Angeline Barrette

This article lists Canadian supercentenarians (people from Canada who have attained the age of at least 110 years). The oldest verified Canadian person ever was Marie-Louise Meilleur, who died in 1998 aged 117 years, 230 days. As of , the oldest living person in Canada is Margaret Romans, born on 16 March 1912 in Latvia, aged .

100 oldest known Canadians

Biographies

Sum Ying Fung

Sum Ying Fung (née Eng, zh, s=吴如英, 27 January 1899 – 6 December 2011), was a Chinese Canadian supercentenarian who was the oldest person in Canada in 2011.

Sum Ying Eng was born in Wing On Village, Yanping, China in 1899. In 1926, she married Chong Lim Fung, who had been working in Canada since 1911. Chong Lim would travel to visit Sum Ying regularly in the ensuing years and they had three children. However, the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented her from joining her husband in Canada. In 1954, she emigrated to Canada under the sponsorship of her husband. The couple settled in Chinatown, Vancouver that year. The Fung family moved to East Vancouver upon Chong Lim's death in 1967.

In 1989, she developed a brain tumour, underwent surgery, and survived. She visited China later that year and was in Beijing during the military crackdown of Tiananmen Square protests. She and her family fled Beijing among a group of German tourists.

In January 2011, Sum Ying Fung became the oldest person in Canada, after the death of Elizabeth Buhler. The Queen congratulated Fung in a letter on her 112th birthday on 27 January 2011 and the Mayor of Vancouver declared that day "Fung Eng Sum Ying Day".

Fung died of natural causes at the claimed age of 112, at Burnaby General Hospital in British Columbia on 6 December 2011. At the time of her death she was survived by two of her three children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great-grandchildren.

Reuben Sinclair

Reuben "Rube" Sinclair (5 December 1911 – 27 August 2023) was the oldest known living man in Canada, and oldest known living veteran of World War II.

Sinclair was born on the outskirts of Lipton, Saskatchewan to Yitzok (né Sandler) and Fraida (née Dubrovinsky) Sinclair – Ukrainian Jews that immigrated to Canada in 1905. His two older brothers, Samuel and Sol, were born in Ukraine, while his older sister Clara and younger brother Joe were born in Canada. His family's land was provided by the Jewish Colonisation Association. He worked on their farm.

Sinclair joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 and was stationed at North Battleford. According to his daughter, he "couldn't stand by and do nothing while people were dying in Europe". He taught pilots how to take off and land during blackouts, before radar was commonplace. Once it became standard, he worked in equipping aircraft with transmitters and receivers. His younger brother Joe served in the army, and after the war they moved to Richmond, British Columbia and started Sinclair Bros. Garage and Auto Wrecking.

He married a woman named Ida and they had three children: Nadine Lipetz, Karen and Len. In 1964, they moved to California; Sinclair suffered from migraines due to the war and his wife suggested they move to California to escape the cold weather and live closer to her siblings. His brother-in-law offered him a job in a furniture store in Anaheim. Ida suffered a stroke in 1994 and the Sinclairs moved back to British Columbia the same year. She died in 1996. Reuben resided in Richmond.

Sinclair was vaccinated against COVID-19 in March 2021, one of the oldest people to do so. Following the death of 109-year-old Tom Lumby on 19 June 2021, Sinclair was believed to have become Canada's oldest veteran. He became the oldest Canadian-born man upon the death of 110-year-old Arnold Hawkins on 18 September 2021. As of November 2021, he had six grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild. His family spanned five generations at the time of his death.

Following the death of 111-year-old American Ezra Hill on 4 October 2022, Sinclair was believed to have been the oldest World War II veteran in the world.

References

{{Longevity

Canadian
Supercentenarians