a majority (61%) of Canadians are in favour of the current practice, and believe that Canadians should be able to hold dual citizenship, whereby one would be allowed to simultaneously be a citizen of Canada and of another country.

In other words, the poll apparently lacked a middle or undecided option. Which means that the 39% against dual citizenship is a far less significant number than it would be if, due to other options in the poll, it ranked anywhere near the number of respondents who prefer the status quo.

Meanwhile, the regional breakdown highlighted by CBC shows that even if respondents are broken down by their province of residence, the option of maintaining dual citizenship wins out by between 14% and 34% everywhere:

Breaking it down by province, Albertans were most opposed, with 43 per cent against dual citizenship. British Columbians had the least problem, with 33 per cent.

In sum, while the number of Canadians who see Canadian citizenship as incompatible with citizenship elsewhere is perhaps higher than one would like to see, the national consensus is still strongly in favour of permitting dual citizenship. And with younger respondents preferring to continue the status quo by an even wider margin, the poll merely confirms that Canadians figure to prefer to allow dual citizenship well into the future.

Update: Of course, it could be that the Cons will want to push to abolish dual citizenship no matter how strongly the public is against them. And I fear Robert may be right in musing as to how they could seek to force through a more restricted definition.