Citizenship ceremony honours health-care workers
Immigrants account for more than a third of positions in Canada
OTTAWA— When Sweeny Karande was in her nursing program in India, her teacher presented her with an award as the best outgoing student.
“This is just the beginning,” her teacher said. “You can’t stop here.”
Karande took those words to heart.
The next nine years were full of new beginnings as she journeyed from India to Ontario to Nova Scotia and then the Northwest Territories, where she now works full time as a registered nurse.
There will be another new beginning this Canada Day: Karande was set to join18 others in swearing the oath to become a Canadian citizen.
Canada Day citizenship ceremonies are a holiday tradition, but this year, the COVID-19 pandemic means the celebrations are going digital.
Karande’s ceremony won’t be the first held online. Since April 1, more than 1,000 virtual oath ceremonies have taken place, mostly quiet affairs. The marquee Canada Day group event was streamed on YouTube, and was to feature remarks from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former governor general Adrienne Clarkson.
People ranging in age from six to 66 will take the oath, representing 13 different countries, the Immigration Department said.
While they’re all united in their new citizenship, some have another bond: they work in health care. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role new Canadians play in the health-care system. According to data from the 2016 census, more than a third of the 245,000 people working as nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates are immigrants.
“This was my end goal, and finally I am a nurse and I’m getting my citizenship — this is really awesome,” she said. “I love every bit of it.”
Omair Imtiaz also became a citizen on Canada Day, a feat he also attributes in part to the kindness and guidance of many near strangers along the way.
He was sent to Canada by his father in 2007 to join his older brother, already in Moncton, N.B. From there, he moved to P.E.I., and found himself struggling to balance the demands of his undergraduate degree, parttime jobs and the freedom of student life in Canada.
He ended up suspended from university, and was on the cusp of losing his student visa and being forced to leave.
A classmate sat him down at a party and said she’d help him get through it. The day before his visa expired, they went to re-enrol in school. He had intended to study to be a pharmacy technician, but he changed his mind after speaking with the enrolment officer and he signed up for a residential care worker program instead. The woman from the party? She became his wife. And the program led to the job he’s now held for eight years at the John Gillis Memorial Lodge in Belfast, P.E.I.
“I can never count my blessings enough for what Canada and its people have given me,” he said. “So this is my way of giving back to the community, giving to the most vulnerable.”