Ukrainians in Canada Ukrainians in Canada • Ukrainian Canadians are Canadian citizens of Ukrainian descent or Ukrainian-born people who immigrated to Canada. • In 2016, there were an estimated 1,359,655 persons of full or partial Ukrainian origin residing in Canada, making them Canada's eleventh largest ethnic group and giving Canada the world's third-largest Ukrainian population behind Ukraine itself. • Self-identified Ukrainians are the plurality in several rural areas of Western Canada. According to the 2011 census, of the 1,251,170 who identified as Ukrainian, only 11.5%could speak the Ukrainian language. Unconfirmed settlement before 1891 • Minority opinions among historians of Ukrainians in Canada surround theories that a small number of Ukrainians settled in Canada before 1891. Most controversial is the claim that Ukrainians may have been infantrymen alongside Poles in the Swiss French. • “De Watteville's Regiment” who fought for the British on the Niagara Peninsula during the War of 1812 – it has been theorized that Ukrainians were among those soldiers who decided to stay in Upper Canada Other Ukrainians supposedly arrived as part of other immigrant groups; • It has been claimed that individual Ukrainian families may have settled in southern Manitoba in the mid- to late 1870s alongside block settlements of Mennonites and other Germans from the Russian Empire. "Galicians" are noted as being among the miners of the British Columbia gold rushes and figure prominently in some towns in that new province's first census in 1871 because there is so little definitive documentary evidence of individual Ukrainians among these three groups, they are not generally regarded as among the first Ukrainians in Canada. Settlement – first wave (1891–1914) • During the nineteenth century the territory inhabited by Ukrainians in Europe was divided between the AustroHungarian and Russian empires. Austrian Galicia was one of the poorest and most overpopulated regions in Europe, and had experienced a series of blights and famines. Emigration on a large scale from Galicia to the Balkans and even to Brazil was already underway by 1891. • The first wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada began with Ivan Pylypow and Wasyl Eleniak, who arrived in 1891, and brought several families to settle in 1892. Pylypow helped found the Edna-Star Settlement east of Edmonton, the first and largest Ukrainian block settlement. However, it is Dr. Josef Oleskow along with Cyril Genik, who are considered responsible for the large Ukrainian Canadian population through their promotion of Canada as a destination for immigrants from western Ukraine in the late 1890s. Ukrainians from Central Ukraine, which was ruled by the Russian monarchy, also came to Canada– but in smaller numbers than those from Galicia and Bukovyna. • Clifford Sifton, Canada's Minister of the Interior from 1896 to 1905, also encouraged Ukrainians from Austria-Hungary to immigrate to Canada since he wanted new agricultural immigrants to populate Canada's prairies. Internment (1914–1920) • Commemorative plaque and a statue entitled "Why?" / "Чому " / by John Boxtel at the location of the Castle Mountain Internment Camp, Banff National Park. • Commemorative statue entitled "Never Forget" /"Ніколи Не Забути " ,by John Boxtel; • And damaged plaque at the cemetery of the Kapuskasing Internment Camp, Kapuskasing, northern Ontario From 1914 to 1920, the political climate of the First World War allowed the Canadian Government to classify immigrants with Austro-Hungarian citizenship as "aliens of enemy nationality". This classification, authorized by the August 1914 War Measures Act, permitted the government to legally compel thousands of Ukrainians in Canada to register with federal authorities. • About 5,000 Ukrainian men, and some women and children, were interned at government camps and work sites. Although many Ukrainians were "paroled" into jobs for private companies by 1917, the internment continued until June 20, 1920 – almost a year after the Treaty of Versailles was signed by Canada on June 28, 1919. Settlers, workers and professionals – second wave • A group of male and female Ukrainian Canadians wearing cultural clothing. • In 1923, the Canadian government modified the Immigration Act to allow former subjects of the Austrian Empire to once again enter Canada – and Ukrainian immigration started anew. Ukrainians from western Volhynia – the Polesie and Wołyń Voivodeships ,and southern Bessarabia – also known as the Budjak, joined a new wave of emigrants from Polish-governed Galicia and Romanian-governed Bukovyna. Around 70,000 Ukrainians from Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia arrived in Canada from 1923 to September 1939, although the flow decreased severely after 1930 due to the Great Depression. • Relatively little farmland remained unclaimed – the majority in the Peace River region of northwestern Alberta – and less than half of this group settled as farmers in the Prairie provinces. A few Ukrainian professionals and intellectuals were accepted into Canada at this time; • They later became leaders in the Ukrainian Canadian community. Workers, professionals and political refugees – third wave (1945–1952) • From World War II to 1991, most Ukrainians coming to Canada were political refugees and Displaced Persons who tended to move to cities in southern Ontario, southern Quebec and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia – there are now large Ukrainian communities in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. • They established a number of new organizations and affiliated newspapers, women's and youth groups, the most prominent of which was the Canadian League for the Liberation of Ukraine. The League joined the Ukrainian Canadian Committee as a member organization in 1959. • Relatively few Ukrainians came to Canada during the Brezhnev and Gorbachev years, as exit visas could take several years to get approved. Participation in the Canadian economy • In the first half of the twentieth century, Ukrainian Canadians overwhelmingly earned their livings in primary industry – predominantly in agriculture, but also in mining, logging, construction, and the extension of the Canadian railway system; • Most importantly as labour in completing the transcontinental mainlines of the Canadian Northern Railway and Grand Trunk Pacific, both then nationalized and consolidated into the Canadian National Railway . As agriculture became more mechanized and consolidated, male Ukrainian Canadians shifted into non-farm primary and secondary industry jobs, while women took jobs in domestic work and unskilled service industries. • By 1971, only slightly more Ukrainian Canadians worked in agriculture than in the wider Canadian labour force. Culture • Having been separated from Ukraine, Ukrainian Canadians have developed their own distinctive Ukrainian culture in Canada. To showcase their unique hybrid culture, Ukrainian Canadians have created institutions that showcase Ukrainian Canadian culture such as Edmonton's Cheremosh and Shumka troupes – among the world's elite Ukrainian dancers; or the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village – where Ukrainian pioneer buildings are displayed along with extensive cultural exhibits. • Ukrainian Canadians have also contributed to Canadian culture as a whole. Actress and comedian Luba Goy, singer Gloria Kaye, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, hockey executive Kyle Dubas, and painter William Kurelek, for example, are well known outside the Ukrainian community. • Perhaps one of the most lasting contributions Ukrainian Canadians have made to the wider culture of Canada is the concept of multiculturalism, which was promoted as early as 1963 by Senator Paul Yuzyk. During and after the debates surrounding the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Ukrainian leaders, such as linguist Jaroslav Rudnyckyj, came out in force against the idea of English – French biculturalism, which they believed denied the contributions other peoples had made to Canada. Arts • Canada is home to some very vibrant Ukrainian dance groups. Some examples of Ukrainian dance ensembles in Canada are the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers and the Cheremosh Ukrainian Dance Company in Edmonton, the Rusalka Ukrainian Dance Ensemble and Rozmai Ukrainian Dance Company in Winnipeg, the Svitanok Ukrainian Dance Ensemble in Ottawa, and hundreds of other groups. • The Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko provides some financial support for Ukrainian Canadian performing, literary and visual arts. • Ukrainians in general are noted for their elaborately decorated Easter Eggs or pysanky, and that is also true in Canada. The world's second largest pysanka is in Vegreville, Alberta. • Ukrainian Canadian churches are also famous for their onion domes, which have elaborately painted murals on their interior, and for their iconostasis, or icon walls. Language • The Canadian Ukrainian dialect is based on the Ukrainian spoken by the first wave of immigrants from the AustroHungarian Empire from 1891 to 1914. • Because the Ukrainian language of this era had no words for such things as agricultural machinery other than a plow, words for wildlife or vegetation common to North America and uncommon in Ukraine, words related to the automobile or other self-propelled vehicles on roads, or words for internal combustion engine-powered or electrically-powered tools or home appliances of any kind, extensive borrowings and adaptations from Canadian English were independently made by Ukrainian settlers in the block settlements of the Prairies during their first decades in Canada. Thank for your attention!
