Reflections from a new citizen

OTTAWA–I’m now one of you. On Nov. 20, I sat on my couch dressed to the nines, read an oath of allegiance to a judge on my laptop screen, and joined 134 of my fellow newcomers in a rendition of the national anthem. I now hold citizenship in two unceded lands. Had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony would probably have taken place in the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada building—incidentally, just across the street from The Hill Times office. But had COVID not happened, we may not have been at the ceremony at all. We had no intention of becoming Canadians when we passed through the departure gates at Sydney Airport in June 2019. We actually anticipated moving back by early 2022. Our fridge would have a few more magnets, our albums a few more photos, and our vocabulary a few more French words, but we would retain passport monogamy. I believe our exact words were: “I think we’ll move back in a few years, plus we’ll be back next year for a bunch of weddings. Of course, that’s assuming a deadly respiratory illness doesn’t emerge in six months, overwhelm health systems, cripple supply chains, close borders, and usher in a new era of global political uncertainty, the implications of which will not even be fully understood at least four years later!” Sadly, the one thing we didn’t want to happen that day at the airport came to pass, and so in Canada we stayed. We would not set foot in our home country of Australia again for three-and-a-half years. It’s perhaps fitting, then, that we became Canadians while sitting on that couch. After all, it was there that we hosted the Ottawa friends we’d made, watched the results of two federal elections come and go, witnessed the seasonal colours—green, orange, white, brown—pass by the window, and came to understand that the Sens probably weren’t going to make the playoffs. But it was also where we learned of the pandemic measures, and had to make a choice—either stay or go, and quickly—that determined our future. We sat there with champagne watching the Zoom webcasts of weddings to which we’d been invited. And last year I sat stunned as a voice from 16,000 kilometres away delivered five words I’d been dreading—“I’ve got some bad news”—and left me scrambling for last-minute flights and a black suit for a parent's funeral on the other side of the world. That couch was, of course, merely a base for our explanation of this country. We’ve been to nine provinces—we’ll get there, Saskatchewan–stretching from Cape Spear across to Squamish, and from Niagara Falls up to Calgary. Poutine has been eaten, Molsons drank, mountains climbed, ice skated, canals paddled, and Tim Hortons avoided. So this past Canada Day, we decided it was time to do some paperwork. To even reach that paperwork, there were quite a few prerequisites. We needed to be permanent residents, have lived in Canada for three of the last five years—not including times we left the country on holiday—and proven that we could speak English or French. The requirement to prove we could speak English had been fulfilled during the permanent residency application process, when we took tests to determine our reading, writing, and speaking comprehension. Funnily enough, the document used to prove we could understand English was a description of public transport in Sydney—the city of my birth. Had I known that I needed to describe how best to travel from Wynyard to Manly, I’d have been less nervous. Anyway, a passport-style photo, questions about our travel, and $630 later, the citizenship process had started. We heard nothing until September, when we were instructed to take a citizenship test. To pass the test, you need to answer at least 15 of 20 questions correctly. Most questions—excluding the names and political affiliations of the part of the country in which you take the test—came from the information booklet Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Canadian Citizenship. In the end, 19 was the magic number. I’d sufficiently studied the inside of the guide, but not the outside–the one question I got wrong was the name of the booklet. Another few weeks passed, and we then received the notice to appear—virtually—to take our oath, and cut our permanent resident cards to pieces on camera. It did feel as if something was missed in holding the ceremony virtually—aside from a couple of people who hadn’t muted their microphones, we all sat staring at the screen while waiting for everybody’s registration to be completed—but the clerk and the judge repeatedly emphasized the importance of the day, and the pride felt at us deciding to become citizens. The most moving part of the ceremony was a video titled Welcome, there is room, in which Indigenous leaders welcomed us to the country, and stressed the role that all new Canadians shared in renewing the relationship with Indigenous Peoples, and adhering to the principles of truth and reconciliation. The messages inside the ceremony were a contrast to the creeping anti-immigration sentiment being heard today the world over. The rhetoric and promises of the incoming administration down south aside, plenty of Canadians have seen fit to blame this country's problems on what has historically been a convenient scapegoat. It’s been illuminating that, when I remind someone on an anti-immigrant screed that they’re also talking about me, they respond with, “oh, you don’t count,” or “you’re the right kind of immigrant.” Truly fascinating. So in the end, why did I decide to permanently become part of the Canadian story? It’s a question I’m grappling with myself. I could give you an answer you want to hear—its rich multicultural society, welcoming nature, natural beauty, friendly people—but those are slogans from a travel brochure. The real answer requires quoting the 1997 Australian film The Castle: it’s the vibe. Put simply, I feel at home here. I feel the same comfort landing from overseas in Ottawa, Vancouver, or Montreal that I do landing in Sydney, Brisbane, or Canberra. That said, I won’t be integrating completely. Fries will always be chips. I will never, ever, be able to pronounce “premier” the same way my fellow citizens do. A swooping magpie will always inspire a terror in me that the crankiest Canada goose could only dream of. Outside my professional obligation to adhere to The Canadian Press' Caps and Spelling, “z” will be reserved for special occasion words—it has no place in “realise” or “visualise.” Ultimately, life has changed little other than there is a warming feeling at being able to call places on both sides of the Pacific home. Stephen Jeffery is a deputy editor of The Hill Times. The Hill Times

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