Embracing the maple leaf

In 1997, a teenaged Judit Jimmy stepped off a plane on a November night in Toronto. A refugee from what is now South Sudan, she looked outside the airport terminal and saw that the land was covered in white – her first glimpse of snow.

“I thought it was sugar,” she said, grinning. “I ran outside and I took the snow and I licked it. It was freezing!”

Jimmy was the first of about 75 landed immigrants who became Canadians on Nov. 15 during a citizenship ceremony held at Leo Nickerson Elementary School.

Serenaded by about 350 students and bearing tiny Canadian flags, the new Canadians recited an oath, sang the national anthem and received their certificates of citizenship.

“You have chosen an auspicious month and an auspicious year in which to become Canadians,” said host and retired senator Tommy Banks, speaking to a packed gymnasium – it’s Veterans’ Week and the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.

“It is the duty and responsibility of every one of us to live every day in the spirit of freedom that (those veterans) won and preserved for us,” he said.

The ceremony was organized through the women’s group IODE Canada, said Leo Nickerson principal Kevin Jones. The school agreed to host it to give students a look at how people can get what most of them were born with: Canadian citizenship.

Citizenship is a great privilege, Banks continued, but also a great responsibility. He urged the new citizens to give back to their communities however they could, and to leave the prejudices of their old homes behind them.

It’s tough to become a Canadian, Banks said in an interview – you have to be 18 or older, live in Canada for three years, learn English or French, keep a pretty much spotless criminal record and pass a test.

“These people had to climb mountains to get here, figuratively and literally,” he said.

Jimmy said she grew up in a refugee camp in Ethiopia due to the ongoing unrest in South Sudan.

“It was too hot and dry. You had to go look for water and go get water from the ocean,” she said.

She never knew her birth parents.

She was eventually adopted and brought to Canada as a refugee. School was a challenge, especially when it came to learning English.

Citizenship is competitive and only a small fraction of applicants make it through the process each year, said Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber.

According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, about 181,000 immigrants and refugees became Canadian citizens last year. Those who make it consistently punch above their weight as citizens, Rathgeber continued.

“The Canadian economy, especially the Alberta economy, requires tens of thousands of skilled workers,” he said, many of whom come from overseas. New citizens are very active politically, and can help native-born residents learn more about other cultures.

As citizens, people like Jimmy are now protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and have the right to vote in elections. They also have public health care, public education and the rule of law.

These are rights many people take for granted, Banks said, but are front in mind for new immigrants – many of whom know more about this country than native-born Canadians.

“If you want to find out how Canada actually works, ask a recent immigrant,” he said.

Jimmy is now living in Calgary where she’s taking courses to become a nursing assistant.

Now that she has her citizenship, Jimmy hopes to eventually visit Ethiopia and Sudan to try and track down her parents.

“I don’t know where I’m going to start,” she said, “but I’m going to do it.”