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B.C. residents most likely to welcome more refugees: poll

New survey also suggests one quarter of British Columbians believe Canada should have taken in more refugees in response to the U.S. ban
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B.C. and Atlantic Canada are tied for being the most welcoming to refugees, according to a new poll released Monday.

At 18 per cent each in the Angus Reid Institute survey, those two regions beat the national average of 11 per cent of Canadians who thought the country should welcome more refugees.

One in four B.C. residents thought Canada should have taken in the additional refugees in direct response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration ban, again higher than the national average of 18 per cent.

Conversely, another quarter of respondents thought this country should have adopted a similar ban.

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B.C. residents not only wanted more refugees, according to the survey. They also thought newcomers would receive a warm welcome in their province.

Only 28 per cent of those in this province said their neighbours would be unfriendly to Syrian refugees – 18 percentage points below Quebec and 10 below the national rate.

Younger Canadians were more likely to be accepting of refugees. Of those surveyed, 21 per cent of 18-34-year-olds thought Canada should take in more refugees compared to only nine per cent of those 35-54 and only seven per cent of those 55 and over.

Men were slightly more generous than women with 13 per cent wanting more refugees compared to only 10 per cent of women.

 

 

 

@katslepian

katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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