May 7th 2010
Tonight on the cold spring night at the grand banquet hall at Double Tree Hilton Hotel on 655 Dixon Road , Toronto marked the warm and grand inauguration ceremony of the first confederation of Fujian Associations in Canada . The event was well attended by over a thousand people. Mayor Hazel McCallion of Mississauga congratulated the organization and wished them every success. She congratulated Mr. Auyong the president of Pintan association in Canada who was elected by his peers among the sixteen Fujian Associations in Canada to lead this new organization as president of the Canadian Confederation of Fujian Association. Mr. Bob Dechert, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Erindale, delivered Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper’s greetings and congratulations to the Canadian Confederation of Fujian Association for their inauguration celebration.
Canada has always been a golden mountain to Chinese Migrants since the 1875 gold rush. In 1880 the first huge immigration of Chinese flooded the Western Canadian region to help build the national railway linking the Eastern Canada to Port Moody in BC. Chinese railway workers were the main labour force building the section of the Canadian Pacific Railway from the Pacific to Craigellachie the Eagle Pass in British Columbia . During 1871 when British Columbia agreed to join Confederation they demanded that the Dominion government build a railway linking B.C. with eastern Canada within 10 years.
This project set the stage for the first Chinese migration into Canada . Unfortunately, of the fifteen thousand Chinese workers for the Canadian Pacific only half on them survived this dangerous and treacherous construction project.
The early migrants were mainly from Guangdong (广东省 - Simplifies Chinese: 廣東省 – traditional Chinese; Guǎngdōng Shěng-pinyin) a province on the southern coast of the People’s Republic of China . In 1975 when I first arrived in Canada my ability to speak Mandarin was laughed at by the local Chinese and I was called a bamboo shoot because I couldn’t speak the local Cantonese dialect. However, in the past 5 years I have started to see more local Cantonese merchants and businessmen learning Mandarin due to the greater influx of Chinese migrants from China .
Tonight, is a new chapter in the Canadian Chinese history where a dialect other than Cantonese is setting the stage for the newcomers. For that reason a group of Chinese leaders from the Fujian province who have Canadian experience have decided to pool together their resources to form the Canadian Confederation of Fujian Associations in the hope of providing the support and help to these new immigrants. The associations hope to help these new pioneers to integrate into the Canadian Fabric and the Canadian multiculturalism as well as to enrich the Canada with the rich Fujian cultural heritage.
For more photos of tonight event check gallery below:-
