Cramahe's Canada 150 Party (Part 1 of 3) -- Citizenship Ceremony
It’s a party this weekend!
This year Canada celebrates 150 years since we became a nation. The huge national party was held on Canada Day, but, communities across the country are celebrating all year long.
Cramahe Township’s Canada 150 committee has been planning this weekend for almost 2 years. The township is celebrating its 225 anniversary, so this is a double celebration for us.
Citizenship Ceremony
Friday morning, we kicked off the weekend by hosting a Canadian citizenship ceremony. One has never been held in this township, so this was pretty amazing for us to be able to arrange.
As Mayor Marc Coombs stated during the ceremony, “What is more Canadian than becoming a Canadian citizen in a hockey arena?” and that is where the ceremony was held, on the pad of the local arena.
Red and white balloons lent the ceremony a festive air. Members of the local Lions Club shown below worked together to get the balloons in place before the ceremony.
A total of 32 new people took the oath of citizenship in a very impressive ceremony. Below they are receiving their instructions about what is about to happen just prior to the platform party arriving.
In traditional Canadian fashion, the platform party of the Presiding Official Major General Heatherington, MP Kim Rudd (federal), MPP Lou Rinaldi (provincial) and Mayor Marc Coombs (Cramahe) are led to the platform by a bagpiper.
The colour party, consisting of local Legion members, is following behind and will bring the Canadian flag up onto the stage once the platform party is in place, showing it the care and respect we have as Canadians.
Members of the 1st Can Parachute Cadet Corps were on hand to assist as needed with greeting people, parking and anything else they were asked to do. These youngsters are an incredible example of volunteerism as they contribute hundreds of hours every year helping out in the communities they serve.
The Clerk of the Ceremony was the ‘glue’ of the whole thing. She kept everything moving with precision; guiding and directing the participants as needed with practiced professionalism.
Once the opening remarks were completed, the ceremony got down to the major business of the day. The soon to be new Canadians took their oath of citizenship in both English and French as Canada is officially a bilingual country.
Members of the platform party later remarked on the emotional moment it was for some of the new Canadians and it showed on their faces. Once the oaths were completed, the platform party helped distribute their citizenship certificates.
This local couple have lived in the area for many years and managed to decide to become citizens in time for this ceremony. This made it really special that they were able to be part of our kickoff event.
At the conclusion of this part, the platform party gave their brief remarks to the new Canadians and those attending. The Major-General talked briefly about some of the nasty places he has gone to during his military career and how grateful he is to be able to return to the peaceful and welcome of the greatest country in the world, Canada.
The ceremony concluded with the singing of ‘O Canada’ and of course the bagpiper returned to lead the platform off the stage.
I have never attended a citizenship ceremony as I am a Canadian by birth. It was a very moving ceremony to see 32 people make the choice to become Canadians and the emotional moment it was for them. Like our country, the ceremony displayed the diversity that is our country as I looked across the group of people becoming Canadians.
When our local Member of Parliament returned Friday evening for our Opening Ceremonies she told us that when she was speaking to the new Canadians after the ceremony she asked one gentleman, who was from Bangladesh, where he was from. His response was, “I’m from Oshawa”. It was a good response.
I’ll talk about the opening ceremonies and the other activities of the weekend party in my next post. I decided the citizenship part of it deserved its own post.
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Wow, it seems really an awesome ceremony! I think it was very touching for the 32 new Canadian citizen. Thanks for share ^_^
My pleasure, it really was an awesome ceremony. You may want to watch for me to post part two ... in there .. I'll be sharing a personal announcement that was a highlight for my weekend.
Nice. I can't see the representatives of natives being invited though. Considering that French and English reaped this land out of them through violence.
Are you referring to First Nations people? I don't believe I said anything about representatives being invited, the platform party consisted of the various levels of government.
At the start of the ceremony the Presiding Official did announce an acknowledgement that the ceremony was taking place on the traditional lands of the First Nations tribes of this area. That has become pretty standard at most government ceremonies these days.
I see, but don't you think that First Nations representatives should take a part, especially considering that they acknowledge that it used to be their land?
Or maybe they don't invite them, because they know that they would refuse to support such ceremony?
No, I don't. There may be places for them to be invited but they are not a governmental group and the politics of their issues with the government do not belong in every ceremony that is held, just to appease them.
Actually, it would be to appease a small minority of the First Nations as most are proud Canadians and are as just as happy to welcome new Canadians as any other Canadian.
Isee. Is this your ceremony btw?
my ceremony? In what way?
You are aware that Canadian citizenship is granted by the federal government?
You posted about citizenship ceremony so I presumed that part of it is about ceremony of getting citizenship for ne Canadians too, just like the citizenship ceremony in Great Britain when you receive naturalisation.
Citizenship is probably granted by the government in every country... Not sure what you mean by pointing it out... What relation it has to my question.
if your convoluted path of query is to ask me why I posted about this .. apparently you didn't read the first part of the post. The citizenship ceremony was the first event of a weekend of celebrations locally to celebrate Canada's 150th and the local township's 225th.
If you didn't read the last part, I'll be posting about the other activities in a separate post.