Македонска Искра

How a community came to "Upper America"

By Krystyna Cap

"A city of unmatched diversity," wrote Toronto Star staff reporters Francine Kopun and Nicholas Keung after the release of the 2006 Canadian census. The community profile revealed that 45.7% of GTA residents were foreign born and almost half counted a language other than French or English as their mother tongue.[1] The results were not surprising as annual immigration targets hover around the 250,000 mark, with the GTA alone attracting in excess of 100,000 immigrants per year.[2]

Toronto's status as an immigrant-receiving centre is hardly recent. For well over a century, vigorous immigration policies pursued by previous cabinets have been instrumental in attracting multitudinous ethnic groups to its largest cities and thriving suburbs. A mere listing of the nationalities represented by Toronto's population today would undoubtedly resemble roll call at the United Nations, and for concrete evidence of our city's diversity we need only turn to the ethnic enclaves that dot the urban landscape.

Toronto is also home to the largest concentration of Macedonians outside of the Balkans, with estimates ranging from between 100,000 to 150,000 Macedonian-Canadians.[3] An active diaspora community with a rich history in Canada, the city's earliest migrants crossed the Atlantic as temporary economic sojourners, political refugees, and, later, as permanent settlers.

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