This article lists

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

supercentenarians (people from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

who have attained the age of at least 110 years). The oldest verified Canadian person ever was

Marie-Louise Meilleur Marie-Louise Fébronie Meilleur (née Chassé; August 29, 1880 – April 16, 1998) was a Canadian supercentenarian. Meilleur is the oldest validated Canadian ever and upon the death of longevity world record holder Jeanne Calment, became the world ...

, who died in 1998 aged 117 years, 230 days. As of , the oldest living person in Canada is Gertruda Gorecka, born 12 November 1911 in Poland, aged .

100 oldest known Canadians

Biographies

Sum Ying Fung

Sum Ying Fung (née Eng, , 27 January 1899 – 6 December 2011), was a Chinese Canadian supercentenarian who was the oldest person in Canada in 2011. Sum Ying Eng was born in Wing On Village, Yanping, China in 1899. In 1926, she married Chong Lim Fung, who had been working in Canada since 1911. Chong Lim would travel to visit Sum Ying regularly in the ensuing years and they had three children. However, the

Chinese Exclusion Act The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplo ...

prevented her from joining her husband in Canada. In 1954, she emigrated to Canada under the sponsorship of her husband. The couple settled in

Chinatown, Vancouver Chinatown is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is Canada's largest Chinatown. Centered around Pender Street, it is surrounded by Gastown to the north, the Downtown financial and central business districts to the west, the Geo ...

that year. The Fung family moved to

East Vancouver East Vancouver (also called "East Van" or "the East Side") is a region within the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Geographically, East Vancouver is bordered to the north by Burrard Inlet, to the south by the Fraser River, and to th ...

upon Chong Lim's death in 1967. In 1989, she developed a brain tumour, underwent surgery, and survived. She visited China later that year and was in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

during the military crackdown of

Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

. She and her family fled Beijing among a group of German tourists. In January 2011, Sum Ying Fung became the oldest person in Canada, after the death of Elizabeth Buhler. The Queen congratulated Fung in a letter on her 112th birthday on 27 January 2011 and the Mayor of Vancouver declared that day "Fung Eng Sum Ying Day". Fung died of natural causes at the claimed age of 112, at Burnaby General Hospital in British Columbia on 6 December 2011. At the time of her death she was survived by two of her three children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grand children, and 2 great-great-grand children.

References

{{Longevity

Supercentenarians A supercentenarian (sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian) is a person who has reached the age of 110 years. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of major age-related diseases u ...