BECOMING CANADIAN
An inside look at the experience
Many people have asked us what it was like to get our Canadian citizenship last week.
Thankfully, your editor doesn’t often ask you to write a firstperson piece about the symbolic meaning of an event — but it’s not often you become a citizen of your adopted homeland, either.
Here are a few questions you might want to know about how and why we ended up here. Australia has great weather. Why did you even move to Canada? Emma: C’mon, Canada. Don’t be so down on your weather. I moved to Vancouver in 2006 because I wanted to live and work somewhere else — plus it was really easy to get a working holiday visa. Then I just kind of ... stayed.
Juris: I followed Emma to start with, then I too fell in love with the place. We don’t come from a war-torn country, nor are we fleeing political or religious oppression, but becoming Canadian is something special.
OK, so why Edmonton? You know it snows here, right?
Juris: Let me say right now, I love the snow.
Emma: It’s true, he does. It’s weird. Juris: Hey, don’t judge me. But we’ve lived on both coasts. We moved from Vancouver to the northern tip of Newfoundland in 2010, arriving on the Rock in the dog days of Danny Williams’ reign as Canada’s most popular premier. There, we found ourselves greeted with legendary hospitality, community spirit, cod cakes, thrummed mittens, ice fishing and snowmobiling (thanks Wayne Hynes). But the brutal winter storms on the remote stretches of Newfoundland on the Straits? Not so much.
Emma: Ooooh, remember when we became permanent residents? We had to cross a border, so we went to the French-owned islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, about 1.5 hours off Newfoundland by ferry. Lovely place, if you get the chance. When we returned to the port of Fortune, the immigration official shook our hands and said “Welcome to Canada.” Juris got very emotional. Our friends took us to Tim Hortons afterwards. Juris: From there it was on to the flatlands. Everybody warned us that the Prairies were cold, but they failed to mention the warmth of the people in Saskatchewan. Emma: Also, how religious they are about the Riders. I still don’t understand the CFL or watching the Grey Cup in -40 C weather. After a few years, we moved to Edmonton.
Why take the extra step as citizens? Emma: So you can’t deport us! Hahahaha ... uh ... ahem.
Juris: She doesn’t mean that. There is no reason to deport us. We’re very well-behaved.
Emma: I’ve been here 11 years, and Juris nine. It just seemed right. We love this country and wanted to make a commitment to staying. Juris: And now we can vote. Also, now I have an international rugby team to follow that might be better than the Australian Wallabies. Downside is that I can’t claim ignorance about hockey when people berate me for being a Habs fan.
What was the toughest part? Emma: We had to take the citizenship test, which was terrifying. I graduated university in 2004 and hadn’t really studied for anything since. When we got our letter in the mail telling us our test date, we only had two weeks to prepare. I went through two highlighters going over the Becoming Canadian book, which contains all the information on the exam.
Juris: Both of us took every online practice test we could find. The morning of the exam we quizzed each other at home — we were incredibly nervous. The test is all about Canadian history, the political system, notable moments, geography. We both got 20/20, though.
What’s it like to become Canadian? Juris: Oh, you know? Great. Emma: It was very, very cool. Singing the anthem for the first time as a Canadian was really special, as was having friends there to share the moment with us. Thanks for keeping us, Canada.
FUN FACTS ABOUT NEW CANADIANS
Between 2012 and 2016, Canada welcomed almost one million new citizens. That’s from a low of 113,168 in 2012 to a peak of 262,643 in 2014. Close to 120,000 of them have called Alberta their new home, making it the fourth most popular destination in Canada behind Ontario (400,872), Quebec (170,591) and British Columbia (139, 837). The majority of new Canadians hail from the Philippines (109,212) and India (100,220). Almost 2,500 Australians have taken up citizenship in Canada.