European Canadians


European Canadians are Canadians who can trace their ancestry from Europe. They form the largest panethnic group within Canada. In the 2021 Canadian census, 19,062,115 people or 52.5% of the population self-identified ethnic origins from Europe. People may nominate more than one ethnic origin in the census.

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 criticized as conflating distinctions between very different European groups and nationalities. Those employing the terms can recognize 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, characterizing 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.

Subgroups

There are several subgroups of Canadians of European ancestry, identified according to their, or their ancestors', country of origin. Although loosely defined, these categories have been utilized widely in ethnic and cultural identification, particularly in diasporas, such as the European diasporas of Canada.
Statistics Canada does not use the term "European Canadian". The 2021 census asked individuals to self-identify their ethnic origins, within seven general categories :
The exploration of Canada by European nations commenced with the Norse in the late 10th century along the East Coast. After Jacques Cartier's arrival in 1534, British and French explorers progressively ventured westward over the subsequent three centuries.
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, 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.
European colonists caused the genocide of Indigenous Canadians.

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 .Their colonies of New France 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 child with European ancestry to be born in New France. She was born circa 1620, to Pierre Desportes 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, and Louisiana. The inhabitants of the French colony of Canada called themselves the Canadiens, and came mostly from northwestern France. The early inhabitants of Acadia, or Acadians , 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. A few also are the descendants of mixed French and Algonquian marriages.

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 to Great Britain, efforts to colonize the province were limited to small settlements in Canso and Annapolis Royal.
In 1749, Colonel Edward Cornwallis was given command of an expedition for the settlement of Chebucto by some three thousand persons, many of whom were Cockney. Cornwallis' settlement, Halifax, would become the provincial capital, the primary commercial centre for the Maritime provinces, a strategic British military and naval outpost and an important east coast cultural centre. To offset the Catholic presence of Acadians, foreign Protestants were given land and founded Lunenburg. Nova Scotia itself saw considerable immigration from Scotland, particularly to communities such as Pictou in the northern part of the province and to Cape Breton Island, beginning with the arrival of 189 Highlanders on the sailing ship Hector in 1773.
A few Germans came to New France when France colonized the area, but large-scale migration from Germany began only under British rule, when Governor Edward Cornwallis established Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1749. Known as the Foreign Protestants, the continental Protestants were encouraged to migrate to Nova Scotia between 1750 and 1752 to counterbalance the large number of Catholic Acadians. Family surnames, Lutheran churches, and village names along the South Shore of Nova Scotia retain their German heritage, such as Lunenburg. The first German church in Canada, the Little Dutch Church in Halifax, is on land which was set aside for the German-speaking community in 1756. The church was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1997.
After the fall of New France to the British in 1759, a colonial governing class established itself in Quebec City. Larger numbers of English-speaking settlers arrived in the Eastern Townships and Montreal after the American Revolution.
A large group of Ulster Scots, many of whom had first settled in New Hampshire, moved to Truro, Nova Scotia in 1761.
New Brunswick became the home for many Scots. In 1761, a Highland regiment garrisoned Fort Frederick. The surrounding lands surveyed by Captain Bruce in 1762 attracted many Scottish traders when William Davidson of Caithness arrived to settle two years later. Their numbers were swelled by the arrival of thousands of loyalists of Scottish origin both during and after the American Revolution. One of the New Brunswick and Canada's most famous regiments was "The King's First American Regiment" founded in 1776. It was composed mostly of Highlanders, many of whom fought with their traditional kilts to the sound of bagpipes. The regiment distinguished itself when it defeated Washington's forces at the Battle of Brandywine. When it disbanded after the War, most of its members settled in New Brunswick.
In 1772, a wave of Gaels began to arrive in Prince Edward Island, and in 1773 the ship Hector brought 200 Gaels to Pictou, beginning a new stream of Highland emigration — the town's slogan is "The Birthplace of New Scotland". At the end of the 18th century, Cape Breton Island had become a centre of Scottish Gaelic settlement, where only Scottish Gaelic was spoken.
After the American Revolution, Americans who identified with the British Crown left the United States for Canada, some fleeing the hostility of their revolutionary neighbours, others lured by easily available land and lower taxes. The majority of the United Empire Loyalists were of European birth or descent, although the group also included a significant number of African Americans.
Furthermore, a number of Scottish loyalists to the British crown, who had fled the United States in 1783, arrived in Glengarry County and Nova Scotia.