European-Canadian Culture In Montreal

European Canadians, or Euro-Canadians, are Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to the continent of Europe. They form the largest panethnic group within Canada.

In the 2021 Canadian census, 19,062,115 Canadians self-identified as having origins from European countries, forming approximately 52.5% of the total Canadian population. Due to changes in the census format, these totals are not directly comparable with previous censuses. Further, as the census permitted a respondent to enter up to six possible ethnic origins in their census questionnaire, this figure includes individual respondents that reported a mixed ancestry of both European and non-European origins. Therefore, it is not possible to accurately assess the total number of European Canadians as a percentage of Canada's total population, or a precise change from previous years.

Terminology

As with other panethnic groups, Statistics Canada records ethnic ancestry by employing the term "European origins" under the ethnic origin population section in the census data, but does not specifically use the term "European Canadian". "Euro-Canadians" and "European Canadians" are terms primarily used by those opposed to immigration to Canada from the Third World, and their use has been criticised as conflating distinctions between very different European groups and nationalities. Those employing the terms can recognise that most Canadians of European descent do not see that as their collective identity and instead identify with a specific ethnicity or country of ancestral origin, characterising themselves as for example "Anglo" or "Québecois" rather than as part of a larger "Euro-Canadian" group. For most of the history of European settlement in North America, the French and the English were seen as two distinct races, with distinct cultures and national spirits.

Statistics Canada has cautioned that "the reporting of ethnicity, and subsequent interpretation of the results, has become increasingly complex due to a number of factors, and poses challenges for historical data comparisons. The concept of ethnicity is fluid and is probably one of the more complex concepts measured in the census." As well, patterns of self-reporting ethnic origins on the census vary with different population groups in Canada, with particular fluidity on self-reporting of the category "Canadian". Use of statistics in this subject area must be approached with these cautions in mind. The sum of the identified ethnic groups is greater than the total population estimate, because a person may report more than one ethnic origin in the census, therefore, it is not entirely accurate to assess the total number of European Canadians as a percentage of Canada's total population.

The phrase "Euro-Canadian" can sometimes be a term used by members of the far right who express racist ideology, as for example in the name "Euro-Canadian Freedom Front", a telephone hotline maintained by the neo-Nazi Heritage Front in the 1990s.

Subgroups

There are several subgroups of Canadians of European origin. Although approximately defined categories (due to imprecise, or ethnocultural, regionalization of the continent), the subgroups have been utilized widely in ethnic and cultural identification. This is especially relevant in diaspora, as is the case with European people in Canada.

Statistics Canada does not use the term "European Canadian". The 2021 census asked individuals to self-identify their ethnic origins, within six general categories:

* British Isles origins, British Canadians ( English Canadians, Irish Canadians, Scottish Canadians, and Welsh Canadians)
*French origins, including French Canadians
* Western European origins (except French origins), including Austrian Canadians, Bavarian Canadians, Belgian Canadians, Dutch Canadians, Flemish Canadians, Frisian Canadians, German Canadians, Luxembourger Canadians, Swiss Canadians
* Northern European origins (except British Isles origins), including Danish Canadians, Finnish Canadians, Icelandic Canadians, Norwegian Canadians, Swedish Canadians
* Eastern European origins, including Belarusian Canadians, Bulgarian Canadians, Czech Canadians, Estonian Canadians, Hungarian Canadians, Latvian Canadians, Lithuanian Canadians, Moldovan Canadians, Polish Canadians, Romanian Canadians, Russian Canadians, Slovak Canadians and Ukrainian Canadians
* Southern European origins, including Albanian Canadians, Cypriot Canadians, Greek Canadians, Italian Canadians, Maltese Canadians, Portuguese Canadians, Spanish Canadians and Yugoslav Canadians (Bosnian Canadians, Croatian Canadians, Kosovar Canadians, Macedonian Canadians, Montenegrin Canadians, Serbian Canadians, and Slovenian Canadians)

History

The first documented source of Scots in what would become Canada comes from the Saga of Eric the Red and the Viking expedition of 1010 AD to Vinland (literally, the land of meadows), which is believed to refer to the island of Newfoundland. The Viking prince Thorfinn Karlsefni took two Scottish slaves to Vinland. When the longships moored along the coast, they sent the slaves ashore to run along the waterfront to gauge whether it was safe for the rest of the crew to follow. After the Scots survived a day without being attacked, by either human or animal, the Vikings deemed it safe to spend the night ashore. The expedition was abandoned three years later; the original sagas were passed on in an oral tradition and then written down 250 years later.

16th century

English Canadian history starts with the attempts to establish English settlements in Newfoundland in the sixteenth century. The first English settlement in present-day Canada was at St. Johns Newfoundland, in 1583. Newfoundland's population was significantly influenced by Irish and English immigration, much of it as a result of the migratory fishery in the decades prior to the Great Famine of Ireland.

The first recorded Irish presence in the area of present-day Canada dates from 1536, when Irish fishermen from Cork traveled to Newfoundland.

17th century

The French were the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now Canada. French settlers from Normandy, Perche, Beauce, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Aunis, Angoumois, Saintonge and Gascony were the first Europeans to permanently colonize what is now Quebec, parts of Ontario, Acadia, and select areas of Western Canada, all in Canada (See French colonization of the Americas.) Their colonies of New France (also commonly called Canada) stretched across what today are the Maritime provinces, southern Quebec and Ontario, as well as the entire Mississippi River Valley.

Hélène Desportes is considered the first White child born in New France. She was born circa 1620, to Pierre Desportes (born Lisieux, Normandie, France) and Françoise Langlois.

The first permanent European settlements in Canada were at Port Royal in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608 as fur trading posts. The territories of New France were Canada, Acadia (later renamed Nova Scotia), and Louisiana. The inhabitants of the French colony of Canada (modern-day Quebec) called themselves the ''Canadiens'', and came mostly from northwestern France. The early inhabitants of Acadia, or Acadians (''Acadiens)'', came mostly but not exclusively from the southwestern regions of France.

''Canadien'' explorers and fur traders would come to be known as '' coureurs des bois'' and ''voyageurs'', while those who settled on farms in Canada would come to be known as '' habitants''. Many French Canadians are the descendants of the King's Daughters (''Filles du Roi'') of this era. A few also are the descendants of mixed French and Algonquian marriages (see also Metis people and Acadian people).

18th century

Early to mid century

The area that forms the present day province of Nova Scotia was contested by the British and French in the eighteenth century. French settlements at Port Royal, Louisbourg and what is now Prince Edward Island were seized by the British. After the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded the French colony of Acadia (today's mainland Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) to Great Britain, efforts to colonize the province were limited to small settlements in Canso