History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 250

disciplines outside traditional provincial programs, professionals, and skilled workers
in such specialties as biotechnology, aeronautics, and computer science.
The Belgians in Canada today constitute a relatively small community. In the 1961
census, 61,382 persons were identified as being of Belgian origin, but twenty years
later only 42,275 were so described. The apparent decline may be explained by
confusion between origin and identity on the part of both enumerators and
respondents, an increase in mixed marriages, and returns indicating multiple
ethnocultural origins. In 1991 only 31,475 persons said that they were of Belgian
origin, but another 59,435 indicated Belgian as one of their origins, for a total of
90,910. Flemings outnumber Walloons four to one and are found across the country,
with particularly important concentrations in southwestern Ontario and Manitoba.
Walloons have gravitated to Quebec and to small francophone communities across
the western provinces.
The population of Belgian origin is spread unevenly across the country. In comparative
terms, Quebec’s share of immigrants declined in the 1980s, while Ontario’s increased,
and that province also benefited from interprovincial migration. Some of these
immigrants and migrants went to Ontario’s tobacco belt, but the greater number
settled in the commercial and industrial “golden horseshoe” at the western end of Lake
Ontario. Elsewhere in Canada, communities have followed the general trend to
urbanization and occupational mobility. About 34.6 percent of the total population
(both single and multiple origin) is concentrated in Ontario, and Quebec and Manitoba
each have about 17 percent. The population is more rural than urban, except in
Quebec, where it is overwhelmingly centred in the Montreal region, and in British
Columbia, where more than half live in urban communities. In Manitoba one-third are
found in the greater Winnipeg region, while in Ontario, Belgian Canadians are
concentrated in the southwestern counties: until 1921 in Essex and Kent, but more
recently also in Norfolk County and in Metropolitan Toronto.

Arrival and Settlement
From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Belgians/Cornelius J. Jaenen

Belgian authorities had from the early days of outmigration been concerned about the
welfare of their emigrants. In 1842 regulations had been promulgated governing
conditions on board steamships. The following year a commission for the inspection of
emigrants was set up, and consular officials were required to include information in
their annual reports on the state of Belgian nationals abroad. By the 1890s the port of
Antwerp, which was served by all the major shipping lines, had an emigration
commissioner with a retinue of inspectors and medical officers to control departures,
enforce health standards, root out unscrupulous and unlicensed recruiting agents, and
generally counsel and assist emigrants.
Several charitable agencies assisted the officials. The Société de Protection des
Émigrants was founded in Antwerp in 1882 in response to a need voiced by Gustaaf
Vekeman, a journalist who had emigrated to Sherbrooke. He had deplored the lack of
an organization to care for emigrants in a country that had “societies for the
improvement of horses, pigeons, canaries and blind finches, and yet there was none
to improve the lot of farmers.” In 1888 L’Œuvre de l’Archange Raphael was organized
in Brussels to provide guidance, shelter, and even financial assistance to emigrant
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