Canadians (French: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Canadian.
Canada is a multilingual and multicultural society home to people of groups of many different ethnic, religious, and national origins, with the majority of the population made up of Old World immigrants and their descendants. Following the initial period of French and then the much larger British colonization, different waves (or peaks) of immigration and settlement of non-indigenous peoples took place over the course of nearly two centuries and continue today. Elements of Indigenous, French, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have combined to form the culture of Canada, and thus a Canadian identity. Canada has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geographic, and economic neighbour—the United States.
Canadian independence from the United Kingdom grew gradually over the course of many years following the formation of the Canadian Confederation in 1867. The First and Second World Wars, in particular, gave rise to a desire among Canadians to have their country recognized as a fully-fledged, sovereign state, with a distinct citizenship. Legislative independence was established with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, 1931, the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946, took effect on January 1, 1947, and full sovereignty was achieved with the patriation of the constitution in 1982. Canada's nationality law closely mirrored that of the United Kingdom. Legislation since the mid-20th century represents Canadians' commitment to multilateralism and socioeconomic development.
The word Canadian originally applied, in its French form, Canadien, to the colonists residing in the northern part of New France[12]— in Quebec, and Ontario—during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The French colonists in Maritime Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), were known as Acadians.
When Prince Edward (a son of King George III) addressed, in English and French, a group of rioters at a poll in Charlesbourg, Lower Canada (today Quebec), during the election of the Legislative Assembly in June 1792,[13] he stated, "I urge you to unanimity and concord. Let me hear no more of the odious distinction of English and French. You are all His Britannic Majesty's beloved Canadian subjects."[14] It was the first-known use of the term Canadian to mean both French and English settlers in the Canadas.[13][15]
As of 2010, Canadians make up 0.5% of the world's total population,[16] having relied upon immigration for population growth and social development.[17] Approximately 41% of current Canadians are first- or second-generation immigrants,[18] and 20% of Canadian residents in the 2000s were not born in the country.[19] Statistics Canada projects that, by 2031, nearly one-half of Canadians above the age of 15 will be foreign-born or have one foreign-born parent.[20] Indigenous peoples, according to the 2016 Canadian census, numbered at 1,673,780 or 4.9% of the country's 35,151,728 population.[21]
While the first contact with Europeans and Indigenous peoples in Canada had occurred a century or more before, the first group of permanent settlers were the French, who founded the New France settlements, in present-day Quebec and Ontario; and Acadia, in present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, during the early part of the 17th century.[22][23]
Approximately 100 Irish-born families would settle the Saint Lawrence Valley by 1700, assimilating into the Canadien population and culture.[24][25] During the 18th and 19th century; immigration westward (to the area known as Rupert's Land) was carried out by "Voyageurs"; French settlers working for the North West Company; and by British settlers (English and Scottish) representing the Hudson's Bay Company, coupled with independent entrepreneurial woodsman called coureur des bois.[26] This arrival of newcomers led to the creation of the Métis, an ethnic group of mixed European and First Nations parentage.[27]
In the wake of the British Conquest of New France in 1760 and the Expulsion of the Acadians, many families from the British colonies in New England moved over into Nova Scotia and other colonies in Canada, where the British made farmland available to British settlers on easy terms. More settlers arrived during and after the American Revolutionary War, when approximately 60,000 United Empire Loyalists fled to British North America, a large portion of whom settled in New Brunswick.[28] After the War of 1812, British (including British army regulars), Scottish, and Irish immigration was encouraged throughout Rupert's Land, Upper Canada and Lower Canada.[29]
Between 1815 and 1850, some 800,000 immigrants came to the colonies of British North America, mainly from the British Isles as part of the Great Migration of Canada.[30] These new arrivals included some Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances to Nova Scotia.[31] The Great Famine of Ireland of the 1840s significantly increased the pace of Irish immigration to Prince Edward Island and the Province of Canada, with over 35,000 distressed individuals landing in Toronto in 1847 and 1848.[32][33] Descendants of Francophone and Anglophone northern Europeans who arrived in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries are often referred to as Old Stock Canadians.[34][35]
Beginning in the late 1850s, the immigration of Chinese into the Colony of Vancouver Island and Colony of British Columbia peaked with the onset of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.[36] The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 eventually placed a head tax on all Chinese immigrants, in hopes of discouraging Chinese immigration after completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway.[37] Additionally, growing South Asian immigration into British Columbia during the early 1900s[38] led to the continuous journey regulation act of 1908 which indirectly halted Indian immigration to Canada, as later evidenced by the infamous 1914 Komagata Maru incident.
The population of Canada has consistently risen, doubling approximately every 40 years, since the establishment of the Canadian Confederation in 1867.[40] In the mid-to-late 19th century, Canada had a policy of assisting immigrants from Europe, including an estimated 100,000 unwanted "Home Children" from Britain.[41] Block settlement communities were established throughout Western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were planned and others were spontaneously created by the settlers themselves.[42] Canada received mainly European immigrants, predominantly Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Dutch, Poles, and Ukrainians.[43]Legislative restrictions on immigration (such as the continuous journey regulation and Chinese Immigration Act, 1923) that had favoured British and other European immigrants were amended in the 1960s, opening the doors to immigrants from all parts of the world.[44] While the 1950s had still seen high levels of immigration by Europeans, by the 1970s immigrants were increasingly Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Jamaican, and Haitian.[45] During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canada received many American