Mr. Speaker, today is the beginning of National Citizenship Week and it is a very special anniversary.
Prior to 1947 anyone who was born in Canada was not a Canadian citizen but rather a British subject resident in Canada. It is ironic that Canada has existed as a nation for almost 130 years, yet Canadians as a people have existed for only 50 of those 130 years.
While Canadian citizenship is something to be proud of, it is often difficult to celebrate. Just last year while filling out my census form I had the option of marking my ethnic background as Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Filipino. I could not say I was Canadian unless I marked "other".
Canadian citizenship should be something we can be proud of regardless of race, creed, colour, ethnicity or when our ancestors came to this land. Maybe we will even be able to indicate this pride during the census.