TORONTO -- “There is room, my friends.”
The Cree expression for 'welcome' flashed on the screen, adding warmth to the anticipation of 24 people waiting to become Canadian citizens at Rogers Centre on Canada Day.
It’s the one day of the season when the Blue Jays’ ballpark goes red. The TD Summit Suite, where the club hosted a citizenship ceremony for the second straight year ahead of Monday afternoon’s game against the Astros, was no different. The crowd of new Canadians hailing from six countries featured red neckties, Air Jordans and hijabs.
There was room for all of it.
“[This country] is really welcoming,” said Irfan Syed, a native of India and an avid cricketer, who was sworn in along with his wife and their two children. “It’s inclusive, it’s multicultural and, though we get many things from it, we also get the opportunity to give back to society.”
The journey to citizenship started five years ago for Syed’s family. For others in attendance, it was an even longer process. The final chapter was written at the ballpark.
This was a significantly larger undertaking than last year, when the Blue Jays hosted six people in a Canada Day citizenship ceremony. A sponsorship by Rogers, the team's ownership group, made it possible to quadruple the event this time around.
“I’m an Expos fan, so it pains me to say this, but this is Canada’s team,” said the Honourable Marc Miller -- minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship of Canada -- who conducted the citizenship oath. “The people that were sworn in today are just 24 people eager to make Canada a home, eager to build Canada alongside the other 1,400 Canadians that were sworn in today. And they're learning about all sorts of elements of Canadian culture.”
That didn’t start or end with baseball -- although the six families from India, Brazil, South Africa, China, Iran and Afghanistan got to watch the game from a suite afterwards.
As the welcome video played to signal the start of the ceremony, the buzzing sound of several languages gave way to the many languages of Canada. It started with English, moved to French and then the First Nations sounds took over, with representatives of the country’s original peoples offering warm words to the newcomers.
Those in attendance also heard from citizenship judge Rodney Simmons and Brenda Wastasecoot, assistant professor from the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto, before taking the oath.
Outside on the WestJet Flight Deck, the Royal Canadian Air Force Band went through the sound check for its pregame concert later that day.
“We will end this ceremony by singing our national anthem,” said Simmons, who presided over the event. “Which is now your anthem.”
Right on cue, the band started playing:
“Raise a little hell, raise a little hell, raise a little hell.”
Laughter filled the room. Another memory on a remarkable day.
“It’s a dream,” Tatiana Rosenbaum, a native of Brazil, said in Portuguese. “I can’t even explain it. It’s been seven years, and to be here right now, it’s really emotional.”
Rosenbaum lives in Vaughan, Ont., with her husband and their two children. The family had never been to Rogers Centre before. Getting the call from the IRCC with an invitation to get sworn in at the ballpark on Canada Day was a bit of a shock.
“I thought it was a prank call,” she said with a laugh.
But the call was no joke, and neither were the tears in her eyes as she and her family finally got their certificates.
After the ceremony, the new Canadians were treated to lunch and some special words of welcome from Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae, herself an immigrant, who was sworn in at 7 years old after coming here from the Philippines.
“My dad, as a new Canadian, wanted desperately to be part of his new community,” Mae told MLB.com afterward. “He knew that everybody loved the Toronto Maple Leafs, so he would watch games. That was his way of learning English, picking up slang sayings … and he felt so confident going into work being part of the watercooler conversations about the Leafs. So sports really played a part [in our integration].”
Mae doesn’t remember her own ceremony, although she often looks at her old citizenship card and wonders why her mother decided to style her bangs the way she did.
What Mae remembers well -- with tears in her eyes, roughly one year after losing her father -- are the sacrifices that her parents made so she could have a better future.
“When I think back and I look at that photo, it's like, ‘Wow, little did she know she would be a Canadian Asian woman covering America's pastime,’” said Mae. “In what other country can you do that?”