Ethnic Groups in Canada

B

Culture

The Germans, Italians, Ukrainians, Dutch, Polish, and Norwegians in Canada generally speak English and the language of their respective homelands. Canadian Jews, defined by ethnicity and religion, have various origins, including Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Romania. Smaller numbers of Jews emigrated from non-European countries, including Israel and Morocco. Jews in Canada count Yiddish and Hebrew as their mother tongues in addition to English and sometimes the language of their country of origin.

Germans are usually Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Mennonite. Italians and Poles are mainly Roman Catholic. Ukrainians generally belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox or Ukrainian Catholic churches. The Dutch generally belong to the Dutch Reformed Church, known in Canada as the Christian Reformed Church. Most Norwegians are Lutheran. Jews in Canada belong to four denominations of Judaism: Reformed, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist.

C

History

Germans, Ukrainians, Dutch, Poles, and Scandinavians (including Norwegians) were among those immigrants who helped settle the Canadian West during the early decades of the 20th century. The Mennonites came to Canada to avoid military service in Germany and to escape religious persecution. All of these European immigrant groups lived in rural block settlements in the Prairie provinces. Later immigrants from Scandinavia, Western Europe, and central Europe have settled in Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver.

Italians and other southern Europeans, including Greeks and Portuguese, can be classified as new immigrant groups because most of them moved to Canada over a 15-year period after World War II (1939-1945). They came in response to Canada's need for unskilled and skilled labor in the mid-20th century. Concentrated in Alberta and northern Ontario, the earliest Italian immigrants worked as miners and loggers. More recent Italian immigrants have settled in Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver.

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VI

Aboriginal Peoples of Canada

A

Population

Aboriginal peoples of Canada include First Nations (identified by the census as North American Indians), the Métis (people of mixed European and aboriginal heritage), and the Inuit. The size of Canada’s aboriginal population tends to vary depending on the definition used. In the 2001 census all of the aboriginal peoples together constituted about 3.3 percent of Canada’s population.

According to the 2001 census, 976,000 individuals identified themselves as aboriginals. Of that, 609,000 identified themselves as North American Indians, while 292,000 identified themselves as Métis. An additional 45,000 identified themselves as Inuit.

In 2001 about 45 percent of Canada’s aboriginal population lived in the Prairie provinces, 16 percent lived in British Columbia, and 14 percent lived in Ontario. Nearly one-quarter of these people lived in urban centers, while the remainder lived in rural areas. The Inuit are concentrated in northern Québec and in the Canadian Arctic Lands, which include parts of the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Less than half of Canada’s Indians live on the approximately 2,240 Indian land reserves in Canada. The Métis and Inuit do not live on reserves.

There are at least 50 Indian nations in Canada. The largest one is the Cree, followed by the Ojibwa; Mi’kmaq; Iroquois, technically a confederacy of six nations; and Montagnais-Naskapi. The largest numbers of Cree and Ojibwa live in Ontario and the Prairies provinces, while the largest populations of Mi’kmaq live in Québec. Smaller numbers of Mi’kmaq also reside in Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritime provinces. The largest Iroquois population lives in Ontario, while the largest number of Montagnais-Naskapi live in Newfoundland and Labrador and Québec.

B

Culture

The 1996 census provided information on 27 aboriginal languages. The largest number of aboriginals who learned to speak an aboriginal language as a child and who still understand it speak Cree, followed by speakers of Inuktitut (the Inuit language), Ojibwa, Montagnais-Naskapi, and Mi’kmaq. Only about 23 percent of aboriginals speak their mother tongue, while about 68 percent speak English and about 6 percent speak French. In the 2001 census the number of mother-tongue speakers had dropped to 19 percent and the number of English speakers had risen to 72 percent.

Today most aboriginal people are Roman Catholic, Anglican, or belong to the United Church of Canada. Prior to encountering European missionaries, many of Canada’s aboriginal peoples practiced shamanism (see Shaman) or animism. These are not religions in the Western sense, but loosely structured beliefs that things in nature, such as trees or rocks, have spirits or souls and that a supernatural force controls the universe.

C

History

No one knows how long the First Nations and Inuit have occupied North America, but scientists generally believe these people came from Asia, crossing a land bridge that once connected Asia to Alaska. Different groups are thought to have come in waves, the earliest arriving at least 15,000 years ago, with later arrivals reaching North America about 4,000 years ago. When French settlers first began settling in northern North America in the early 1600s, aboriginal groups ranged across northern North America, with more than half concentrated either on the Pacific Coast or in the Great Lakes area. The First Nations on the coasts caught fish while those inland were hunter-gatherers. In the Arctic lands the Inuit lived in small bands as hunters of sea animals. See also First Americans

By 1500 probably more than 300,000 aboriginal people lived in northern North America. This population began to drop as soon as Europeans arrived in the 16th century. Long before the Europeans began to settle in northern North America, their diseases, such as smallpox, caused widespread epidemics among the aboriginal people, who lacked immunity to them. As European colonists continued to arrive in the 18th and 19th centuries, the total population of aboriginal peoples shrank. This process continued in the 19th and 20th centuries as the newcomers took First Nations and Inuit land for farming, forestry, and mining.

Despite Indian treaties that promised them land reserves and government assistance, aboriginal peoples became economically and socially marginalized in Canada. The First Nations, Métis, and Inuit began to gain political leverage in the mid-20th century, as their land became more economically important. In addition, many nonaboriginal peoples became more willing to negotiate with the aboriginal peoples about land and treaty grievances. Since the 1970s the government has negotiated with aboriginal groups staking claims to land and wanting self-government. See also Native Americans of North America.

VII

Asian Canadians

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