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First Ukrainians in Canada
The first Ukrainians came to Canada in the early-1890s. Between 1896 and 1914, 170000 Ukrainians made the trip from the overpopulated Austrian provinces of Galicia and Bukovyna to Canada. Many left their homelands to settle on the western prairies. They left their homeland because of heavy taxes and decreasing land areas available for farming. As a result many of the farmers were badly in debt
https://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/prairie_immigration/educational_site/illhist/08.shtml -
Settlement
In February of 1897, approximately 1100 Ukrainian immigrants arrived in several steamships. Some found jobs and remained in Winnipeg, others continued on to Alberta while 475 of these immigrants joined the settlers in the Dauphin area. Here at Sifton they built a chapel upon their arrival in 1897, which grew to a large centre presently encompassing nine parishes
http://archeparchy.ca/wcm-docs/docs/Ukrainian_Settlements_in_Manitoba.pdf -
Migration
Settlements spread in Manitoba to the Saskatchewan border where, in the area of Roblin, ten communities evolved; the first being Zelena in 1910, then Merridale in 1923,Shortdale in 1933, Roblin-farms in 1935, Petlura in 1936 and others. Directly west of Winnipeg a Ukrainian community was established in 1906 at Portage la Prairie which gave rise to a small Ukrainian farming community at St. Claude. -
Hardships + Discrimination
They faced persecution from native-born Canadians who discriminated against the Ukrainians because they spoke a foreign language and had different customs. Those who lived in cities, such as in Winnipeg’s north end, faced more of this treatment. This attitude grew stronger in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War when Austria-Hungary, the homeland of Ukrainian immigrants, became known as the enemy. -
World War I
Most of the immigrants settled in the three prairie provinces; the largest number going to Manitoba. In the rest of Canada, Ontario received the largest number. Between 1915 and 1925 there was negligible immigration because of the war and difficult economic conditions in Canada. However, between 1926 and 1929 approximately 50 thousand Ukrainians immigrated to Canada with an additional 16 thousand in 1939. -
Immigration Process
Many Ukrainians came to Canada under a secret agreement between the Canadian Government and the North Atlantic Trading Company. The North Atlantic Trading Company secretly received a payment from the government for every Ukrainian immigrant that it successfully directed to Canada. -
World War II
The next large wave of Ukrainian immigration occurred after the Second World War. In one year alone,between 1948 and 1949, 10,500 immigrants, mainly displaced persons from refugee
camps in Germany, entered Canada. The number of immigrants during the post war years of 1945-1954 totaled 34,232. In the 1951 census there were 14,004,429 people in Canada. Of these, 395,043 were of Ukrainian origin.