"150 years ago, immigrants built Canada’s railroads; 100 years ago, they opened the prairies."

To be truthful, both immigrants and long-established British subjects hailing from the four provinces of Confederation did those things. Further, the immigrants did all of those things much later than British subjects. A review of prairie homestead applications and worker documentation papers would confirm this. Certainly you could argue that those British subjects were technically immigrants, but that would be beating a long-dead horse.

Actually, to be exactly accurate, the Metis people opened up the prairies in terms of settlement before anyone else.