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New Canadian
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
Spelling variants:new Canadian
1n. & adj. — Ethnicities
someone who settled in Canada for good, with or without acquiring British (till 1946) or Canadian (since 1947) citizenship.
Type: 1. Origin — Nineteenth century uses of New Canadian often denoted inhabitants of provinces recently incorporated into Confederation. As early as the turn of the century, however, the term began to be used in reference to immigrants settling in Canada.
See also COD-2, s.v. "New Canadian", which is marked "Cdn", and OED-3, s.v. "New Canadian", which is marked "Canad.".
See also COD-2, s.v. "New Canadian", which is marked "Cdn", and OED-3, s.v. "New Canadian", which is marked "Canad.".
This is the more general meaning that is used by most Canadians. Only those who take an active interest in immigration matters abide by meaning 2.
Quotations
1772
[At the same time we beg leave to inform your Majesty, that we believe that these objections will be made only by a few persons in this province, and that the bulk of your Majesty's new Canadian subjects will be very satisfied with such a code [...].]
1907
British Columbia, however, demands a book to itself. It is a Province apart, unique, magnificent, and will not be crushed into the same pair of covers with the prairie home of the New Canadians.
1922
The New Canadians, representing many lands and widely separated sections of Old Europe, have contributed to the Prairie Provinces a variety in the way of church architecture.
1946
The colonizers still were nearly all Anglo-Saxons, mostly from the east, with smaller groups of Icelanders and Mennonites: as late as 1901, there was no such phrase as "new Canadian."
2n. & adj. — Law, Administration
since 1947, an immigrant who became a Canadian citizen.
Type: 1. Origin — New Canadian is a term for a naturalized Canadian. New Canadians have opted to adopt Canadian citizenship. Since 1977 they may keep their previous citizenship. Before 1947, when Canadian citizenship was established, Canadians were classified as British subjects. As Chart 1 shows, the term is almost exclusive to Canada.
See also COD-2, which lists the term as new Canadian, labels it "Cdn", but defines it quite differently as "a person who has recently immigrated to Canada".
See also COD-2, which lists the term as new Canadian, labels it "Cdn", but defines it quite differently as "a person who has recently immigrated to Canada".
See: citizenship court
The term New Canadian may both be a prestige term as well as somewhat negatively connotated, depending on the context. For instance, New Canadians may imply a dichotomy between "new" and "old" Canadians, which might appear to imply a difference in "legitimacy" for some. Formally and legally, of course, there is only one type of Canadian citizenship.
This meaning is more confined to political and administrative contexts. Meaning 1 is the most common meaning by a great margin.
Quotations
1951
"There are no foreigners in Canada, but there are many new Canadians." [...] We new Canadians find rebuilding our lives a thrilling experience. We feel deeply that we belong to this land, our sincerest wish is to make the greatest contributions we can to our country and our fellow Canadians.
1966
The provincial Government will make special grants to school boards teaching English to New Canadian students. . . .
1979
Under the ESL formula, only those students who have been in Canada two years or less generate ESL teachers, yet many new Canadians require three, four, five or six years of special English.
Central Technical School is a dramatic example of the disastrous results of Metro's ESL formula. Last year we had six ESL teachers to teach 140 new Canadians. This year the formula provided 1 1/2 teachers to teach 160 new Canadians.
1989
The conference, called Bridging the Gap, focused on problems of language and culture in providing help to immigrants and new Canadians with social problems, says Lynne Mitchell, spokesman for Youth Clinical Services, the event's sponsor.
1991
Yu has become a global commuter - and one of thousands of new Canadians for whom the dream of a new life is nothing more than a bad joke. . . Yu's difficulty in finding a job in his field is common among new Canadians. It's the Canadian Experience Syndrome. . . Immigration Canada does not keep figures on new Canadians leaving, and Statistics Canada is grappling to determine this figure. Last year, 37,592 people, 5,000 of them from B.C., left Canada.
1997
Neither of these, by themselves, will prevent the neighborhood tension caused by an influx of visible minorities from other countries. There is a shared federal-provincial responsibility to contribute to programs, like language instruction, to help new Canadians assimilate in B.C. and other provinces. And the federal funding should be directed to provinces, like B.C., taking in the most immigrants.
2013
Viktoriya Sedoryshyna, a new Canadian from Ukraine, says her current bank won her over when an employee spoke to her in a language she could understand.
References
- OED-3
- COD-2
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