Talk:English-Canadian

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[edit] Needed: List of Canadians of English ancestry

...either as a section on this page or in its own right; since English-Canadian doesn't necessarily mean "Canadians of English ancestry". The Scots, Irish, Chinese, Ukrainians, Norwegians and nearly everybody else have such a list; it's only fitting that English should too. Once we figure out who they were (Scots, Irish/Anglo-Irish, Welsh and Cornish seem to be more visible/high-profile...or not?).Skookum1 07:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Clippings" of new material on BC English-Canadians

The following is a copy-paste of an extenuation of my new additions to the article, which I indulged in last night before bed at length, then realized I wasn't writing a history/demography of BC and thought better to post it here; if someone can condense some of this into the article, or if maybe there should be a Demography of British Columbia article (if there isn't already) where this could go, and stuff like it. I was actually trying to write it from the aspect of the types of spoken English you're likely to hear in almost any BC town, far away from the ethnic-enclave multiculturalism of the Lower Mainland; the idea is that "offshore accents", no matter where they were from, in addition to specifically British and also American accents, have always been more common in BC than anywhere else in the country; or were until the rest of Canada was multiculturalized, which it never used to be (the Prairies were multiethnic but assimilation/cooperation/cohesion oriented, other than the Hutterites, Mennonites and Doukhobours...who I forgot to mention in the article overleaf and should be...

Inline comment brackets I'd written I've changed to round brackets to make visible. Towards the end of paragraphs I was getting talk page-ish as I realized I'd be transferring all this over here. Main cite is the book mentioned in the edit comment previous; Strangers Entertained, 1971, BC Govt Centennial Publ, not sure which publisher (might be custom job), but standard resource for BC immigration history for "all groups", although not as detailed as could be; too compressed, but lots of stuff, for sure. That's all for tonoight; it's 1:58 am and I'm off to bed....

"Since colonial times, BC has also had the country's highest share of non-British Europeans (!--historically Germans, Scandinavians, and European French, Belgians included especially but I'm not sure how to word that without even more clutter--). After World War I, Italians and Yugoslavians came in large numbers, and after World War II, Germans, Dutch, Poles, Finns, Hungarians, and people from the Baltic countries, with newer migrations of Czechs post-1967 and Greeks in the early 1970s. This earlier wave of immigration, including the historical Chinese and Japanese populations, had become completely anglicized. In the 21st Century, a sizeable influx of Latin-Americans began, including many Mexicans, Hondurans, Colombians and Brazilians, as well as a new Eastern European influx, predominantly Russian and Polish. The result is that in almost any town or neighbourhood in British Columbia, historically and to this day, the spoken English one hears is likely accented in one way or another, even in families and communities where other languages are never used, .

"British Columbia retains some of its "British ethnic" flavour partly because it remain a favourite retirement area for expats from around the Empire, as it has been throughout its existence, and in areas like Rockland, Fairfield and Oak Bay, English and other British accents remain common. Although British identity in BC remains focussed on Victoria, it was also strong on the Mainland especially prior to the Great War, when Scottish accents in were the most commonly heard in Vancouver, from both working and upper classes. Some Canadian historians express a certain horror when they recount how it was easier in Vancouver to buy The Times of London, The Daily Telegraph and other British papers in the newsstands of Victoria, Vancouver, West and North Vancouver, New Westminster, as well as in the Okanagan, when Toronto and Montreal papers were rarely seen or bothered with. The English presence in the City of Vancouver was most noticeable in the Kerrisdale, South Granville and West End neighbourhoods, where shops catered to English tastes and style. In the Interior, the Okanagan in particular was British-settled, with a concentration of better-off upper and upper middle-class settlers enticed by realtors' visions of the genteel orcharding and ranching life, with British country and salon society transplanted whole to the homes and clubs of Kelowna and Penticton, as well as "hordes of remittance men" {!--that's a quote from somewhere; I'll cite it if I remember which article/essay/editorial--} and junior scions of "good family" who were reduced to working as doormen and waiters at country clubs; as with Vancouver and the towns of the Lower Mainland, British expat society - which had reached a peak in the Edwardian era - in BC was shattered by the Great War. The story of the empty town of Walhachin, an upper-crust orcharding colony complete with ballrooms, grand piano and literary readings, died when all the men went off to war, is symbolic of that vanished society, and Kelowna and Penticton have lost nearly all of their one-time British high-society/gentry manners and cultivated cricket-tennis-and-tea lifestyle (epitomized in the film My American Cousin by the khaki and near-jodhpurs worn by the heroine's father).

I could have gone on, but stopped after completing various bits within ot as I'd realized it's more a propos for another article, or for condensation; these are matters which relate to the character and composition of the "English-Canadian" population of BC, however, so should be included in some way if condensable. It strikes me that there maybe should be an article on British immigratioh to British Columbia, as it is a very distinct (and citable) history and culture/society from the British element in the rest of the country; although British immigration to Canada and the aforementioned Canadians of English ancestry seem like necessary articles as well.Skookum1 10:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I admit it's a tricky article to do because of the indeterminate boundaries of what can be meant by 'English Canadian'. At its very broadest it's a convenient (albeit sloppy and inaccurate) catch-all for Canadians who aren't of aboriginal ancestry or don't speak French or another language as their first language. But many of those persons would not self-identify as 'English-Canadian' so the broadest definition doesn't do. I think some people may put themselves in two or more categories simultaneously, depending on context, so I didn't want the article to be unreasonably exclusivist either. As my parents were born in Ireland, I tend to consider myself 'Irish-Canadian' from a purely 'ethnic' perspective and retain some cultural ties to that background; but on the other hand, linguistically and culturally I would class myself with the 'English-Canadians' even though in my case any actual ethnic 'English' ancestry is a long long time ago. I know that is some of the other Wikipedia articles on ethnic groups and peoples there have been some pretty heated discussions and nasty disagreements about issues of ethnicity.

Not always ethnic articles either; individual bios can go that way, with lots of fire and thunder; see Talk:Nikola Tesla. On the other hand Talk:Chinese Canadian gets a bit creepy...Skookum1 21:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Funny you should mention 'Strangers Entertained' as I'm sure we have a copy around the house and I was looking for it the other day and all I could find was another BC Centennial publication "It Happened in British Columbia" which had nothing useful.Corlyon 21:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)Corlyon

I used to have that too, maybe still do. Yes, quite useless, along with a lot of other similar publications.Skookum1 21:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)