By Tyler Marr

27 new Canadians sworn in at citizenship ceremony

Jun 28, 2017 | 2:00 PM

A sense of accomplishment and prosperity for the future.

This is how many of the Prince Albert and area residents who took the Oath of Citizenship at a ceremony Tuesday afternoon described the experience. Twenty-seven people from four countries were represented.  

“This is a very memorable moment for us. It is great to be a Canadian citizen,” Edwin Santos from the Philippines said of singing O Canada for the first time as a Canadian with the others. He, his wife Mary Jean and three children received their citizenship.

The couple proclaimed Canada as one of the greatest countries in the world and said they were very thankful of accepting Canadians. They were “eager and willing to participate in everything Canadian and become part of the community.”

Mary Jean joked this meant starting to “say sorry all the time now.”

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“We will try to be good Canadian citizens and be a wonderful family here,” she added.

For Eugene Yeuvheniy from Ukraine, this moment was a turning point in his family members’ lives.

“It is my happy day, I am very proud of becoming a Canadian citizen. I can start living fully in Canada,” he said. He, his wife and daughter have been in the country for just over five years.

Yeuvheniy said it was plenty of hard work and long nights to become a citizen but added it was well worth it. His daughter was set to graduate Grade 9 this week and as a newly minted Canadian, Yeuvheniy said she will have better options available to her for post-secondary education and career then back in Ukraine.

Mayor Greg Dionne was in attendance for the ceremony. While he’s attended several in the past, he said each is special. 

“What I like about it today is that we have a lot of young people. Usually, it has been older people, but today there were lots of young people and families. That is what I like to see,” he said. Dionne said the new Canadians are a crucial part of growing the country and city.

The most harrowing part of the citizenship ceremonies for Dionne was hearing the individual stories of why people decided to come to Canada. He said when you compare what they have endured to your own life, you realize how easy we as Canadians have it at times.

“In Canada, they are free to say as they want, practice their religion because it is a great, wide open country,” he said.

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr