Ukrainian Diaspora in Canada

We cannot say that immigration from Ukraine to Canada is highly intensive, but on the other hand, it is also impossible to say that there are few people from Ukraine in Canada. Today, Canada has more than a million Ukrainian immigrants and their descendants identifying themselves as Ukrainians. By the size of Ukrainian diaspora, Canada takes the second place in the world. Only Russia has more immigrants from Ukraine, about four million.

If speaking of Ukrainian immigrants’ distribution in Canada, according to statistics, most Ukrainians live in the provinces of Ontario and Alberta. More than three hundred thousand people of Ukrainian origin live in those two provinces. As a consequence, these provinces have the most powerful and influential territorial Ukrainian diaspora.

From one to two hundred thousand of Ukrainians live in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. In the French-speaking province of Quebec, there are a little over thirty thousand of Ukrainians.

Other provinces of Canada do not have so many Ukrainian immigrants. But, first of all, that is due to the fact that the Atlantic provinces and Canada’s northern territories are not at all populous. And historically, since the first wave of emigration from Ukraine to Canada, our compatriots preferred to settle in the areas with the most developed agriculture. That’s why there are very few Ukrainians in the North.

More than a thousand public organizations established by Ukrainians are registered in the Canadian territory. These organizations act in all provinces of Canada. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is the supreme body of the Ukrainian community in the country. The above-mentioned ethnic organizations are also permanent members of the Congress. Toronto is the city where the headquarter of the Ukrainian World Congress is situated in. The UWC is the main representative body of immigrants from Ukraine throughout the world.

The objective of all these organizations is the preservation of a national identity, culture, and language, in the context of immigration. Particular attention is paid to the Ukrainian language studying by descendants of immigrants. There are 15 kindergartens on the territory of Canada, where communication is in Ukrainian, there are schools where the Ukrainian language is studied along with English, summer camps are organized for the purpose of the Ukrainian language learning. Ukrainian language, literature, culture, and history are taught in ten Canadian universities.