The first explorer to North America and to Canada was the Venetian Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot). His voyage to Canada and other parts of the Americas was followed by his sons Sebastiano Caboto and Janus Verrazanus (Giovanni da Verrazzano). During the New France era, France also occupied parts of Northern Italy and there was a significant Italian presence in the French military forces in the colony. Notable were Alphonse de Tonty, who helped establish Detroit, and Henri de Tonti, who journeyed with La Salle in his exploration of the Mississippi River. Italians made up a small portion of the population; in 1881, only about 2,000 people of Italian origin lived in Canada. A number of Italians were imported to work as navvies in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
A substantial influx began in the early twentieth century when over 60,000 Italians moved to Canada between 1900 and 1913. These were largely peasants from rural southern Italy and agrarian parts of the north-east (Veneto, Friuli). Approximately 40,000 Italians came to Canada during the interwar period of 1914 to 1918, predominantly from southern Italy where an economic depression and overpopulation had left many families in poverty. They mainly immigrated to Toronto and Montreal, both of which soon had large Italian communities, up to 2% of Toronto's population in 1921. Smaller communities also arose in Hamilton, Vancouver, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Sherbrooke, Quebec City, Sudbury and the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area. Many also settled in mining communities in British Columbia, Alberta, Cape Breton Island and Northern Ontario. The Northern Ontario cities of Sault Ste. Marie and Fort William were quite heavily populated by Italian immigrants. The 1905 Royal Commission appointed to Inquire into the Immigration of Italian Labourers to Montreal and alleged Fraudulent Practices of Employment Agencies exposed the abuses of immigration agents known as padroni.
This migration was largely halted after World War I, new immigration laws in the 1920s, and the Great Depression limited Italian immigration. During World War II, Italian-Canadians, as well as German-Canadians were regarded with suspicion and faced a great deal of discrimination. As part of the War Measures Act, between 1940 and 1943, approximately 600 to 700 Italian-Canadian men were arrested and sent to internment camps, such as Camp Petawawa as potentially dangerous enemy aliens with alleged fascist connections – in what was the period of Italian Canadian internment. While many Italian-Canadians had initially supported fascism and Benito Mussolini's regime for its role in enhancing Italy's presence on the world stage, most Italians in Canada did not harbour any ill will against Canada and few remained committed followers of the fascist ideology. In 1990, former prime minister Brian Mulroney apologized for the war internment to a Toronto meeting of the National Congress of Italian Canadians.
A second wave occurred after the Second World War when Italians, especially from the Lazio, Abruzzo, Friuli, Veneto, Campania, Calabria, and Sicily regions, left the war-impoverished country for opportunities in a young and growing country. Many Italians from Istria and Dalmatia also immigrated to Canada, during this period, as displaced persons (see Istrian exodus). Between the early 1950s and the mid-1960s, approximately 20,000 to 30,000 Italians immigrated to Canada each year. By the 1960s, more than 15,000 Italian men worked in Toronto's construction industry, representing one third of all construction workers in the city at that time. In the late 1960s, the Italian economy experienced a period of growth and recovery, removing one of the primary incentives for emigration.
Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia was an influential port of Italian immigration between 1928 until it ceased operations in 1971, where 471,940 individuals came to Canada from Italy making them the third largest ethnic group to immigrate to Canada during that time period.
^ The GTA (York Region) communities of Vaughan and King, Ontario, with Vaughan being located just north of Toronto, and King being just north of Vaughan, have nearly 100,000 and 10,000 Italian Canadian residents respectively, each accounting for over 30% of their respective total population; these two areas have the largest concentrations of Italian Canadians in Canada.
The first multicultural radio station in Canada (CFMB) began broadcasting at Montreal in 1962. Founded by Casimir Stanczykowkski , a Pole, peak hours programming was nonetheless mostly in Italian. Four years later, in 1966, Johnny Lombardi founded a similar radio station (CHIN) in Toronto. CFMB has become a cultural bulwark for Italians in Montreal; however, the station's programming is often criticized as being geared only toward the older generations. Hardly any new pop songs from Italy, for instance, receive airtime, and older songs from the 1970s and 1980s are usually privileged. A short programme on Friday afternoons, Spazio ai giovani, was introduced to address these criticisms. In late 2011, Serie A and some Serie B also found a home in Toronto, thanks to Stereo Serie A Radio on Radio Regent. The weekly show was made accessible via podcast on iTunes, Stitcher and Castroller.
Dan Iannuzzi founded the first multicultural television station in Canada (CFMT-TV), which began operations at Toronto in 1979. Now owned by Rogers Communications, the service has spun off into two multicultural television services in southern Ontario: OMNI-1 and OMNI-2.
In 1997, a reform of the city's multicultural television station (CJNT) saw a drastic decline in the quality of all programming and major cuts to airtime. At one time, CJNT was on air for less than twelve hours a day. The CanWest Global company later purchased the station and has since improved programming. Nevertheless, there is now little Italian programming shown.
Telelatino (TLN) of Toronto, is widely available through cable distribution. Though offering programmes in both Spanish and Italian, most of TLN's revenue (70%) is derived from the latter. TLN, along with RAI International, an arm of the Italian state broadcaster RAI, has recently been at the centre of a dispute over Italian-language broadcasting in Canada. Telelatino had carried since 1984 some RAI content in addition to locally produced shows and dubbed Spanish programming from Latin America. By the beginning of this decade, however, there was growing dissatisfaction with TLN programming, especially in Montreal. Critics in Montreal labelled TLN's locally produced shows too "Torontocentric" and poked fun at dubbed Spanish programming bought from Latin American stations. Most of these latter shows were soap operas filmed in the 1980s. Mediaset Italia is also available.
In 2003, RAI Italia pulled its content from Telelatino and petitioned the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to set up its own channel. This effort was backed by Rogers Communications. The Italian community in Montreal was almost wholly in favour of admitting RAI. The Committee for Italians Living Abroad in Montreal (COM.IT.ES.), an arm of the Italian foreign ministry, led the campaign to have RAI admitted. The Italian community in Toronto, however, was divided. Some in Toronto saw the move as part of a scheme by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to gain greater influence over the Italian-language media in Canada. Italian law provides the Italian diaspora votes in Italian elections and permanent seats in the Italian parliament. Unlike the more independent Telelatino, RAI was widely seen as pro-Berlusconi. Those in favour of the RAI in Montreal pointed out that TLN quickly replaced its RAI programming with shows bought from SKY, a private television network. Berlusconi is said to have much more control over his private TV companies than over the state-run RAI.
The first Italian-language newspaper in Canada was Il Lavoratore, an anti-Fascist publication which was founded in Toronto in 1936 and active for two years. Then came La Voce degli Italo Canadesi, founded in Toronto (1938-1940) and Il Cittadino Canadese, founded in Montreal in 1941, followed by La Vittoria of Toronto, in 1942-1943. After WWII came Il Corriere Italiano, founded by Alfredo Gagliardi in Montreal in the early 1950s. Corriere Canadese, founded by Dan Iannuzzi in 1954, is Canada's only Italian-language daily today and is published in Toronto; its weekend (English-language) edition is published as Tandem.
Eyetalian magazine was launched in 1993 as a challenging, independent magazine of Italian-Canadian culture. It encountered commercial difficulty, and leaned towards a general lifestyle magazine format before concluding publication later in the 1990s. Italo of Montreal is published sporadically and is written in Italian, with some articles in French and English, dealing with current affairs and community news. La Comunità, while an older publication, was taken over by the youth wing of the National Congress of Italian Canadians (Québec chapter) in the late 1990s. It experimented with different formats but was later cancelled due to lack of funding. In the 1970s the trilingual arts magazine Vice Versa flourished in Montreal. In, 2003 Domenic Cusmano founded Accenti, the magazine with an Italian accent which focused on culture and Italian-Canadian authors.
Italian-Canadian literature emerged in the 1970s as young Italian immigrants began to complete university degrees across Canada. This creative writing exists in English, French, or Italian. Some writers like Antonio D'Alfonso, Marco Micone, Alexandre Amprimoz and Filippo Salvatore are bilingual and publish in two languages. The older generation of authors like Maria Ardizzi, Romano Perticarini, Giovanni Costa and Tonino Caticchio publish in Italian or in bilingual volumes. In English the most notable names are novelists Frank G. Paci, Nino Ricci, Caterina Edwards, Michael Mirolla and Darlene Madott. Poets who write in English include Mary di Michele, Pier Giorgio DiCicco and Gianna Patriarca. In 1986 these authors established the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers, and by 2001 there were over 100 active writers publishing books of poetry, fiction, drama and anthologies. With the 1985 publication of Contrasts: Comparative Essays on Italian-Canadian Writing by Joseph Pivato, the academic study of this literature started, leading to the exploration of other ethnic minority writing in Canada and inspiring other scholars such as Licia Canton, Pasquale Verdicchio and George Elliott Clarke. The important collections of literary works are: The Anthology of Italian-Canadian Writing (1998) edited by Joseph Pivato and Pillars of Lace: The Anthology of Italian-Canadian Women Writers (1998) edited by Marisa De Franceschi. See also Writing Cultural Difference: Italian-Canadian Creative and Critical Works (2015) editors Giulia De Gasperi, Maria Cristina Seccia, Licia Canton and Michael Mirolla.
On October 25, 2012, the Government of Canada announced its support of a project highlighting Italian-Canadian contribution to Canada. Funding aimed at raising awareness of the contributions of Canadians of Italian heritage in the development and settlement of Canada was announced by Julian Fantino, Minister of International Cooperation and Member of Parliament for Vaughan, on behalf of Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is providing $248,397 in funding under the Inter-Action Program to the Toronto district of the National Council of Italian Canadians (NCIC) to develop a curriculum intended for both primary and secondary level classes. The project is entitled "Italian Heritage in Canada Curriculum."
^ a b c Statistics Canada. "Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity Highlight Tables".
^ "Census of Population". Statistics Canada.
^ a b "Italian Canadians". thecanadianencyclopedia.
^ a b c d e f "History - Pier 21". www.pier21.ca.
^ Sturino, Franc (1990). Forging the chain: a case study of Italian migration to North America, 2000-1930. Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario. p. 168. ISBN 0-919045-45-6.
^ "Italian Canadians as Enemy Aliens: Memories of World War II". www.italiancanadianww2.ca.
^ "Italians seek new apology from Canada for wartime internments". The Globe and Mail. 30 April 2010.
^ "Province or territory". Statistics Canada.
^ "Census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations". Statistics Canada.
^ "Census subdivisions with 5,000-plus population". Statistics Canada.
^ Fairbridge, Jerry (January 2002). "Lombardi, Johnny (1915-2002)". Biographies. Canadian Communications Foundation. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
^ "The Government of Canada announces support to project highlighting Canadian-Italian contribution to Canada". canada.ca. 25 October 2012.
Harney, Nicholas DeMaria. "Ethnicity, Social Organization, and Urban Space: A Comparison of Italians in Toronto and Montreal" (Chapter 6). In: Sloan, Joanne (editor). Urban Enigmas: Montreal, Toronto, and the Problem of Comparing Cities (Volume 2 of Culture of Cities). McGill-Queen's Press (MQUP), January 1, 2007. ISBN 0773577076, 9780773577077. Start p. 178.
Multicultural Canada website includes digitized books, newspapers and documents, as well as Italian Canadian women oral history and photographic education.
The 1978 Vancouver Whitecaps season was the fifth season of the Whitecaps, and their fifth year in the North American Soccer League and the top flight of Canadian soccer.
This was manager Tony Waiter's first full season with the club. The team was dominant in the 1978 with 68 goals scored, a thirteen-game winning streak, and a 24-6 record – tied with the dramatically higher spending powerhouse New York Cosmos for the best record in the NASL. The Whitecaps achieved this with mainly unrecognized players, nicknamed the "English Mafia" for primarily English foreign players coupled with locals including Italian-Canadians. Due to the large number of teams, 24, the season was not set up with a balanced home and away schedule with some teams played twice, others once, and still others not at all. After the league during the playoff tournament in which 16 of 24 teams competed, the Whitecaps defeated Toronto Metros-Croatia in front of 30,811 at Empire Stadium (at the time the largest crowd to see two Canadian teams play against each other) before being upset by the Portland Timbers in the quarterfinals two games to nil.'King' Kevin Hector led the Whitecaps with 21 goals and ten assists while tying for fourth in the golden boot race. Bob Lenarduzzi also had a strong season on the score sheet with ten goals and seventeen assists along with Bob Campbell and John Craven. Phil Parkes was the top goalkeeper in the NASL with 29 games played, a 0.95 GAA and 10 clean sheets. Alan Hinton, Steve Kember, and Bob Bolitho also were main contributors over the season. Despite the team's record and strong attendance at fifth highest in the league, the club received little recognition at the All Star Game with only Kevin Hector and John Craven named to the second team. They recouped that recognition though with Tony Waiters awarded Coach of the Year and the North American Player of the Year awarded to Bob Lenarduzzi.
The 1982 Ice Hockey World Championships took place in Finland from the 15 April to the 29 April. The games were played in Helsinki and Tampere. Eight teams took part, and each played each other once. The four best teams then played each other once more. This was the 48th World Championships, and also the 59th European Championships of ice hockey. The Soviet Union became World Champions for the 18th time, and also won their 21st European Championship.
The tournament is notable since Canada, reinforced by Wayne Gretzky, would have won the silver if the Soviet team had won against Czechoslovakia in the final game. However, the teams tied the game 0–0. Gretzky did score more points than any other player in the tournament (14), in his only appearance at the World Championships, but the Soviet Union's Viktor Shalimov was selected as the "Best Forward" of the tournament.Other notable events include: The Czechs lost to the Germans for the first time in forty-five years. The Italians, by beating the Americans, became the first promoted team since the tournament expanded to eight, to survive relegation. And they did so using seventeen Italian Canadians.
Canada–Italy refers to the current and historical relations between Canada and Italy. Both nations enjoy friendly relations, the importance of which centres on the history of Italian migration to Canada. Approximately 1.5 million Canadians claim to have Italian ancestry (approximately 4.6% of the population). Both nations are members of the G7, G20, NATO and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The Canadian Assemblies of God (CAOG) (formerly the Italian Pentecostal Church of Canada or IPCC) is a Pentecostal denomination in Canada with origins in Pentecostal ministry among Italian Canadians extending back to 1912. It is one of three Canadian branches of the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal denomination. The other two branches are the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador. The group shares identical beliefs and close cooperation with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. It is also associated with the Assemblies of God in Italy and the Christian Church of North America.
Davenport is a neighbourhood northwest of downtown in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is north of the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and Dupont Avenue and south of Davenport Road and the ridge that is the former Lake Iroquois coastline. Its eastern boundary is Bathurst Street and it stretches west to Lansdowne Avenue.
The neighbourhood lends its name to federal, provincial and municipal ridings that cover it and a number of neighbouring areas.
Dean A. Del Mastro (born August 16, 1970) is a former Canadian politician. He represented Peterborough in the House of Commons of Canada as a member of the Conservative Party from January 23, 2006 until November 5, 2014. Del Mastro was elected on three occasions growing both his vote total and margin of victory in each successive election. Following a conviction on charges that he had exceeded his poltical donation limit to himself by $18,600 and failed to report the donation thereby exceeding his allowable spending limit he resigned from parliament. He had served as the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.
The Defence of Canada Regulations were a set of emergency measures implemented under the War Measures Act on 3 September 1939, a week before Canada's entry into World War II.
The extreme security measures permitted by the regulations included the waiving of habeas corpus and the right to trial, internment, bans on certain political and cultural groups, restrictions of free speech including the banning of certain publications, and the confiscation of property.
Section 21 of the Regulations allowed the Minister of Justice to detain without charge anyone who might act "in any manner prejudicial to the public safety or the safety of the state."The Regulations were used to intern opponents of World War II, particularly fascists (like Adrien Arcand) and Communists (including Jacob Penner, Bruce Magnuson and Tom McEwen) as well as opponents of conscription such as Quebec nationalist and Montreal mayor Camillien Houde. It was under the regulations that Japanese Canadians were interned and their property confiscated for the duration of the war. German Canadians were required to register with the state and some German and Italian Canadians were detained. The Regulations were also used to ban the Communist Party of Canada in 1940 as well as several of its allied organizations such as the Young Communist League, the League for Peace and Democracy, the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association, the Finnish Organization of Canada, the Russian Workers and Farmers Clubs, the Polish Peoples Association and the Croatian Cultural Association, the Hungarian Workers Clubs and the Canadian Ukrainian Youth Federation. Various fascist groups were also banned such as the Canadian National Socialist Unity Party and the Canadian Union of Fascists. Non-communist labour leaders like Charles Millard were also interned.
A number of prominent Communist Party members were detained until 1942 when the Soviet Union joined the Allies. Fascist leaders such as Adrien Arcand and John Ross Taylor were detained for the duration of the war.
Downsview was a provincial riding in Ontario, Canada. It was created for the 1963 provincial election, and was retained until redistribution in 1999. Downsview was located in North York, which was previously part of Metropolitan Toronto and is now part of the City of Toronto. It was formed from part of the original riding of York Centre. In 1996 it was merged into a newly reconstituted riding of the same name.
For most of its history, Downsview was a hotly contested marginal seat between the Liberals and the New Democratic Party. Its final representative, however, was a Progressive Conservative: Annamarie Castrilli was elected as a Liberal in 1995, but crossed parties on the last sitting day of the legislature before the 1999 election.
The riding's demographics and boundaries shifted throughout its existence. In the 1960s, it consisted of the area of the borough of North York between Bathurst Street and Keele Street. During this period, the riding had a large Jewish community, representing about 40% of the population. In the 1975 election, the eastern, predominantly Jewish section of the riding was redistributed to the riding of Wilson Heights and the riding became predominantly Italian. Odoardo Di Santo, elected as a New Democrat in 1975, was one of the first three Italian-Canadians to serve in the Ontario legislature.
Galati Brothers Supermarkets was a family owned and run Italian grocery store chain in the Toronto area. Founded in 1958 by Tony Galati & Frank Galati, the stores were smaller than traditional supermarkets and carried many Italian items. Most of the stores were located in areas where there was a large number of Italian-Canadians. Some stores have been branded separately as Galati Market Fresh. Galati Brothers Supermarkets came to a close when then its final store (2592 Finch Avenue West) was sold upon the retirement of Tony Galati. Galati Market Fresh is still running in North York, on Leslie Street by Frank Galati's two children Robert and Grace Galati.
Italian Canadian internment was the removal and internment of Italian Canadians during World War II following Italy's June 10, 1940, declaration of war against the United Kingdom.Days later, Minister of Justice, Ernest Lapointe, signed the order that resulted in labeling 31,000 Italian Canadians as "enemy aliens". With habeas corpus suspended, between 1940 and 1943, between 600 and 700 Italian Canadian men were arrested and sent to internment camps as potentially dangerous enemy aliens with alleged fascist connections. While many Italian Canadians had initially supported fascism and Benito Mussolini's regime for its role in enhancing Italy's presence on the world stage, most Italians in Canada did not harbour any ill will against Canada and few remained committed followers of the fascist ideology.
Montreal has an Italian Canadian community. As of 2007, 17.6% of the ethnic Italians in Canada live in Montreal.Montreal's Italian community is one of the largest in Canada, second only to Toronto. With 279,795 residents of Italian ancestry as of the 2016 census in Greater Montreal, Montreal has many Italian districts, such as La Petite-Italie, Saint-Leonard (Città Italiana), Rivière-des-Prairies, and LaSalle. Italian is the third most spoken language in Montreal and in the province of Quebec. There is such a large number of Italian Canadians in Montreal that when Italy won the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the number of Italian Montrealers taking to the streets to celebrate en masse resulted in the closure of many major streets, such as Saint Laurent Boulevard.
Toronto has a large Italian Canadian community, with 30.5% of the ethnic Italians in Canada living in the Greater Toronto Area as of 2016. Toronto is home to the fourth largest Italian population outside of Italy, behind Sao Paulo, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and New York City, respectively. As of the Canada 2016 Census, there were 484,360 Italian Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area."Soldiers of fortune" and educated people from Italy immigranted to Toronto prior to the 1850s. Toronto absorbed pedlars and craftspeople from northern Italy until the 1880s. 17 Italians lived in Toronto by 1860. Additional tradespeople arrived by 1870. After the 1880s many came from northern Italy, with most being from Genoa. The occupations tended to be craftspeople, service tradespeople, and pedlars.Italian immigration continued into the post-World War II era. 90% of the Italians who immigrated to Canada after World War II remained in Canada. During that period the community still had fluency in the Italian language.
Italian South Africans (Italian: Italo-sudafricani) are South Africans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. They are primarily descended from Italians who emigrated to South Africa during the late 19th century and early 20th century.
This is a list of notable Italian Canadians who have been established in Canada. This list takes into account the entire Canadian population, which consists of Canadian citizens (by birth and by naturalization), landed immigrants and non-permanent residents and their families living with them in Canada as per the census.
Marisa Ferretti Barth (born April 28, 1931) is a former Canadian Senator.
The National Congress of Italian Canadians is an umbrella organization that represents Italian Canadian organizations in Canada. It was founded in 1974 as a successor to the Federation of Italian Canadian Associations. The congress has a federated structure with seven district organizations.
Rai Italia is the international television service of Rai Internazionale, a subsidiary of RAI, Italy's public national broadcaster. Rai Italia operates a television network that broadcasts around the world via 3 localized feeds. Programming features a mix of news, discussion-based programmes, drama and documentaries as well as sports coverage including 4 live games per week from Italy's top football league, Serie A.
The Rassemblement des citoyens et citoyennes de Saint-Léonard (RCSL) was a short-lived municipal political party in the suburban community of Saint-Leonard in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The party was created in June 1985 by Rosario Nobile, a thirty-five-year-old lawyer who had previously run for council in 1982 as a candidate of the Union municipale de Saint-Léonard (UMSL).Saint-Leonard was governed by Raymond Renaud's Ralliement de Saint-Léonard in the mid-1980s, and three other opposition parties were already operating in the city when the RCSL was founded. Nobile initially said that he was open to merging his group with the other parties, but he later changed his position, saying, "If they're honorable, they should come with me, because they have nobody." Domenico Moschella, the leader of the rival Action civique de Saint-Léonard, "This guy thinks he's God's gift to humanity [...] If anything, he should join us - not us join him." This exchange notwithstanding, Nobile's party won the support of UMSL leader Rosario Ortona, who dissolved his party to join the new organization.Nobile was the RCSL's mayoral candidate in the 1986 Saint-Leonard municipal election, and the party fielded a full slate of candidates for the city's twelve council districts. Nobile described his party as a grassroots organization, likening it to Jean Doré's Montreal Citizens' Movement in the city of Montreal; of the RCSL's candidates, only Ortona had prior experience as an elected official. Almost all of the party's candidates were Italian Canadians, and Nobile said that he would both enhance French- and English-language services and encourage the hiring of city employees who were fluent in Italian.Shortly before election day, Nobile predicted the RCSL would win every seat on council. In the event, he finished fourth the mayoral contest and the party failed to win any seats. It seems to have disappeared shortly after the election.
Swiss Canadians are Canadian citizens of Swiss ancestry or people who emigrated from Switzerland and reside in Canada. According to the 2011 Census there were 146,830 Canadians who claimed Swiss ancestry, having an increase compared to those 137,775 in the 2006 Census.