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Particularly on the Prairies of Canada, there are large areas that were settled in the early 20th century by people of non-British Isles stock, and while most of their descendants are English-speaking today, some cultural traits still persists. You don't really have this on a such a significant level in Australia.
Maybe the Barossa Valley in SA with Germans? Well think of that on a much much wider scale demographically and geographically.
I don't dispute that all of this did and does exist, my point is simply that it's more extensive in Canada.
And even if Canada and Australia were equal on this aspect of immigration, the Quebec/French factor puts Canada in a whole other dimension when it comes to diversity.
Consider that you have a Queensland-sized province more or less in the middle of the country with 8 million people that speaks a different language and takes different cultural cues on many many things - in many ways it feels like foreign country* to other Canadians. It is the largest province in area, the second-largest in population and has the second-biggest city in the country.
*I don't in any way mean this in the negative sense BTW.
And even if Canada and Australia were equal on this aspect of immigration, the Quebec/French factor puts Canada in a whole other dimension when it comes to diversity.
I think the Francophone(?)/English speaking divide is probably the difference between Canada and Australia in terms of population. The other key differences (my perspective, of course) are Australia's lack of a significant culturally similar neighbour, and hence its more self reliant stance on issue like security and defence, and the far greater British influence on Canada's political system compared to Australia's more US influenced model.
That chart was good, but some of the stats for Aus don't align with authoritative data from organisations like the Bureau of Statistics. That organisation puts the foreign born percentage of the Aus population at 26.5% not 22%. Also, numbers from that agency also put the proportion of immigrants from North-Western Europe (in its entirety, including Netherlands, Germany etc) in a different light compared to other regional sources.
The data is from ABS. Even with these statistics there're different ways to collect and present these numbers, depending on which agency and what points they're trying to make. But I think one can generally take the ballpark numbers from these articles seriously, as they are from respectable sources and not made up by a Joe Schmo like myself.
When it comes to ancestry. I am quite interested in this topic myself, and started a thread earlier this year but unfortunately never following it up.
I think each three countries are diverse in their own way, each having some outliers. Australia for example, lacks the proportional nordic or french stock contingent of USA and Canada, but is very well represented by Brits, Irish and Southern Europeans relative to its size.
Take this for example,according to ABS, 36% of Australians has English ancestry, another 35% identify themselves having mainly Australian ancestry. 10% Irish, 9% Scottish, 5% Italian, 5% German, 4% Chinese, 2% Indian, 2% Greek, 2% Dutch and so on.
Compare that to Canada's population, 32% identify themselves as Canadian, 21% English, 16% French, 15% Scottish, 14% Irish, 10% German, 5% Italian, 4% Chinese, 4% Native Americans, 4% Ukrainian, 3% Dutch and so on.
It looks like both countries have a large British/Irish Stocks (as does the US), but Canada does have a much larger stock of people of French (Can 15% vs Aus 0.5%) , German (10% vs Aus 5%), Nordic background (Can 4% vs Aus 0,5%), just to name a few example. But in the end I think beyond that both countries are extremely diverse with recent immigration from all over the world, of which the culture is much more visible compared to the older generations of immigrants from Europe.
... the far greater British influence on Canada's political system compared to Australia's more US influenced model.
Could you elaborate more on this? I'm under the impression, from reading the constitutions of Australia, Canada, and the United States; that the political systems of Canada and Australia are pretty much the same (constitutional monarchies), while both differ from the political system of the United States (a republic).
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Take this for example,according to ABS, 36% of Australians has English ancestry, another 35% identify themselves having mainly Australian ancestry. 10% Irish, 9% Scottish, 5% Italian, 5% German, 4% Chinese, 2% Indian, 2% Greek, 2% Dutch and so on.
I'd add a caveat to those ABS ethnicity figures, as does the ABS - they are influenced by the lack of guidance as to what "ethnicity" means, and of course they are optional. I think the proportion simply claiming to be "Australian" says a lot. Interestingly, most Aussies claim more than one ethnicity, and for those who tick "Irish" for box number 1, close to 90% supposedly then go on to tick another box.
I think a difference between Canada and Aus, is that the latter is a regional hub so there is a sure but steady influx of people from the South Pacific, often via "Anglo" New Zealand who are recorded as "New Zealanders".
Yes, its an interesting topic. In Aus its seems that most (many?) groups lose their sense of ethnicity by the time you get to the second generation born in the country, even for the first in many cases. It would be interesting to know how this compares to other countries.
Could you elaborate more on this? I'm under the impression, from reading the constitutions of Australia, Canada, and the United States; that the political systems of Canada and Australia are pretty much the same (constitutional monarchies), while both differ from the political system of the United States (a republic).
The Aus senate is also directly elected, with each state electing 12 Senators, and the two internal territories 2. The Australian constitution itself is also more "compact" than its Canadian equivalent, which like the UK considers a pretty wide variety of sources to be part of the constitution.
No we have no president as yet, but we're working on it.. In a way, the Governor General appointed by the government of the day is a de facto president. The monarch is pretty much powerless in any real way.
I'd add a caveat to those ABS ethnicity figures, as does the ABS - they are influenced by the lack of guidance as to what "ethnicity" means, and of course they are optional. I think the proportion simply claiming to be "Australian" says a lot. Interestingly, most Aussies claim more than one ethnicity, and for those who tick "Irish" for box number 1, close to 90% supposedly then go on to tick another box.
I think a difference between Canada and Aus, is that the latter is a regional hub so there is a sure but steady influx of people from the South Pacific, often via "Anglo" New Zealand who are recorded as "New Zealanders".
Yes, its an interesting topic. In Aus its seems that most (many?) groups lose their sense of ethnicity by the time you get to the second generation born in the country, even for the first in many cases. It would be interesting to know how this compares to other countries.
I understand what you mean, but that is basically the same case for Statistics Canada and US Census. When you compared the 3 sets of statistics, the overall percentage of Australians, Canadians and Americans in their own country is very similar. Same thing with multiple ethnicity/ancestry, and the statistics do usually reflect that. It is not so much unique to ABS. In the American and Canadian census one can even see which the single/multi-responses for each group, which can be telling of the ethnic generations as they call it if I remembered correctly.
But I think the difference is that during the end of the great diaspora from Europe in the late 19th century up until before the wars, Canada has opened up to certain groups of immigrants (Eastern and Northern Europe, as well as USA) while Australia still received predominately British emigrants (I am sure there're statistics and numbers/records to this). Since the second WWII the immigrants are much more comparable, hence both countries have sizeable Dutch, Italians, Greeks, and other groups who emigrated in relatively large numbers since. And even this is quickly changing with large number of Asians and other groups emigrating to Australian and Canada in great number.
But when it comes to the UK, Australia is still the number one destination by far (I was reading this statistics some weeks ago. Canada is a distant third or forth if I remembered correctly). I do think that this link between UK and Australia is fascinating, and it doesn't really make the country less diverse or what so ever!
That chart was good, but some of the stats for Aus don't align with authoritative data from organisations like the Bureau of Statistics. That organisation puts the foreign born percentage of the Aus population at 26.5% not 22%. Also, numbers from that agency also put the proportion of immigrants from North-Western Europe (in its entirety, including Netherlands, Germany etc) in a different light compared to other regional sources.
The answer to the question in which country was this person born, produced the following results in the last census.
Australia 69.8%
Overseas 24.6%
No Answer Provided 5.6%
So 24.6% of 94.4% of aussies were born overseas, which is equals 26% of total.
Interestingly stats canada just realeased it's own estimate saying 20.6% of it's population is foreign born, I thought it would be a bit higher than that.
Even if you deduct every British born person from Australias population and counted them as a local, Australia would still have a foreign born population % about the same as Canada, based on that.
However im sure both countries have people from every country the world, and really a big foreign born population does not really make it any better or more livable.
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In a way, the Governor General appointed by the government of the day is a de facto president. The monarch is pretty much powerless in any real way.
