THE HONOURABLE FRANK IACOBUCCI , C . C ., Q . C .

Hon . Franck Iacobucci

Continued from Panorama June edition

Immigration was slowed by the outbreak of World War I , and remained low throughout the inter war period and the Depression . My father went to Vancouver from Abruzzo in 1922 and my mother from Calabria in 1925 , well before Pier 21 in Halifax . When Mussolini joined the Axis powers in World War II , Canadian hostility towards fascism became directed at Italian Canadians , who were designated ‘ enemy aliens ’. As enemy aliens , my mother and father had to report monthly to the RCMP . When I was 5 or 6 years old , I remember going with my mother on some of the monthly visits . Many men lost jobs ( including my father who had been working at the airport ), had their businesses vandalized , and found their civil liberties suspended under the War Measures Act . Most infamously , hundreds of Italian- Canadians were interned for years at Camp Petawawa in Ontario . Included in this group was my older brother ’ s father-in-law who was in Petawawa for over two years and lost his bakery business in Vancouver . While a minority of these men had connections to fascist groups in Canada , most were not : the large majority of naturalized Canadians were not disloyal to Canada , and most simply had ( often tenuous ) connections to various lodges and clubs of the Italian- Canadian community . For example , my brother ’ s father-in-law joined a fascist club because he was selling Panini from his bakery to club members . Of course they were not given any due process whatsoever in the loss of their liberty . The interned men had to work on roads , or deep in woods clearing brush and cutting timber , for which they were paid 20 cents a day ; as I said many lost their businesses , and letters from home were censored and no family visits . Among those interned was James Franceschini , Canada ’ s first Italian-born millionaire , who had made his fortune after founding Dufferin Construction in 1918 . Franceschini ultimately had many of his properties confiscated by the government .

Because of the stigma associated with Italian heritage during this period , many Italian-Canadians chose to anglicize their names : Rossini became Ross , Riccioni became Richards , Giacomo became Jackman .

As Italy joined the ranks of liberal democracies and was integrated 4 into Western security arrangements following WWII , the barrier to further Italian immigration to Canada was removed . The number of Italian immigrants to Canada exploded , with approximately half a million arriving between 1950 and 1970 . The large numbers were a result of ‘ chain migration ’: Italian families , immediate and extended , were large and links extended to neighbouring villages . Thus , as one writer notes , an entire commune would sometimes come , over the course of a decade or two , from Italy to a new home in Canada . Each year tens of thousands of Italian immigrants moved

through the port of Halifax , with as many as two-thirds bound for Toronto , which overtook Montreal as the largest Italian- Canadian community , and ultimately one of the largest settlements of Italians living outside Italy . A great many went to work on the Gardiner expressway , or other construction / labour jobs in the Toronto suburbs , since Italians were shunned by British or Irish dominated unions , and not recruited to work in prized downtown Toronto jobs .

Like the immigrants in the Northern Ontario twin cities at the turn of the 20th century , Toronto ’ s Italian labourers played a significant role in labour rights struggles . A major turning point was 1960 : a tunnel was being dug under the Don River along the route of the aqueduct intended to serve the then burgeoning urbanization of North York . The tunnel collapsed during a night shift , killing five Italian workers . Only two months later , in a dockyard near Weston Road , an Italian digger was buried alive in a landslide . These incidents came to be seen as emblematic of the mistreatment of Italian workers , leading to major strikes and demonstrations that were covered by the English-speaking press as the “ revolt of the immigrants ” Ultimately the labour agitation resulted in to government commissions and reviews of lax labour regulations , and ultimately embryonic collective agreements .

In addition to Toronto , the Italian immigrants would go to established Italian communities in Montreal , Sault Ste . Marie and Thunder Bay . Large numbers also made their way to British Columbia , where 40,000 had settled by the late 1950s , including 20,000 in Vancouver , with men at work in lumbering , mining , fishing and farming . In contrast to the general pattern of Italian immigrants coming largely from the South , the Italian community in B . C . comes mostly from the North ( Trentino , Friuli , Veneto ).

Men ostensibly arrived under one year contracts for hard physical labour , but the great majority in fact were coming as permanent settlers , later sponsoring their wives , children and other relatives . Family “ chain migration ” from Italy was so extensive that by 1958 , Italy surpassed Britain as a source for immigrants . In fact , the Italians were marked as the largest ethnic group in the nation after the English , French and Germans . This massive wave of Italian immigration only slowed when new regulations were introduced in 1967 that based admissibility on universal criteria , and confined family sponsorship to a limited range of relatives .

Unfortunately , Italian immigrants continued to be the subjects of discrimination and prejudice .. As Bagnell notes , even in the 1960s , “ so many decades after the ignominy of the war years , the derision lingered , less coarse or explicit , but fixed and ingrained ”. One of the more endemic ( and harmful ) manifestations of this prejudice found expression in the education system , where vocational guidance counsellors steered Italian- Canadian children away from university academic study and instead to trades and clerical jobs ( euphemistically labelled ‘ streaming ’).

Here I inject another personal episode . In 1957 while at UBC I was an undergraduate in Commerce . I was asked by my Economics Statistics professor ( Tadek Matuzewski ) what I wanted to do in life . As I had done well in his statistics course , I was one of his lab assistants . When I told him I wanted to be a lawyer , he said I shouldn ’ t because “ I didn ’ t have the right name .” He suggested we go talk to John Deutsch , then Chairman of the Political Economy Department and later President of Queen ’ s University . Fortunately Deutsch said Canada “ was changing ” and I should go to law school if that is what I wanted . But I still wondered why would anyone ’ s last name be a barrier to what career he or she wished to pursue .

I . Profile of Italian- Canadians Today

According to the 2011 census ( the most recent statistics I found ) , just under 1.5 million Canadians claim full or partial Italian ancestry . About 60 % of Italian- Canadians live in Ontario , 21 % and Quebec and 10 % in B . C . By far the largest concentration of Italians immigrants is in Toronto , where there are nearly half a million people of Italian origin . The second largest community is Montreal , where there are over a quarter million . As a percentage of population , the Canadian community with the highest proportion of Italian residents is Sault Ste . Marie , where fully 20 % of residents claim Italian heritage . In descending order , other large concentrations of Italian- Canadians are found in the following communities : Vancouver , Hamilton , St . Catherines-Niagara , Ottawa , Windsor , Calgary , Edmonton , London , Winnipeg , Thunder Bay , Sudbury , Oshawa .

Of the Italian immigrants who came following WWII , over 75 % of the first generation were employed in low-income occupations . However this changed dramatically with the second and subsequent generations . Already by the 1980s , the children of Italian immigrants had achieved a level of higher education equal to the national average . Today , Italian-Canadians are well-represented across professions , especially business , academics , education , politics , law , and medicine , and have a higher rate of homeownership than the national average . While certain stereotypes persist ( e . g ., that Italian-Canadians are indelibly associated with the mobsters ), the level of prejudice against Italian-Canadians has lessened dramatically as they have advanced and become fully integrated into broader Canadian society .

As a small example of the transformation of both the attitudes and engagement of Canadians of Italian origin , I point out that I was appointed successively by then Prime Minister Mulroney to be Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada , Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Canada and a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada . I mention this for two reasons . First , without the outstanding record of contributions and achievement of Italo-Canadians I don ’ t believe I would have been appointed to those positions . Second , the appointments reflect the importance of diversity and equality as a reality for Canada . As Italian Canadians we must all do our part to ensure that Canada continues to go forward not backward in that respect . To conclude , I wish to say that I profoundly cherish my Italian ancestry and I am immensely proud of my fellow Italian Canadians . And on July 1 I will celebrate not only Canada ’ s 150th but also those Italians who came to our country to contribute to its growth and development and paved the way for us and succeeding generations .

ItalianCanadian

Roberto Bandiera

Enzo Di Mauro

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Cav . Roberto Bandiera - co-publisher 416-726-3830

robertbandiera @ rogers . com

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