Citizenship

A total of 35,024 people were granted Canadian citizenship in the third quarter of 2003, a 10% increase over the same quarter of 2002 (see table 10). During the third quarter of 2003, the top seven source countries remained unchanged from 2002. In the current quarter, slightly more than one in four people granted Canadian citizenship were born in one of the top three source countries: 13% were born in China, 10% in India and 5% in the Philippines. In the third quarter of 2003, China was the highest ranking country with 4,586 citizenship grants, an 18% jump over the same quarter of the previous year. India, in second place with 3,618 grants, showed an increase of 30% during this same time period. The number of citizenship grants also increased for immigrants from the Philippines (12%), South Korea (31%) and the United States (32%). Citizenship grants for immigrants from Pakistan, Hong Kong SAR, Iran, Taiwan and Russia declined in the third quarter of 2003 compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

Chart 2: Number of people granted Canadian citizenship by top 10 source countries,* 2002-Q3, 2002-YTD, 2003-Q3 and 2003-YTD

By the end of the third quarter, a total of 112,978 people had been granted Canadian citizenship in 2003, a 4% increase over the same period of the previous year. China was the leading source country during the first three quarters of 2003 (14,995), followed by India (10,065), the Philippines (6,158), Pakistan (4,826) and Hong Kong SAR (4,036). Overall, the third quarter year-to-date totals for the number of people granted Canadian citizenship in 2003 were higher for the top three source countries compared to the previous year, but lower for Pakistan, Hong Kong SAR, Iran, Taiwan and Russia.

Table 10
Citizenship Grants by Top Ten Source Countries

* Country of birth