Those born in Canada often know less about its history than those who came here and went through the rigours of gaining citizenship. It’s a fact that raises the question, what makes us Canadian?
For example, do you know who the Les Automatistes of Quebec were? What about the first politician to head a responsible government in Canada in 1849, or when our Canadian flag was first raised?
If you do, it’s possible to deduce several things about your background.
The first is that you’re off to a good start toward passing the Canadian citizenship test, which must be taken by people who were not born here wishing to become citizens, or whose parents were not Canadian.
Those questions are included on the Citizenship Challenge offered by our organization, Historica Canada: they are drawn from actual previous government tests.
The ability to answer them correctly also suggests that you probably were not born here. Homegrown Canadians don’t have to take the test, and often fare poorly when it is given to them—perhaps because only four of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories make the teaching of Canadian history mandatory.
That illustrates several qualities related to Canadian citizenship: qualifying for it—and defining what it means—are much more demanding challenges than they may initially seem. That’s worth considering during Citizenship Week , which has just taken place, and, for that matter, during the other 51 weeks of the year as well.
What is a Canadian? The base criteria for becoming one if not born into it includes such considerations as where you were born, the nationality of your parents, how much time you have spent living here, your age, fluency in English or French, investment potential, whether you have family already living here, and your ability to pass the citizenship test.
Even then, the interpretation of those criteria can be a moving target. To qualify for citizenship, immigrants are supposed to be physically present in Canada for three years out of the previous four. But in recent years, that law has sometimes been bent to accept people who have spent only a fraction of that time here—as little as 79 days, in one recently reported case.
That doesn’t seem fair. In fact, it seems particularly unfair when measured against the hundreds of thousands of new and would-be Canadians who do abide upon their arrival every year by the strictest interpretation of the rules, and who are aware and passionately engaged in what they see as their good fortune in becoming Canadians, and in the values presumed to be attached to that citizenship.
Those considerations also led to something of a landmark ruling recently by a Federal Court judge in which he pronounced not only on the amount of time required to be spent here for new Canadians, but also “the essential characteristics of being Canadian“ and how to become ”Canadianized."
For those who think that judges too often resort to legal-speak instead of clear language, Justice Peter Annis’s ruling was strong on the latter with little of the former.
In fact, he began by acknowledging that his comments extended further than the legal norm. In effect, he said that Canada is a unique place—so the only way to learn Canadian values is through living here for an extended period.
Those qualities, he said, include “attitudes of respect for others and a willingness to accommodate cultural, social, and economic challenges to resolve our differences.”
“Our history and unique circumstances have created a Canadian character and institutions that are significantly distinct and different from those of other countries, including that of our neighbour to the south,” he added.
That last observation should be self-evident: after all, it’s generally accepted that individual character is formed through a combination of “nature and nurture.” Countries are no different.
But in Canada’s case, those qualities have contributed over the years to our infamous and often tedious collective agonizing over identity: We’ve never reconciled our heritage alongside Canada’s Indigenous peoples; we weren’t quite British or French, despite our historic ties to both countries; and we weren’t American, despite our shared continent and many similar traits. We knew who we were not, but not who we were.
These days, the answer is somewhat clearer: Canada is a place where our differences, paradoxically, bring us closer together—through the respect and willingness to accommodate other views that Justice Peter Annis cited.
To understand how we have become that sort of place, you have to learn about how we lived in the past; how we were not always that way; and how we learned from both our positive actions and our mistakes, and continue to do so.
Our past continues to define our present attitudes, and to provide a roadmap to our future. That’s why one of the keys to our well-being continues to be our ability to collectively answer questions about Les Automatistes, past politicians, the history of our flag, and much, much more.
Anthony Wilson-Smith is the President of Historica Canada.
