Canada's Citizenship Study Guide Is Nearly 17 Years Old, and Its Replacement Has Been Promised for a Decade

The citizenship study guide that would-be Canadians work from largely leaves out settler colonialism, the Indian Act and the ongoing legacy of residential schools, and it is nearly 17 years old. Ottawa has been promising to replace it for the last decade. Meanwhile, research published in The Conversation Canada describes interviews with eight citizenship educators working in two large non-profit community organizations in Vancouver, B.C. — the people handling a gap that official material has not closed. That gap matters beyond exam preparation. For many newcomers, the guide is one of the first official versions of Canada they encounter, so what it omits is itself a message about what the country chooses to teach about itself.