Canadian citizen responsibilities and serving Canada

Becoming a Canadian citizen gives you new rights. It also gives you duties. Discover Canada calls these duties the responsibilities of citizenship. This guide explains each one with an everyday example. Then it covers the equality of women and men, the ways to serve Canada, and the mix-ups that cost points on the test. The rights themselves are explained in The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explained.

Why rights and responsibilities go together

Canadians’ rights and responsibilities grew out of Canada’s history, are protected by Canadian law and reflect shared values. The Oath of Citizenship ends with a promise to fulfil your duties as a Canadian citizen. The six responsibilities below show what those duties look like in practice. To read the oath phrase by phrase, see The Oath of Citizenship: what it says and what it means.

The six responsibilities, one by one

1. Obeying the law

What it means: Everyone in Canada must follow the law. This includes ordinary people, and it also includes governments, police officers and politicians. Governments cannot act in an arbitrary way, which means they cannot simply do what they want. The key idea is that no person or group is above the law. This idea is called the rule of law.

Everyday example: You stop at a red light, even late at night when the street is empty. You report your income and pay your taxes.

To learn how courts and police apply the law, read Canada’s justice system and police explained.

2. Taking responsibility for yourself and your family

What it means: Getting a job, taking care of your family and working hard to the best of your abilities are important Canadian values. Discover Canada says that work gives people personal dignity and self-respect, and that it adds to Canada’s prosperity. Prosperity means wealth and success for the country as a whole.

Everyday example: A mother and father work to pay the rent and buy food, and they make sure their children are cared for. A newcomer takes evening classes to get a better job.

3. Serving on a jury

What it means: A jury is a group of people from the community who listen to the evidence in a trial. If you are called to serve on a jury, you must serve. This is a legal obligation. It is not a favour that you can choose to refuse.

Everyday example: A letter from the court asks you to come for jury duty on a certain date. You tell your employer, plan your time and go to the court on that day.

4. Voting in elections

What it means: Citizens have the right to vote, and with that right comes the responsibility to vote. This applies at all three levels: federal, provincial or territorial, and local elections. Permanent residents cannot vote in federal elections, because voting is a right of citizens.

Everyday example: After you become a citizen, you vote for a Member of Parliament in a federal election. Later, you also vote in your province’s election, and in your city’s election for mayor and councillors.

Discover Canada calls voting a responsibility, but it does not call voting a legal obligation, as it does for jury duty. For how voting works, from ridings to the secret ballot, read How elections work in Canada.

5. Helping others in the community

What it means: Volunteering means giving your time to help others without pay. Millions of Canadians volunteer. It is a good way to contribute, and it also helps you: you can learn useful skills and make friends and contacts.

Everyday example: You sort food at a food bank, coach a children’s soccer team, or help a newly arrived family practise English.

6. Protecting and enjoying our heritage and environment

What it means: Every citizen has a role in avoiding waste and pollution. Citizens also protect Canada’s natural, cultural and architectural heritage for future generations. Heritage means the things we receive from the past and pass on. Natural heritage includes land, water and wildlife. Cultural heritage includes traditions, languages and the arts. Architectural heritage means historic buildings. The word enjoying matters too: these places are for Canadians to use and love, not only to guard.

Everyday example: You recycle, you take your garbage home after a picnic in a park, and you follow the rules when you visit a historic site.

Equality of women and men

In Canada, men and women are equal under the law. Canada welcomes people of many cultures, but this openness has a clear limit. It does not extend to spousal abuse, “honour killings,” female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence. These acts are crimes, and people found guilty are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.

This links to the first responsibility: the law applies to every family, and a family custom is never an excuse.

Defending Canada: ways to serve

Canada has no compulsory military service. Serving is a free choice, and there are several ways to do it.

Right or responsibility? A sorting table

Many questions give you a list and ask which item is a right or which is a responsibility. Use this table to practise sorting.

How these topics appear in test questions

Practice questions on this part of Discover Canada usually check one of these skills:

• Sorting: which item is a responsibility and not a right, or which list contains only responsibilities. Wrong options often mix in one right, such as freedom of religion or mobility rights.
• Finishing an idea: work brings dignity, self-respect and prosperity; heritage is natural, cultural and architectural, protected for future generations.
• True or false: for example, that young Canadians must do military service (false), or that voting is both a right and a responsibility (true).
• Naming: the three parts of the regular Forces, the three kinds of reserves, the program for young people, and the Coast Guard.

A simple method: a right is something the law protects for you. A responsibility is something you do for Canada and for other people. Voting is the one item that is both.

Common mix-ups

• Voting is both a right and a responsibility, but the guide does not make it compulsory. It covers all three levels of elections, not only federal ones.
• Jury duty vs legal aid: jury duty is a responsibility. Legal aid is help you can receive.
• Volunteering is unpaid.
• Military service is voluntary. It is not one of the six responsibilities, and it is not in the oath.
• The Coast Guard is not part of the regular Canadian Forces. The regular Forces are the navy, army and air force.
• Reserves vs cadets vs RCMP: the reserves are part-time military service. The cadets are a program for young people. The RCMP is a police force, not a military reserve.
• Multiculturalism has limits. Forced marriage and other gender-based violence are crimes, whatever the family tradition.
• Yourself vs others: taking responsibility for yourself and your family means work and family care. Helping others means volunteering.

Ready to practise? Answer the questions in the Rights and Responsibilities chapter, and check that you can sort every item in the table above.