European Canadians

European Canadians are Canadians who can trace their ancestry from Europe, forming the largest panethnic group within Canada. In the 2021 Canadian census, 19,062,115 people or 52.5% of the population self-identified ethnic origins from Europe. People may nominate more than one ethnic origin in the census.

Terminology

As with other panethnic groups, Statistics Canada records ethnic ancestry by employing the term "European origins" under the ethnic origin population section in the census data, but does not specifically use the term "European Canadian". "Euro-Canadians" and "European Canadians" are terms primarily used by those opposed to immigration to Canada from the Third World, and their use has been criticized as conflating distinctions between very different European groups and nationalities. Those employing the terms can recognize that most Canadians of European descent do not see that as their collective identity and instead identify with a specific ethnicity or country of ancestral origin, characterizing themselves as for example "Anglo" or "Québecois" rather than as part of a larger "Euro-Canadian" group. For most of the history of European settlement in North America, the French and the English were seen as two distinct races, with distinct cultures and national spirits.

Statistics Canada has cautioned that "the reporting of ethnicity, and subsequent interpretation of the results, has become increasingly complex due to a number of factors, and poses challenges for historical data comparisons. The concept of ethnicity is fluid and is probably one of the more complex concepts measured in the census." As well, patterns of self-reporting ethnic origins on the census vary with different population groups in Canada, with particular fluidity on self-reporting of the category "Canadian". Use of statistics in this subject area must be approached with these cautions in mind.