I was reading that just under 2% of the Canadian population is British. Where do they live? Are they mainly in the big cities like Toronto and Vancouver? If so, does that mean that 5% of the population of these cities are British born?

PS: Not that I am wanting to go to areas that are highly British, I am genuinely intrigued.

Within Toronto there are some ethnic ghettoes, the Beach is largely English and Irish, Brampton is heavily populated by people we would think of as being "Indian", many of whom hold British passports.

Oddly, there are a smattering of new towns across Canada, Basildons in Exile, that have significant British populations; Okotoks, Orangeville, Fall River, tract housing and strip mall kinds of places. It's as if the emigrants would have been content in the real Basildon if only it wasn't so multicultural.

I believe that Brits still make up the largest immigrant group but most have been here for a very long time. The number of new immigrants is quite small.

Most go to Oakville.

<slaps head>

Of course, Oakville and Victoria, for Brits of the monocle wearing era.

You say that as if the monocle wearing era is over. Did I miss an announcement? Can I get a refund?

Victoria. It's full of old people, they seem to like that.

I think you will find they are in every major city or town and even some in the less populated areas of Canada.
Most tend to keep a low profile however some are easily recognizable by the vehicles they drive or when they open their gobs.

Several I know quietly sit at one end of the bar drinking their pints and complain about the newer Brits who are complaining about the price of cheese and cannot easily find bags of Walkers cheese and onion crisps or Marmite gold.

They have been here that long they no longer start sentences with "Well in the UK we do it this way" sort of thing. They all live in separate areas of the city not wanting or wishing to set up their own little piece of Britain.
They are able to talk rationally about local and national politics if their mood swings that way but conversations vary.
You will see catholics and protestants chatting to each other and strangely enough both of them were born and lived in Belfast.

Its that bad I have even been seen talking to somebody with a scouse accent wearing a Liverpool shirt or a southern shandy drinking fella.
Scots, Irish, Welsh and the English all in the same room and no fighting. Hell we have even let the odd German join in the conversation. I think most of us still hate the French but we dont outwardly show it.

Oyy you! me n you are gonna fall out if you don't stop bashing us Liverpudlians

The FCO reckons there are 325,000 British citizens in Canada, so that's actually less than 1% of the population.

Apparently Alberta has the highest per capita number of British citizens in Canada, I'm not sure I entirely believe the figures I saw in whatever article I was reading some time ago. They seemed a bit OTT. It said something like there were 200,000 British citizens in Alberta, which would be in excess of 5% of the population and that in Calgary it was 8% of the population.

Anecdotally there do seem to be a lot of British people in Calgary, but I do sometimes wonder whether it seems that way because they are concentrated in certain areas.

It depends on how you measure it, I think the FCO figure is a figure based on British citizens who have expatriated to Canada or who have had some contact with the UK from Canada (e.g. applied for a passport).

Technically speaking before 1947 (1949 in NL) nearly everybody in Canada was a British citizen, so I'm sure there must be people who kept their British passports even though their family hadn't lived in the UK for generations. I know someone from NL who did that.

When it comes to Commonwealth countries, I don't think "British citizen" is a particularly good metric. It doesn't really tell you anything. Doesn't mean they're British in the ordinary sense of the word.

Hey, thanks for your direct response. The 2% figure was calculated from the link below. I think it works out as just under 2% to be exact. Interesting for the breakdown, I am surprised Toronto wasn't up there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h.../n_america.stm

I remembered it incorrectly, those are the FCO figures. But still, 200,000 in Alberta sounds like a lot if it's 600,000 nationally.

And like I said, how many of those 600,000 are people who have ever lived in Britain? Plenty of people born prior to the Citizenship Act.

I can't remember where I got that 325,000 figure from. It was something I was reading about migration.

theres a fair number in London,ontario too....but not so much here in syracuse New York....so feel my glasgow accent is very noticable here south of the border

I think there may be a few in Fredericton. I know of a few that I have encountered, but there seem to be a few English flags on flagpoles that I have passed in the oddest places of late.

Well we thought we had played a blinder avoiding other Brits by not moving to the likes of Fall River (we're in Bridgewater, NS) until we found the next door neighbours are from Alloa.

And our landlord is from Wigan.

Must try harder.

Does the landlord throw in free pies seeing he is from Wigan and does he talk about the Wigan Casino, northern soul, the pier and Wigan Rugby League?