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The Irish component in the population of Canada is the fourth largest (after English, French, and Scottish) and one of the oldest. Irish fishermen settled in Newfoundland in the early 17th century. By the mid-18th century that island had some 5000 Roman Catholic Irish inhabitants - about one-third of its population. There were Irish among those who founded Halifax in 1749. The United Empire Loyalists who moved to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick after 1776 included many of Irish descent. The famine in Ireland during the early 19th century sent thousands of Irish farmers to Upper Canada (Ontario). By 1871 the Irish were the second largest ethnic group in Canada (after the French); in 1950 there were 1,500,000 Irish, catholic and protestant. In the 1986 census there were 699,685 Canadians of single Irish descent and a further 2,922,605 with some Irish ancestry.

Thousands of children became orphans during the 1847 Irish famine migration to British North America. Public authorities, private charities and religious officials all played a part in addressing this crisis. Many orphans were placed with relatives or with Irish families. A considerable number were also taken in by Francophone Catholics in Canada East, and by English-speaking Protestants in New Brunswick. Although many families took in orphans for charitable reasons, most people were motivated by the pragmatic value of an extra pair of hands on the farm or in the household.

Contemporary observers who may not be thoroughly familiar with the history behind Canadian cultural dualism often have trouble in decoding it. Although the idea of cultural duality appears in laws, in policies on education, religion and language, and in the formulation of the fundamental rights of the provinces, its historical foundations remain hard to define.

Byelorussian Canadians (Byelarussians, Belarusians) originate from Belarus and are considered an eastern Slavic people. In 2016, 20,710 Canadians reported themselves as being mainly or partly Byelorussian.

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, electrical engineer, inventor and businessman (born 25 April 1874 in Bologna, Italy; died 20 July 1937 in Rome, Italy). Marconi’s early experiments in wireless telegraphy demonstrated the potential of long-range radio communication. He is generally considered the inventor of the radio. Marconi’s first reputed reception of a transatlantic radio signal occurred at Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1901. The following year, he built a wireless transmission station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Half of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Marconi for his work in wireless telegraphy.

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Fenians were members of a mid-19th century movement to secure Ireland’s independence from Britain. They were a secret, outlawed organization in the British Empire, where they were known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They operated freely and openly in the United States as the Fenian Brotherhood. Eventually, both wings became known as the Fenians. They launched a series of armed raids into Canadian territory between 1866 and 1871. The movement was primarily based in the United States, but it had a significant presence in Canada.

From the earliest years of the 17th century, the Dutch were engaged in the fur trade on the Hudson River. In 1614, they established trading posts on Manhattan Island and at Fort Orange (present-day Albany, New York). But only after the American Revolution (1775-1783) did Dutch immigration to British North America (now Canada) begin. The Dutch who had long been settled in the Thirteen Colonies fit easily into Canadian society. Since that time, Canada has experienced three waves of immigration from the Netherlands, the largest of them after the Second World War.

German Canadians — that is, Canadians who report their ethnic origin as solely or partly from Germany or of German ancestry — are one of Canada's largest ethnic categories of European origin. At the time of the British Conquest of New France, nearly 200 families living in the St. Lawrence Valley were of German origin. British North America, and then Canada, would receive six waves of immigration throughout their history, the most recent of which consisted of displaced people at the end of the Second World War. In the 2016 Canadian Census, 3,322,405 Canadians (nearly 10 per cent of the population) reported German origins, and 404,745 people in the country reported German as their mother tongue. A large proportion of these respondents lived in Ontario or central Canada.

French fishermen, settlers, fur traders, missionaries and colonial agents were among the earliest Europeans to have sustained contact with ​Indigenous peoples in what is now Canada and North America. The relationship between French and Indigenous people of the Eastern Woodlands in the early colonial period was complex and interdependent. France saw Indigenous nations as allies, and relied on them for survival and fur trade wealth. Indigenous people traded for European goods, established military alliances and hostilities, intermarried, sometimes converted to Christianity, and participated politically in the governance of New France. With the transfer of New France to Britain in 1763, diplomatic relations between the French and Indigenous people in Canada ceased. Naturally, social and economic interaction between the European and Indigenous inhabitants of New France continued.

Alexandre Da Costa. Violinist, born Montreal 30 Oct 1979; MA and premier prix violin (Conservatoire de Musique du Québec à Montréal [CMM]) 1998, BA piano performance (Montréal) 1998, Concert Diploma Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia (Madrid) 2001, post graduate diploma Universitat fur Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (Vienna) 2004.

Peter Vasilevich Verigin, Doukhobor leader (born 1859 in Slavianka, Russia; died October 1924 near Grand Forks, British Columbia). Exiled in Russia, Verigin immigrated to Canada in 1902. There, he became a powerful and controversial Doukhobor leader in Western Canada. Verigin died when the train in which he was travelling exploded, leading some to believe he was assassinated.

Italian Canadians are among the earliest Europeans to have visited and settled the country. The steadiest waves of immigration, however, occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. Italian Canadians have featured prominently in union organization and business associations. In the 2016 census, just under 1.6 million Canadians reported having Italian origins.

Friedrich Karl von Bruemmer, CM, RCA, photographer, writer, researcher (born 26 June 1929 in Riga, Latvia; died 17 December 2013 in Montreal, QC). Latvian Canadian wildlife photographer Fred Bruemmer spent much of his professional career in the Arctic. He was famous for photographing the flora and fauna of the North and the lifestyle of the Inuit. Bruemmer was a prolific writer and researcher who wrote more than 1,000 articles and 27 books. His extensive work in the circumpolar world reached an international audience. He was described in a 1980 Maclean’s article as “one of the least-known world-famous men in Canada.” He was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1983.

People from Russia have been in Canada since at least the late 18th century. Over time, more and more Russians immigrated and settled in Canada. In the 2016 census, 622,445 Canadians reported being of Russian origin.

The Irish have played an important role in the history of Canada. From their early settlements in Newfoundland, to the larger waves of migrations in the 19th century and the present, the Irish have been ever-present in the Canadian landscape. Irish Canadians have contributed to Canadian society and its economy, and the Irish-Canadian identity continues to be expressed and celebrated.

Unlike most immigrants to Canada, Jews did not come from a place where they were the majority cultural group. Jews were internationally dispersed at the time of the ancient Roman Empire and after unsuccessful revolts against it lost their sovereignty in their ancient homeland. Subsequently, Jews lived, sometimes for many centuries, as minorities in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. In the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), 329,495 Canadians identified as Jewish when responding to the census question on religion, and 309,650 identified as being of Jewish ethnic origin (115,640 single and 194,010 multiple responses).

The Jewish Community In CanadaThe 245,860 Canadians of Jewish extraction (1986 census) represent a great variety of ancestral languages and cultural traditions.