They've long been Tri-City residents. Now, they're also Canadians.
While a choir of schoolchildren sang "Land of the Silver Birch," 40 immigrants stood before a federal judge in a Coquitlam school gym and pledged their allegiance to queen and country under a flag scarcely older than most of the new citizens.
They came from 22 different countries - including Afghanistan and Colombia, Russia and the U.S.A. - and many settled in the Tri-Cities several years ago.
But each of their journeys brought them Wednesday to the Nestor elementary school gym, decorated with student-made posters reading "Canada is..." and adorned with drawings of hockey sticks, maple syrup, beavers, mountains and the northern lights.
And when the moment came to take the oath of citizenship, the presiding judge, Ann Dillon, noted the significance of the date in Canada's history.
"Yesterday was National Flag [of Canada] Day, when exactly 46 years ago, the flag was raised over Parliament for the very first time," Dillon said. "And now we watch it orbit the Earth on the Canadarm. We see it flying huge over skyscrapers... and on backpacks around the world."
After pledging the three-part oath of loyalty to the queen, adherence to the law and the promise to be a good citizen, Manijeh Musapoor, a native of Iran, sat with her husband Mohammad and their six-year-old daughter, Niki.
"I just wanted to cry," Musapoor told The Tri-City News. "I've been waiting for this day for five years."
Flanked by a Mountie in red serge, Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore welcomed the new Canadians on behalf of all of the Tri-Cities and wished them each a future brighter than what they had left behind.
For Horacio Echeverria and his young family from Mexico, a warm welcome and a bright future were literally what he longed for most in Coquitlam.
"It's beautiful here," he said. "But I miss the weather [of Mexico]. I miss the sun."
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