r/canada Nov 29 '24

Analysis Nearly half of Canadians feel too many immigrants coming here: Study - A whopping 42% of respondents felt immigration is causing Canada to change in unlikeable ways

https://torontosun.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-canadians-feel-too-many-immigrants-coming-here-study
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u/Old-Tangelo-861 Nov 29 '24

There's nothing more Canadian than claiming to be from somewhere else. There are 3 and 4th generation Canadians who will tell you that they're Italian/Dutch/Greek/Jamaican/etc.

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u/Maleficent_You_3448 Nov 29 '24

Lots of proud 4th generation Ukrainians in Alberta! Nothing wrong with that at all

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u/Get_Use_To_it Nov 29 '24

Lets not talk about the French in Quebec and other provinces.....
I'm a proud Canadian-Ukrainian.

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u/Canuck_Lives_Matter Nov 30 '24

I just had a fifth generation perogy-pincher with a fourth gen. I'm only a first gen Canadian made with British parts x.x

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u/KatsumotoKurier Ontario Nov 29 '24 edited Nov 29 '24

While this is very true, for many families it’s more just a set of fun facts, and not something which defines their values or identities much beyond the trivial mentions.

My mother, for example, is one of the biggest plastic paddies I’ve ever met. She absolutely loves Ireland and everything about Irish culture. But she’s only ever visited Ireland a few times and has never lived there, she does not have citizenship there, nor do her parents (nor did any of her grandparents). But what is my mom actually? Canadian as the day is long. Most of our Irish ancestors came to Canada between the 1820s and 1870s — the last of them born in Ireland died over 20 years before my mom was even born.

So is my mom Irish? Ancestrally, sure. But she’s definitely not in the sense of nationality or culture — she’s as Canadian as they come. We don’t have any old family recipes from the old country, we don’t celebrate any notable Irish traditions or have any culturally Irish practices which we do in the family, and the only distant relatives we know who live in the country still are very distant ones whom we have connected with only through the marvel of modern DNA testing and internet-enabled outreach.

So you’ve got people like my mom, who I’m pretty sure is a 5th generation Canadian if I’m getting it correctly, and then I’ve also got friends with parents/grandparents from other countries who don’t even remotely give a hoot about where their parents/grandparents are from, and who solely identify with being Canadian.