Trudeau’s welcome for immigrants and refugees and support for women’s rights (not to mention his charm and dashing good looks) have won him favour all over the world, but lately, his approval ratings have been dropping at home in Canada.

Irish Times Abroad asked readers living in Canada to share their views on the prime minister this week. Below is a selection of the responses we received.

Bee Ní Choitir, Montreal: ‘I’d ask people to look beyond his feathered hair’

I’m originally from Co Clare but I moved to Canada last November, because of the conservative decisions made by the Irish Government which resulted in a lack of job opportunities for me in Ireland.

Now I live in Montreal, Quebec which is a political hot-spot in Canada so it’s not hard to get sucked into Canadian politics. I like some of Trudeau’s liberal policies; he’s a feminist, and he’s been very supportive towards refugees. But people have issues with his far-fetched plans, and I can see why tax payers are upset with the burden he’s put them under. Many people here describe him as “a big spender”, and follow with “like his father”.

He often refuses to answer questions and concerns within parliament, which results in distrust among citizens, as if he’s hiding something. He has also been criticised for turning a blind eye to the discrimination displayed against indigenous communities. And for someone who shows so much support for refugees, he continues to be involved in the wars that force refugees to flee in the first place. He’s also selective about which refugees to support; he refuses to recognise Palestine and the plight of refugees from Palestine, of which there are 7.2 million worldwide.

I’d ask people to look beyond his feathered hair and assortment of fancy socks.

Dale McDermott , Toronto: ‘We need more leaders like him’

I’m a 24-year-old management consultant from Dublin. I left Ireland in September 2016 to gain a new, international experience while I could, and Canada felt like the place for me. As a young person, in a world filled with deep cynicism towards politics, globalisation and immigration, Canada stands out, and this is due to Justin Trudeau’s diversity and inclusiveness agenda. When many countries are building walls and closing borders, Canada’s door is wide open for anyone who wants to come here and make a good life for themselves. Justin Trudeau has certainly put Canada on the world stage and with forward-thinking policies such as having a gender equal cabinet, Syrian refugee asylum, LGBT rights and focusing on improving life for the squeezed middle. The past year has been tumultuous and depressing for the youth of the world. But with leaders like Justin Trudeau in power, I’m confident that the world will fight back against cynicism towards immigration and politics, and unite around hope for the future. We need more leaders like him before it’s too late.

Patrick McKenna, Montreal : ‘His skills as PM will affect us all’

I’ve been in Canada since 1975 so I was able to watch as Justin Trudeau’s dad struggled with the difficult job of PM. I hope it works out for Justin and for the country, since his skills as PM will affect us all. I appreciate his stance on First Nations rights, advancing the inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women, and promising to implement the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the residential schools. I truly empathise with him as he manages the relationship with the US. Already Canada is facing tariffs on softwood lumber and NAFTA is up for renegotiation. If the trade deal with Europe can help diversify Canada away from the US that would be great, although to be fair, the trade deal wasn’t launched by Justin’s liberals.

Although he kept his promise to pull Canadian fighter planes out of Syria and Iraq there still are ground troops who seem to be closer to the enemy that they were supposed to be. He has deployed troops in the Baltic region as part of a Nato initiative to deter Russian expansion. The military budget will be increased by 70 per cent over the next seven years. All of this is pretty militaristic and not very Canadian. Canada is still pretty dependent on the oil, forestry, mining and minerals industries and squaring those with COP21 will be challenging.

Justin broke his campaign promise to move the electoral process towards proportional representation. He inexplicably opposes legislation on protection of genetic testing data passed by his own government. As for legalising cannabis, transgender rights and his stance as a self-declared feminist, I am pretty neutral.

Annabelle King, Vancouver: ‘He’s so personable, open and warm’

I have lived in Vancouver for five and half years in total, and I think JT is awesome. When I moved back here after some time in Ireland recently, I was so impressed by him that I started taking an interest in politics for the first time. In Ireland I never did because it always seemed that each leader was only - at best - a mild improvement on the last one.

Justin gets the job done, doesn’t dilly dally, and just stomps out historical laws or policies that don’t make sense. He’s also super supportive of immigrants. He reversed the change in years you needed to live here before applying for citizenship the previous leader had extended.

He’s so personable, open and warm and he is all over Twitter, which really opens up the politics conversation with the people.

Anne Costello, Toronto: ‘Our fearless leader will bring us forward’

I have lived in Toronto since 1990. I was in Ottawa on June 30th preparing for Canada Day celebrations by checking out Parliament Hill. My husband and I were in front of the stage. There was a kafuffle and energy soared through the crowd. “Mr Trudeau!!” He was fit, charismatic and young.

As he shook hands and made his way to the stage, I understood how those who meet him feel “this is a man who is in charge”. No ego. Just a Canadian who embraces all five continents on the hill. We are all different, but we are all dressed in red and white. We are joined together by our fierce loyalty to a country that has given us opportunity and welcomes all without exception. Our fearless leader will bring us forward. I’m a fan! At 65, I will not be there for the 200th Canada Day celebrations, but many who were there for the 150th this weekend will. Justin Trudeau may be there too, and I hope his successor has his same vision and talent.

My father was a kind and hardworking man but he didn’t see the importance of educating girls, so when I was 15 he took me out of school to work in a factory. It wasn’t what I wanted but you didn’t question things back then. After six years I got married and moved onto a farm to begin another chapter in my life.

We had five children, four boys and a girl. We knew we would have to seriously look at ways to provide for our sons. The oldest wanted to farm too, and our 86 acres would never support another family. Farm realtor agents from Manitoba were doing a tour of Ireland in 1999 and told about the great opportunities waiting there. We listened, asked questions and made the trip to look at farms. Finding one we liked, we came back to put the wheels in motion and make the move that would take me many miles from home and family.

On April 4th 2001, we arrived in Winnipeg to take up permanent residence in Canada.

Foot and Mouth disease had just broken out in the UK and our containers were delayed in port in Ireland for another 10 weeks, until I finally convinced an official in Ottawa that Ireland was Foot and Mouth free and that Ireland and England were not connected by land as he seemed to think they were. After eight weeks in quarantine in a house and unable to visit our farm, we were allowed to move to our new home.

That first year on the farm was the most difficult in my entire life. I had no friends. To not know anyone - who could I trust, who couldn’t I trust - was an unimaginable experience. I found myself working from dawn to dusk and falling asleep sitting on the chair eating supper at night as I was so exhausted.

The stresses and strains began to show and my husband and I separated in 2002. Somehow I kept going. How was I going to manage? Here I was, with no qualifications in a strange new country with a small family to share with an ex-husband.

But I refused to say I wasn’t educated. I’d always had a hunger for learning and had read everything sensible and edifying that I could find over the years. I received a very good offer of employment in a hog barn in Northern Alberta right on the North West Territory border, and spent two years there. After work I took classes, studied, wrote exams and completed my Grade 12, earning my diploma, equivalent to the Leaving Cert.

In July 2007 I married Rob, a wonderful, gentle Canadian man in Lethbridge, Alberta with all our children around us to celebrate. My five and his four now made my family grow to nine. He encouraged me to apply to do nursing as this had been my dream since I was four, and I was accepted to my surprise (I was over 40) in Manitoba, so we moved there.

I graduated second in my year and I now work as a staff nurse in a busy emergency room in St Pierre-Jolys, a bilingual hospital where I have learned to speak French. I have also worked at a teaching hospital as a nursing instructor for students, and have decided to learn Russian for fun, as I love languages.

On March 9th 2016, I took my oath of Canadian citizenship in the Via Rail building in Winnipeg, Manitoba with my family, lots of friends and colleagues to cheer me on. I often feel like an extra in “The Bourne Identity” when I look at my two passports, one blue and one burgundy.

I had the privilege of being one of two speakers at the ceremony and I made my speech to the 250 people gathered there in French and English. I was tempted to throw in a little Irish but I didn’t want to be a show off. I told of St Mura’s National School on the shores of Lough Swilly in Co Donegal, and the teacher who first put Canada in my head; of the pictures on our classroom wall of Totem poles, giant red cedars and the log jams on the Fraser River; of the opportunities that awaited those brave enough to go; and of how Canada was now my home, and the home of my children.

My children now number 12 as my husband and I have just adopted three orphans and made them part of our family. The Irish names they carry of Niamh, Conor and Declan are testament to my Irish heritage. The lives of my children and grandchildren now are forever mingled with Canada.

I was born Eileen Healy, the sixth of eight children to Thomas and Julia Ann Healy on a pleasant day in March of 1922 in Knocknaboul in Co Kerry. Raised on a small farm, my early memories of childhood are still some of my fondest. Although I was not aware at the time, it was in these early years that I had crossed paths with my future husband Dan Jones, who was growing up on a farm in nearby Ballydesmond, Co Cork.

During my late teens I moved to London, where I trained and worked as a nurse during the second World War. Dan was also working in England in building reconstruction. We kept up with each other, fell in love and married.

We talked about emigration opportunities to Rhodesia that were on offer at the time. A chance encounter by my husband one day while sitting next to a stranger on a train shifted our focus to Canada. He told Dan we were going to the wrong country, that we should go to Canada.

It was a coincidence at this same time that Canada’s Deputy of External Affairs, Lester B. Pearson, had proposed to select skilled workers looking for opportunities and a new life in Canada. We offered our services and were selected.

Looking back, we left Ireland for Canada with hardly a notion of where Canada was and with no more in our luggage than our dreams.

Our trip to Canada, also our first trip on an airplane, was memorable. We had a stopover in Scotland to pick up 56 “war brides”, also destined for new lives in Canada. We also encountered unplanned stops in Greenland and Newfoundland due to airplane engine troubles. We finally arrived in Toronto, Ontario in July 1947.

One of my first most impressionable memories of Canada was the food available at that time. We were just recovering from the lean war years and were used to food rationing. Upon arriving, we discovered grocery store shelves filled high with fresh vegetables and fruit.

I recall my Dan purchasing a big red tomato, which we never had when we were young, and taking a bite of it and quickly spitting it back out. He had expected it would taste much different because of how it looked. Dan, in his later farming years, went on to grow and sell some of the best tasting tomatoes in the local area.

Once established in Toronto, we soon found employment, me as a nurse in the Toronto General Hospital and Dan as an overhead crane operator for the Taylor security safe company. He later went on to install bank safes throughout southern Ontario, and credited his “alignment” expertise to the skills he learned in the reconstruction of London after the war.

I recall being terribly homesick. Dan was not so much at that time. He was, and always remained, excited and thankful for all of the opportunities that came his way in his newly adopted country.

You could say that we lived several different lives in Canada. We first lived in Toronto, then moved to Streetsville, Ontario where we bought 20 acres of farmland. Dan found work at the new Ford Motor Company in Oakville as a crane operator. We then bought a 100 acre farm in Hornby, Ontario where we started a dairy farm. Eventually we rented an additional farm close by and we started an English riding stable called Green Willows.

All this time Dan continued working at Ford. By that time we had seven children and our lives were overflowing with the busyness of raising them and also operating the riding stable. Naming the horses was my job and our stable was full of horses with Irish names such as Donegal, Kinsale, Bantry Bay, Ballyheigue, Kerry and Setanta. To this day we share and laugh about our many great times with the horses, including memorable moments from all the horse shows we participated in.

We had a great life here and through the years made many trips back to Ireland to visit family and friends.

There are many things that I came to love about Canada, to name just a few: the fall colours of the trees, the warm, humid summers with lots of swimming, the swirling snow in the winter and of course the kind Canadian people who welcomed us.

Years before we left Ireland, I had my cards read by a man named “Silk” who was well known in our community as a fortune teller. He told me I would go to a cold country, not by boat but by some other means. It appears that he foretold my destiny.

We felt safe here and thankful for all the opportunities that came our way. I was granted my Canadian citizenship on January 18th, 1957.

Though Canada has been my home for so many years, Ireland remains my first love. I still think about the sound of the cuckoo bird in the spring and would love to hear it one more time. I am 95 years old now, and may not get back again.

My husband Dan passed quietly in October 2002. In his last few days he often talked of his Irish heritage. I thought he would be pleased in having the phrase “Born in Southern Ireland” inscribed upon his headstone.

To date, Dan and I have been blessed with seven children, 20 grandchildren and 9 great grandchildren. So, when I am asked of my life and times in Canada, I think back to what a wonderful lifetime it has been.

I am Eileen Jones of Canada, by way of Ireland...

The bus dropped me at a motel on the side of a highway on the outskirts of town. On Monday morning, I walked along the hard shoulder to the factory to begin a job that the locals thought should have gone to one of their own.

When I left Belfast the violence was intense but so too was life. In my small town, life, outside of work, was the opposite. Alone, without the comfort of a cinema, or cafe, before the internet and Skype, time was long indeed.

As one of 10 children, I knew nothing about solitude, much less isolation. In my semi-basement, the five-month winter was a black hole of isolation.

Losing battle

On winter evenings, I bundled up and tramped for 20 minutes through the empty town to the library. There I stayed until they chucked me out. I took up hobbies, met people, accepted dinner invitations and so on, but it was a losing battle. I couldn’t see me living out my days there.

After three years, I’d decided to go home and damn the car and truck bombs, when fate intervened. I accepted a job in Montreal. My new city was love at first sight; all these years later, it still is.

After two years, I learned enough French to ask someone out. After that my language abilities took off and so did my new life. That same year – 1980 – I became a citizen.

Reflection

Reaching retirement age has meant reflection on what Canada means to me. Unlike Ireland, Canada is just too big to know. If I don’t know it, how can I love it? How can it feel like home?

It’s Montreal, the town I know, and love, so well, that’s home.

But after 40 years here, there is much I still have to learn. Still, ahead of Canada Day tomorrow, I’d like to share 10 of my personal insights into the country and its history, in the hope that they may be useful to others who are not so far along the road.

1. Some history

The Canada Confederation launched in 1867 with The Constitution Act, and evolved through 20 acts of the British parliament before culminating in the 1982 Canada Act that brought the country’s constitution home. Canada though, remains a work in progress: Quebec hasn’t signed onto the Constitution, the Queen of England remains head of state, and her governor general approves Canadian laws and gives permission to the prime minister to dissolve or form a government. Citizenship means swearing allegiance to the Queen. Not everyone appreciates this.

2. Quebec

Hugh MacLennan’s novel The Two Solitudes that described the French and English divide fell short of predicting how it would widen during Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, General De Gaulle’s Vive le Quebec libre! (July 24th 1967), the (1970) October Crisis, the 1976 election of the Parti Quebecois, its Charter of the French Language and two separation referenda, with the second coming within 50,000 votes of a Quebexit. English Canada may be a tad dull; Quebec where I live isn’t.

3. First people

Although Canada places sixth (2017) in quality of life, its indigenous peoples come in at number 63. Their four percent of the general population translates into one-in-five prison inmates. Their suicide rates are among the highest in the world. Inuit who move south to escape third-world-standard drinking water and housing crises, become victims of rental discrimination and sink into alcohol and substance abuse. Indigenous peoples, especially women and girls, may be more at risk in Canada than refugees in their homelands. Increasingly, their treatment by Canada is referred to as cultural genocide. Indigenous peoples want Pope Francis to apologise publicly for the residential schools, as Benedict XVI did in Ireland in 2010 for victims and survivors of abuse by the Church.

4. Jobs

Canada works well for its native-born who tend to enjoy easy access to for-life-employment in the public and para-public services. It has jobs for newcomers who are skilled or semi-skilled workers. However, some newcomers who arrive with a university degree struggle. Statistics Canada reports that the university educated constitute half of Canada’s immigrant poor. Professionals, especially, struggle with licensing requirements. Irish professionals though, do well: their match rate with job requirements approaches that of the native-born.

5. Size

Canada’s habitable and arable areas are only a few percent of its vast (9.2 sq km) territory. A strip about 100km wide and 1,000km long between Quebec City and Windsor holds about two-thirds of the population. Ninety percent of newcomers settle in one of six major cities – Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal. Canada is the great indoors, urban or suburban, lifestyle. If you take a road trip, though, you will appreciate the vastness and beauty of this land.

6. Climate

Bottom line: Canada is the world’s second coldest country. Winter weather varies widely by region, wildly from day to day and sometimes even within a day. Quebec, where I live, and Kamtchatka, in Western Siberia, share the distinction of receiving the most snowfall in the world. In the Prairies, you can see snow every month of the year. In Vancouver, you’ll get by with wellies and a brolly. Summer in the city is hot – heat warnings are frequent in Toronto – and humid. Fall is beautiful. There isn’t much of a spring.

7. USA

In the 1950s, with the sun setting on the British Empire, Canada hooked up with Uncle Sam. Canada did well by riding the economic coattails of the emerging superpower. With the US next door, Canada was safe from invasion, so it could trim back on defence spending. However, the relationship has had its ups and downs. Prime minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin’s dad) stayed out of Vietnam and enraged Richard Nixon by taking in more than 40,000 draft dodgers and deserters. Jean Chretien turned down George Bush on Iraq. Justin Trudeau has kept relations with President Trump on a fairly even keel.

8. Economy

Canada’s early start with homegrown new technologies – aviation, radio, the telephone, vaccines – stumbled in the mid 20th century when it relinquished its home grown jet fighter programme in exchange for the Auto Pact with the US. In the early 1970s, its nuclear industry evaporated after Three Mile Island. Much of its low-tech industry is now in Mexico or the southern US. Its oil and natural resources industries are misaligned with a post COP21 – greener – world.

9. Brand Canada

The health care system is a pillar of Canadian identity. It works well overall, but is by no means comprehensive. One cause of concern is the escalating cost of medication. Lacking a drugs plan (outside of Quebec), the cost of medication may mean financial ruin. Some terminally ill Canadians choose death over leaving a spouse bankrupt and homeless. The Truth and Reconciliation Inquiry into Residential Schools, a $100 million harassment settlement by the Mounties (RCMP) and other scandals have tainted Brand Canada’s pristine image.

10. Summing up

In the long term, Canada doesn’t guarantee significant material betterment relative to staying at home. What it does guarantee – if you really commit to it – is long term adaptation and re-jiggering of your life. My life as an Anglo in Francophone Quebec has surely crystallized this premise, but it is no less true elsewhere in Canada. Will all that change be worth it, in the end – is the “to be or not to be” question of emigration to Canada (or anywhere else).

All across Canada this weekend, as fireworks displays, concerts and other events celebrate 150 years since Confederation, Irish people who have made the country home will be swearing allegiance to become citizens of the Great White North.

Canada Day is marked with a public holiday every year on July 1st, but this year’s “sesquicentennial anniversary” has been seven years in the planning. The year-long Canada 150 celebrations – culminating with a free concert for 450,000 people on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday, featuring a guest appearance by Bono and the Edge, a performance by Cirque du Soleil, and the country’s biggest ever fireworks display – will cost the government a whopping 500 million Canadian dollars (€336 million).

Central to the celebrations are 55 special citizenship events being held across the country, where “new Canadians” will be conferred, and others will reaffirm their citizenship by reciting the oath again.

The benefits of citizenship are numerous – ability to come and go from the country as you please on a Canadian passport, the right to vote or run for political office, and even access to some jobs – especially in government – restricted to citizens only.

Swearing allegiance

But even though an estimated 100,000 Irish people have travelled to Canada to work there since 2008, uptake of Canadian citizenship among the Irish has remained very low, with just a few hundred swearing allegiance to the country each year over the past decade. Of the 147,753 people from more than 230 countries who became Canadian citizens last year, just 315 were Irish.

There’s one major sticking point that many Irish people just can’t seem to get past: the requirement to swear to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her Heirs and Successors”, as part of the citizenship oath.

“I just can’t do it,” says Carol Acton, a lecturer originally from Co Meath, now living in Kitchener in Ontario, who has been in Canada for 34 years. “It is not so much because of British/Irish issues, but because, having been born in a republic, I do not want to be the subject of a monarch.”

In 2013, Michael McAteer, a retired journalist from Dublin who had been living in Canada since 1964, brought a joint constitutional challenge with an Israeli man and Jamaican woman who also objected to the oath. Their case was dismissed after a high-profile legal battle lasting several months, with the judge ruling that they were wrong to take the oath literally. Their appeal to the supreme court, which followed in 2015, was similarly thrown out.

“It comes up a lot,” says Cathy Murphy, director of the Irish Canadian Immigration Centre in Toronto. “Not everyone is comfortable swearing allegiance to the Queen. Lots of people say, oh I’ll just do it anyway. But it is a blocker for some.”

Although Murphy believes most applicants go for citizenship for practical reasons, the emotional draw to “belong” to the country they have made home is strong for others, especially those whose children have been born in Canada.

“Canada has a long, proud history as a peaceful, prosperous country, and becoming a Canadian can be an immensely proud moment,” says Ruairi Spillane, a Kerry man who runs the Moving2Canada website and construction recruitment agency Outpost. Spillane became a citizen in 2015, seven years after arriving in Vancouver.

Moving back home

Last week, the department of immigration, refugees and citizenship announced a loosening of the rules around citizenship, which could allow people to apply much sooner after arriving in Canada than they had been able to previously. Based on the number of inquiries her office has received in recent days, Murphy believes this will lead to a significant upswing in the number of applications from Irish residents in Canada, especially those thinking about moving back home to Ireland who want to keep their options open to return in the future.

“It is a contingency plan, a smart one,” she says. “The lovely thing about citizenship is you can go back to Ireland for a few years and then come back here if you wanted to, without having to worry about that habitual residency rule that requires permanent residents to spend a certain amount of time living in Canada in a five-year period.”

Insurance underwriter Brian Sheehy (30), who is originally from west Cork but has been living in Toronto for three years, says he will apply as soon as he is eligible.

“If you are putting down roots here, working here, contributing to society here, have a partner here, you do want the security of knowing you are a citizen with the same rights as everyone else. I’ve never been in trouble with the law my whole life, but I would like the security of knowing that.”

Having got permanent residency in January 2016, under the old rules Sheehy would have had to wait until 2020 to apply. Now, he will be eligible in January next year.

“I will always be Irish, Ireland will always be number one. But the people here are great, it’s a very progressive society, and I would be very proud to become a Canadian citizen if and when I get the opportunity.”

Meet the Irish who have become Canadian citizens

Pat Jordan, Toronto

My wife and I moved to Toronto on New Year’s Day in 2013 with no job, no contacts and no place to live, but we knew we could make a go of things here. Twenty months ago we welcomed our first child into the world, Aoife Rose. Our little Canadian girl has brought a whole new meaning to our lives. It has also heightened my desire to become a citizen of the country of her birth.

Many immigrants struggle with a yearning to return home, to go back to what is familiar. For me, having a child changed all that. Canada is now home. I want to be able to call myself Canadian too.

I want to have a say in how this country is run and help shape the Canada she is going to grow up in. Does it mean that I am less Irish? I don’t believe so. Ireland will always be home and becoming a Canadian citizen will never dampen my Irishness. Canada has afforded me and my family opportunities I don’t think Ireland could ever provide, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful. Becoming a citizen makes me feel like I’m in some part repaying that debt of gratitude.

Sharon Meikle, Ontario

I emigrated from Finglas in Dublin to Canada in 1985 when I was 20, to work as a nanny for a family in Burlington, 30 minutes west of Toronto. I nannied for the same family with their four children for eight years.

At first I was really lonely. In 1988 I started work in the evenings in our local pub, where I met my husband, who was from Scotland. I married in 1990 and the father of the family I still nannied for gave me away at my wedding. He insisted on paying for all of it, and the children were in my wedding party. I have spent 31 Christmas mornings with that wonderful family. Their house feels like home.

In 1991 I had my first child, and that was when I thought I should become a Canadian citizen. I left school in Dublin when I was 12 years old and began to work when I was 13 in a grocery store. I couldn’t see a future for myself there, which is why I emigrated, but I never could have imagined the opportunities that would be in store for me here.

I now own and operate my own pub, The Butcher and Banker Pub in a little town called Beamsville, Ontario, where I am one of the founders of a teenage crisis centre. I am very involved in volunteer work. I’ve been so fortunate here, so I really like to give back.

Canada is truly the land of opportunity, and I am so proud to be a Canadian.

Seán O’Seasnáin, Manitoba

I arrived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, from Dublin on March 23rd, 1974, and became a Canadian citizen 40 years ago in 1977. In 1975 I married my beautiful wife, originally from Trinidad, West Indies, and of Chinese-Creole heritage. “Only in Canada”, as an old advertisement for a certain blend of tea proclaimed, would such a mixed marriage at that time be totally and unquestionably acceptable.

Our daughters – three in number and truly Canadian – grew up in this country’s ethos aptly described by our present prime minister as one of “openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice”.

They are all grown up now, exemplars of the Canadian mosaic. Their partners too: one a true Vancouverite, the second of Guyanese heritage, and the third has Japanese-Hungarian parents. A Canadian kaleidoscope of cultures.

Our almost three-year-old grand-daughter with the Hindu name Aanya – in Irish, Áine – embodies the coincidence of Celt and Hindu both in her name and in her ancestry. She is truly Canadian and a citizen of the world.

Keith Ó Néill, Vancouver

Moving to Canada was an obvious choice for me. Entitled to citizenship through my mother who was born in Saskatchewan in 1963, I signed my name and offered formal allegiance to the British Commonwealth and became a citizen of Canada in June 2015. I didn’t really care too much about this formality.

In the age of regularly signing over our personal data online what is the difference if it is the monarchy or Google that we swear our allegiance to? I wasn’t going to get pious about this formal gesture.

What is striking as an Irish-Canadian citizen now is how this 150-year celebration seems to pay minor diligence to the violent establishment of the nation and the horrendous slaughter of indigenous people and their ancient cultures over centuries, which is still ongoing.

Like most people looking in, I have in the past been enamoured by the idea of Canada as a liberal wonderland, often positioned in stark contrast to the US south of its border, especially in relation to attitudes towards healthcare provision, military power and immigration. But as we mark 150 years as “Canadians”, we must acknowledge the colonial reality, which is too often overlooked.

Jackie Fitzsimons, Kelowna, British Columbia

I arrived in Toronto in July 1970 at the age of one from near Delvin, Co Westmeath.  My parents wanted better opportunities for themselves and for me. It wasn’t until I spent the summer of 1978 in Ireland I truly realised how much I loved Canada. I realised I liked sun and snow better than rain. I loved living where there were playgrounds, sports fields, and an indoor pool.  I loved living through four seasons each year.

I remember how proud I felt July 1st, 1979, the day I became a Canadian citizen. I was nine and several kids and families from my school were in the same ceremony with our family. We were already friends and now Canadians together. It was so exciting.

Canada has been a great place for me to call home. I got a great education which lead me to my career in dental hygiene. I have many friends from all over the world who also identify as Canadian now. 

After graduating, I decided to travel from Ontario to British Columbia. I have lived in Kelowna, B.C. since 1994, which is known as Napa of the North.  We are surrounded by mountains and lakes. There are dozens of wineries, world-class skiing, and more than 20 golf courses.  Farming and orchards bear all kinds of fruit. We have a great sense of community, cultural diversity, opportunity and a lifestyle second to none in the Okanagan Valley.  We have freedom. 

Sandra Corbett, Fort McMurray, Alberta

My husband and three children left Cork city in 1992 when I accepted a position as a consultant psychiatrist in rural Nova Scotia. I couldn’t understand why all the cars had coffee cup holders and all the gas stations sold coffee until I drove to a nearby town for my first clinic, and almost fell asleep at the wheel because I was driving a wide straight highway with nothing to hold my attention but trees.

In 1996 we moved to Alberta.  We used the move as an opportunity to explore, and drove for two weeks across five provinces. We saw the rocky cliffs in Atlantic Canada, the Great Lakes that looked like oceans, and the flat Prairies that went on forever. The magnificent Rocky Mountains, the Canadian Shield in the North and the pacific coast on the West – all different, all beautiful. 

What I love most about Canada is its people. When we arrived as new immigrants they took us in and gave us all we needed until our belongings arrived. Last year when Fort McMurray was evacuated because of a wildfire, we were out of our home for a month. People came to meet us with gas for our cars and food and supplies. It became almost embarrassing to say we were from Fort McMurray, as people in shops and restaurants would pay our bills.

Maybe it’s because Canada is still young and most people have come from elsewhere that there is such a strong sense of community.  When we became Canadian citizens in 2000 the judge remarked that of the 60 new citizens being sworn in, there were 42 different nationalities represented. I’m very happy to have made Canada our home.

Celine McCarthy-Beckett, Barrie, Ontario

I came to Canada from Dublin in 1988 on a one-year teaching visa. There were no jobs in Dublin (I had been unemployed for six months after graduation), so when it got renewed for another two years at a Montessori school in Toronto, I decided to stay. I met a fella, a Canadian who is now my hubby of 26 years. All three children have been born here, all with Irish citizenship also. I have Canadian citizenship since 1984. We have travelled almost annually back to Ireland, so the children have strong bonds with Ireland. My last visit home was in 2010 after the death of my parents. My brother still lives in Dublin.

I'm a Montessori teacher here in Barrie, Ontario, about an hour outside of Toronto. I love it here but still miss Ireland. I stay connected with family and friends there through email, Facebook, phone and text. I still love my pint of Guinness and my Tayto crisps, and travel to Toronto to get my fix of imported goodies. As the saying goes, "you can take the girl out of Ireland, but you will never take Ireland out of the girl".

Jim Keating, Toronto

As the plane took off from Shannon, I lit up a cigar. The date was August 16^th 1978 and the cigar had been given to me by good friend at a going-away dinner with colleagues the previous evening. Everyone smoked on planes back then.

When we landed in Toronto, the first call my wife Brenda and I made was to the cargo area in the rental car to collect our two dogs Kizzy and Snoopy. We stayed in a motel the first night, and as we settled in on a hot 30C evening the crickets began chirping and the two dogs, not familiar with this new sound, must have thought we were being invaded by aliens as they growled and scratched to defend the inside of our door.

We settled into the Canadian lifestyle quickly and applied for passports to provide easy access when returning from trips to Ireland and overseas. I felt we had really settled when I finally stopped making the currency conversion on the cost of items in shop windows.

I worked for a Canadian company publishing magazines and newspapers, and started my own business in 1993, producing an executive lecture series in Toronto. I have hosted four US presidents including Bill Clinton, and other political leaders from around the world.

What sets Canada apart is its diversity, illustrated by the fact that over 200 languages were reported as a home language in the 2011 census. We have a fabulous Irish community here and it is wonderful seeing the success of so many people from the “old country”, including what we refer to as “the new arrivals”.

Joe McGuinness, Halifax, Nova Scotia

I grew up on the North Circular Road opposite the cattle market in the 1960s.  My first job was clearing tables in Murphy’s Pub, which is now The Cobblestone. This led me to a management trainee job with the Montrose Hotel, and on to study hotel management at the RTC Galway.  During my studies I worked for Sheraton hotels in Frankfurt and Munich, and after graduation, in the Sheraton Baltimore in Maryland, then San Diego, and eventually to Halifax. Nova Scotia.

What a surprise to end up in a province of Canada that has the official welcome of “Cead Mile Failte”. I had no idea the province was settled by Scotch and Irish back in the 17^th century. Some towns have their street names in Gaelic, and St Mary’s University in Halifax teaches the Irish language in their school of Irish Studies.  Some of the best Celtic musicians in the world hail from Nova Scotia.

My wife from India, and I from Dublin found Canada to be a welcoming place to raise a family due to the multi ethnicity of the country, especially Halifax. What was lacking here was a great place to socialise which was not a coffee shop. Canada has pubs, but no one does pubs like the Irish. So in the mid-90s I decided to open an authentic Irish pub. Since then we have been slowly but surely educating the locals about craic at Durty Nelly’s. We take our role as Irish ambassadors very seriously.

As we celebrate Canada’s 150^th anniversary this week, my family is grateful for the opportunity to live in such a great country, and a community that is even better now because there is an authentic Irish pub.

Angela Elliott, London, Ontario

My mother and her twin sister emigrated to London, Ontario in 1955. Claire and Betty Baldwin were born in 1936 in Turners Cross, Co Cork. Their mother died when they were six and their father ten years later. With guidance and support from their older brothers Jack and Norman, the twins knew Canada offered them a future. With $10 in their pocket they began their new life.

Soon after arriving the twins found good jobs and wonderful husbands. Claire and John Wells, and Betty and Michael Phalen were married in London, Ontario. Claire became a Canadian citizen in 1965.

In January 2017, Claire and John celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They have four children, five grandchildren, and three great granddaughters. Claire considers herself Canadian more than Irish. Canada gives her more good memories. While in Ireland she experienced much sorrow and pain. She loves all four weather seasons in Canada.

As a family we vacationed in Ireland many times. We often refer to Ireland as our secret garden. Our happiest memories were made in Myrtleville, just outside of Carrigaline. All four of Claire's children and two grandchildren have Irish citizenship. 

Kathleen (Reilly) Montgomery, Toronto

I was a young girl of 21 in Clifden in 1978 when I replied to and was accepted as a “mother’s helper” for a one-year term in Toronto. I could not wait to be on my way. I was in love with Toronto at first sight: how new and big and bright the city was compared to the dull, the damp and rain of Ireland. Within that first year I met my husband.  We have been married for almost 37 years, with two sons, Sean (30) and Michael (23).  I am recently retired.

My life here has been one great adventure.  The winter snow was unbelievable. I shovelled with wild abandon that first winter, learning to ski, skate, ice fish and go snowmobiling. The extreme seasonal changes were amazing compared to the moderate Irish climate. The ferocious Rockies are terrifying in their beauty, but nothing like my beloved Twelve Bens of Connemara.

The multicultural pattern of Canadian society is an education for all, especially for someone like me who started life in a remote village in Connemara.  I am privileged to known and have worked with people from all cultures. I am wiser and better for it. I went back to college after marriage and graduated as a legal secretary, which I worked at for 25 years.

I yearned for Ireland for many years, but I am now firmly settled in Canada.  I have no regrets, other than I wasn’t available to help my parents in their twilight years, and missing the camaraderie of my friends and the craic at home. Overall, I am proud of my achievements, most notably my sons who are two fine Canadian men with the proudest Irish mother.

Ruairi Spillane, Vancouver

My Canada dream wasn’t planned. I was living in Celtic Tiger Dublin in 2007 and applied for a job in Blackrock with a start-up European office for a Canadian firm. They offered me a role in their HQ in Vancouver instead, so I packed my bags and left Ireland in February 2008.

It was initially a two-year plan, but it was impossible to move on as I fell in love the relaxed lifestyle and the great outdoors. Being from Kerry, I grew up in nature and in Vancouver I get to spend my summers hiking and camping, and then I snowboard through the winter. In 2010, I experienced Vancouver hosting the Winter Olympics and was extremely proud to be living here.

In 2011, I decided I wanted the best of both worlds, so I set up my own business which would allow me to travel between Ireland, Canada, and other locations. Feeling connected with home in Kerry is crucial to me but I also feel equally at home in Canada. I spend a few months in Kerry each year so I can enjoy the beauty of the Kingdom while catching up with friends and family.

My businesses, Moving2Canada and Outpost Recruitment, are focused on helping Irish people thrive in Canada. I’m proud to be an Irish-Canadian helping Irish emigrants as we continue to make a huge contribution to Canada. I admire Canada’s diversity and the honesty and the can-do attitude of the Canadian people.

Jackie Gilna, Ottawa

After 20 years in the Netherlands I moved back to Ireland with my family, before we left again for my husband’s homeland of Canada.

We met with summer temperatures in the 30s. As I swatted off the onslaught of black fly and mosquitoes, my thoughts would turn to the 500 Irish who died digging the Rideau Canal between 1827 and1832. Angered by their unmarked graves strewn along the banks of the canal, I prayed for their souls. I learned so much that first year.

We adapted to those first cold winters enjoying the outdoors and beautiful white Christmases. Our eldest son met his wife at the Patrick’s Day Embassy party, and three years later Max was born, the first “Canadian” in our family.

I learned we live on the lands of the Aboriginal peoples and are “come from aways”. Canadians are welcoming, polite and hard working. They are bound by difference and unified in building a safe, tolerant, multi cultural society in this awe-inspiring wonder of nature stretching 5,514km east to west and 4,634 km north to south.

In 2010, I co founded the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce Ottawa and sit as president. I participated at the Global Economic Forums and continue to promote the relationship between the two countries. 

Canada 150: What’s it celebrating?

On July 1st, 1867, the Constitution Act (then called the British North American Act) was signed uniting Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario into a single self-governing dominion called Canada. The Confederation has expanded since to the Pacific and Arctic oceans to include ten provinces and three territories, now home to 35 million people.

Canada 150 has been dogged by controversy, with indigenous people claiming the celebrations ignore the fact that these lands have been home to native Canadians for at least 10,000 years.

“It is about the wording really – if they had called it Confederation 150 it might have been different, but Canada has been around for a lot longer than 150 years,” says Cathy Murphy of the Irish Canadian Immigration Centre in Toronto.

“I think the Irish in particular have found this debate really interesting, given the colonial past that exists in both countries.”