An excerpt from the book:


"ARCHIVAL SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF
FINNISH CANADIANS


Edward W. Laine

National Archives of Canada
395 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0N3
613-995-5138

ISBN:0-662-56435-9






ABBREVIATIONS


AASSC    Association for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies in Canada
ACTRA    Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists
CBC      Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
CC       Central Committee (of the CPC)
CEC      Central Executive Committee (of the CPC)
CCF      Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-Optas Co-operative Trading Association of Sudbury Limited
CPC      Communist Party of Canada
CRTC     Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission
FCASF    Finnish Canadian Amateur Sports Federation
FOC      Finnish Organization of Canada
FS/CPC   Finnish Section of the Communist Party of Canada
FS/WPC   Finnish Section of the Workers' Party of Canada
FSOC     Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada
FSS/WPC  Finnish Socialist Section of the Workers' Party of Canada
IWW      Industrial Workers of the World
NEC      National Executive Committee (of the CPC, FOC)
OBU      One Big Union
SDPC     Social Democratic Party of Canada
TUEL     Trade Union Educational League
WPC      Workers' Party of Canada
YCFO     Youth Clubs of the Finnish Organization
YCL      Young Communist League



A BRIEF HISTORICAL SURVEY
OF THE FINNISH-CANADIAN COMMUNITY

Finnish immigrants began to filter into Canada in growing
numbers around the early 1880s. Many of them have since made
their home here. According to the available census data,
Canadians of Finnish origin numbered 15,497 by 1911, 43,885 by
1931, and 59,346 by 1961. They gradually declined to 52,315 in
1981, owing in part to the lessening tide of immigration from
Finland in recent years. In the course of their settlement in
this country, Finns have contributed their native languages
(perhaps as many as 85 to 95 per cent of the newcomers spoke
Finnish, and the balance, Swedish), maternal culture and
religious beliefs as well as pre-migration economic and social
aspirations to the Canadian scene. This they did by founding
churches, temperance and cultural societies, sports clubs and
consumer co-operatives, as well as by publishing newspapers,
magazines and books to satisfy their own needs and to assist one
another to integrate into Canadian life. By imparting various
elements of their ancestral knowledge, experience, skills and
institutions to other Canadians, Finns have added significantly
to the development of Canadian society.

Precursors to the First Wave
of Finnish Immigration,
1875(?)-1899

As relative latecomers in the great trans-Atlantic migration of
Europeans to North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, Finnish immigrants were first drawn to
"Amerikka"-that is, the United States of America-in the early
1860s. By the outbreak of World War I, more than 200,000 Finns
had made their way to the shores of this continent, most of them
settling in the United States. From there, many made their way
into Canada in search of work and land to farm. Because the
Finnish-American community was older, much larger and better
established than its Canadian counterpart, the influence that it
exerted on the early development of the Finnish-Canadian
community was second only to that of the motherland. However,
because of the heavy traffic flow of Finns that soon arose
across the Canada-United States border, the same might well be
said of the later Finnish-Canadian influence on the
Finnish-American community.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the growing stream of
Finnish settlers from the United States and Finland had begun to
coalesce into tiny communities at such places as Nanaimo,
British Columbia; New Finland, Saskatchewan; and Copper Cliff,
Port Arthur, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto, Ontario. Already the
first manifestations of organized Finnish communal life had
appeared in 1890 with the founding of the Lännen Rusko
Raittiusseura (Western Glow Temperance Society) and the North
Wellingtonin Suomalainen Kirkko ja Seurakunta (North Wellington
Finnish Lutheran Church and Congregation) at North Wellington,
British Columbia. Thereafter, temperance societies and churches
were established wherever sufficient numbers of immigrant Finns
had concentrated.

The initial emphasis on religion and religious institutions was
a logical outgrowth of the predominant cultural values and
attitudes that the earliest Finnish settlers brought with them
from the Old Country These precursors to the first great wave of
Finnish immigration to Canada were primarily a politically
conservative and piously religious agrarian folk who had been
deprived of their traditional livelihood by the mounting
industrialization of Finland's agricultural economy. Whatever
their economic motives for being drawn here-whether to find
employment in Canada's great railway and canal
construction projects, in her growing mining and lumbering
industries, or in some other occupation for the purpose of
amassing sufficient funds to buy a farm here or back home in
Finland-almost everyone supported the establishment of Finnish
church congregations and temperance societies to combat the
"evils" plaguing them on Canada's industrial frontier.

However, the fact that an unusually large number of religious
dissenters were included in this group meant that there was no
unanimity on which denomination to support. Thus, the
Laestadians, or Apostolic Lutherans, who were seeking release
from the bonds of the state church in their old homeland
-the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland-now sought to make
use of the religious freedom that they enjoyed here to establish
their own non-conformist congregations. Meanwhile, the more
traditionalist element founded religious institutions that
adhered to the Suomi-Synod, a federation of Finnish
congregations in the United States and Canada that chose to
recognize the spiritual and moral authority of Finland's state
church. While some Finns felt the need to join other churches
for want of a Finnish congregation in their local area, others
deliberately chose to join "Canadian" churches as a means of
integrating themselves into the Anglo-Canadian mainstream. Many
of these churches encouraged this inclination, especially the
Presbyterian and United Churches, whose missionaries were noted
for their zeal in proselytizing amongst the Finns and other
"foreigners" with the aim of "Canadianizing" them. One of the
earliest and most distinguished of their Finnish converts was
the Reverend Arvi I. Heinonen, who first served in the
Presbyterian Church and, once it was formed, in the new United
Church of Canada. His long career as a successful preacher won
him a large following in the Finnish community.

The Swedish-speaking Finns also had another option, that of
joining a Swedish congregation in order to worship in their own
native language. An early example of such a linking of Swedish
and Finnish co-religionists occurred in the case of St. Ansgarius
Lutheran Church in Port Arthur, Ontario. Given their
extremely small numbers in Canada before World War I, and the
facility with which they were generally able to move into either
the Finnish, Swedish or Anglo-Canadian communities, the
Swedish-speaking Finns had neither the resources nor the
incentive to create their own independent religious, cultural or
social institutions. Moreover, because it was far easier for
Swedish-speakers to learn English than for Finnish-speakers,
Swedish-speaking Finns were generally better able to integrate
themselves into the Anglo-Canadian community than were their
Finnish-speaking compatriots. Hence, the former did not feel
compelled to maintain the same degree of communal adhesion and
collective activity that was so characteristic of the latter.

Yet, the fact remains that Canada's adherence to the right of
religious freedom was to have profound consequences on the whole
of the Finnish-Canadian community. These consequences were
twofold: the first was the creation and deepening of sectarian
rifts that divided the community; and the second was the
development and elaboration here of new lifestyles and cultural
patterns not normally encountered in Finland. Once freed from
the rigid class structure and public institutions native to the
Old Country the Finns in Canada could now evolve their own
uniquely Canadian socio-economic patterns and cultural content.
Like other peoples who preceded or followed them here from every
corner of the globe, these Finns both shaped and were shaped by
their new homeland, thereby creating an identifiable Finnish
presence that was truly indigenous to this country.


The First Wave
of Finnish Immigration,
1900-1914

Roughly a third of all Finnish immigrants to Canada arrived
between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I. This first great
wave of Finnish immigration issued from the fact that Finland
was then undergoing a major economic transformation as well as
being in the throes of an explosive political crisis vis-…-vis
her "russifying" sovereign, Nicholas II, who ruled as Tsar of
All the Russias and Grand Duke of Finland. These disruptions
proved so severe to the working-class poor that, in certain
regions of Finland, as many as twenty per cent of the landless
rural and urban workers were forced to seek a new life abroad.
Because so many of these working-class emigrants had also
forsaken religion for the secular doctrines of socialism as
their new road to salvation, the haalit (halls) of the
Finnish-Canadian community were marked by a spirit of increasing
secularization and radicalization after the turn of the century.

The first secularized, local Finnish cultural society made its
appearance in 1902 with the founding of the Toronton Suomalainen
Seura (which was legally incorporated in Ontario under the name
of Finnish Society of Toronto). Similar societies were
subsequently established in many other centres of Finnish
settlement. Secular and free-thinking by nature, these Finnish
cultural Societies quickly became hotbeds of socialist thought.
That enthusiasm for Socialism increased even more when news
arrived here of the remarkable successes achieved by the working
class in Finland in forcing concessions from the Imperial
Russian Government through the Suurlakko (Great Strike). This
was a paralysing general strike mounted by Finnish workers in
the grand duchy in conjunction with other anti-government
activities undertaken by Russian revolutionaries elsewhere in
the empire during the period of the Russian Revolution of 1905.
The lesson that the Finnish-Canadian socialists drew from the
Suurlakko was that they should join with other like-minded
elements in Canada to create a united socialist movement here.
Thus, in 1905, the Finnish Society of Toronto established under
its auspices the Socialist Party of Canada's first Finnish
Socialist Branch-the Toronton Suomalainen Sosialisti Liitto
(Finnish Socialist League of Toronto).  Thereafter, other
societies followed suit, with the result that many new Finnish
Socialist Branches were added to the ranks of the party. In
contrast, the Finnish community's earlier interest in single-purpose
temperance societies was already beginning to wane, and its drive
to establish new Finnish church congregations floundered until
the advent of renewed immigration from Finland during the 1920s.

Other manifestations of the increasing fascination of Finns with
socialism in one form or another included the establishment of
the Kalevan Kansa (Kaleva's People) colony at Sointula (Place of
Harmony) on Malcolm Island in 1901. This colony, which was led
by Matti Kurikka and A.B. Mäkelä, embodied the famed Finnish
attempt to fashion a utopian socialist community in the wilds of
British Columbia. As one of its more ambitious undertakings, the
colony founded Aika Printing Company Limited, which published
Aika (Time), the first Finnish-language newspaper in Canada,
from 1901 to 1904. With the bankruptcy of the colony's parent
Kalevan Kansa Colonization Company Limited, the more
secular-minded radicals became the dominant force in the
community. They founded the Finnish Publishing Company Limited
in Port Arthur, Ontario, together with its newspaper Työkansa
(The Work People) in 1907, the second Finnish-language newspaper
in this country. When the company failed in 1915, Työkansa
ceased publication and its printing equipment was sold to a
group of more conservative Finns who put out the non-socialist
Canadan Uutiset (The Canada News), the first of its kind and
the oldest Finnish-Canadian newspaper still in existence.

Before the end of the decade, the secularized, socialist Finnish
societies had become a significant force not only in the Finnish
community, but also in the Socialist Party of Canada. However,
in 1910, most of the socialist Finns were expelled from the
party because of a quarrel with its leadership. These
"dissidents" then decided to form their own Finnish Socialist
Organization of Canada (FSOC; in Finnish: Canadan Suomalainen
Sosialistijärjestö) in 1911. They were also instrumental in the
founding of the Canadian Socialist Federation in 1911, an
organization that subsequently reconstituted itself as the
Social Democratic Party of Canada (SDPC) later in the same year.
Moreover, the radical Finns demonstrated their wholesale support
of these new parties by affiliating the FSOC with them.

Serious rifts also developed in the community as relations
worsened between the more conservative, religious-minded
"Church" Finns and the radicals. These rifts deepened during the
course of World War I-especially after the outbreak of a short,
brutal and bloody civil war in Finland between the "Red" and
"White" factions during the first quarter of 1918. Because the
"Whites" had used German assistance to defeat the "Reds," the
Canadian government declared Finland to be an enemy country and
began treating all Finnish residents in Canada as "enemy-aliens"
under the powers of the War Measures Act. Although it initially
suspended all Finnish organizations and newspapers, the government
quickly shifted its attention to the radical left as it succumbed
to the hysteria of the "Red Scare" that swept across North America
in reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Thus, its real
aim soon became the quashing the "Red" FSOC, its newspaper Vapaus
(Liberty) and their supporters, rather than the "Church" Finns, their
organizations and newspaper Canadan Uutiset, which, in fact,
constituted the prime support of the "White" regime in Finland.
Hence, the government permitted Canadan Uutiset to reappear
before the end of 1918, but delayed Vapaus's publication until
almost a year later.

Following its suppression in 1918, the FSOC was not allowed to
resurface until severing its ties with the SDPC. It did so to
obtain the approval of the authorities, dropping the word
"Socialist" from its name to signify this new independent status
when it resumed operations in 1919. With the lapsing of the War
Measures Act in 1921, this "provisional" Finnish Organization of
Canada was again "reconstituted" as the FSOC. While the effect
of the government's actions under the Act may have persuaded
some of the more timid radicals to withdraw their support from
the Finnish-Canadian working-class movement, these measures did
not prove sufficient to quash the movement altogether.


The Second Wave
of Finnish Immigration,
1920-1931

Although the total number of persons leaving Finland after the
war drastically declined from pre-war levels, most of them were
destined for Canada, because the United States had placed a
severe quota on Finnish immigrants entering that country. As a
result, Canada was inundated by a second great wave of
immigration from Finland that was wholly comparable to the
first. Seared by memories of the recent turmoil in the Old
Country, the newcomers reinforced and enlarged the splits
between the "Red" and "White" factions here. The intense
rivalries issuing from this dichotomization of the community
greatly accelerated the growth and diversification of Finnish
organizational structures and activities during the inter-war period.

Once buttressed by the battle-hardened veterans of the Red Guard
newly arrived from Finland, the majority of socialist Finns were
propelled into the "Communist" camp. Under the leadership of
A. T. Hill, the PSOC was transformed into the Finnish Socialist
Section of the Workers' Party of Canada (FSS/WPC; in Finnish:
Canadan Työläispuolueen Suomalainen Sosialistijärjestö) in 1922.
Because "Communist" organizations were still forbidden to
operate openly at that time, the Workers' Party of Canada then
served as the "A" party or above-ground "mass" organization for
the underground Communist Party of Canada (CPC)-code-named the
"Z" party-that had been founded in Guelph, Ontario, in the
previous year. The FSOC, in becoming an integral component of
the Worker's Party, subjected itself to that party's discipline,
policies and objectives as enunciated by the leadership of the "Z" party.

A small minority of Finnish labour radicals, who had become
enthusiastic supporters of the One Big Union (OBU) and
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during the wartime hiatus
of the FSOC, refused to submit to "Communist" control. Instead,
they stubbornly clove to the IWW and its "revolutionary"
principles. Even after the IWW folded, that organization's
Finnish section continued to operate independently for several
decades under its former name-the Canadan Teollisuusunionistinen
Kannatusliitto (CTK Liitto; Support League of Canadian
Industrial Unionists). In time, however, the radicalism of its
adherents tended to moderate, and the locally based "socialist
clubs" of the CTK Liitto gradually evolved into "social clubs."

Meanwhile, the FSS/WPC, in seeking to distance itself from rival
socialist groups like the CTK Liitto, expunged the word
"Socialist" from its own name in 1924. Thereafter, it officially
became known as the Finnish Section of the Workers' Party of
Canada (FS/WPC; in Finnish: Canadan Työläispuolueen Suomalainen
Järjestö). Then, in 1924, the FS/WPC adopted a new identity as
the Finnish Section of the Communist Party of Canada (FS/CPC; in
Finnish: Canadan Kommunistipuolueen Suomalainen Järjestö). With the
"bolshevization" of the Party in 1925, all of its foreign-language
sections were dissolved. In response to this, the FS/CPC
transferred its social, cultural and educational operations to
the Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC; in Finnish: Canadan
Suomalainen Järjestö), Inc., a corporate body that
originally had been established under federal charter in 1923 to
serve as the legal owner of record of the FSOC's considerable
assets. However, on becoming the central cultural institution of
the Finnish-Canadian working-class movement, the FOC quickly
grew to include nearly a hundred locals spread across the
country from Quebec to British Columbia.

Among its many social, cultural and educational undertakings,
the FOC established a play rental agency, the Canadan
Suomalaisten Järjestön Näytelmävarasto (FOC Play Inventory), in
the mid-1920s and later sponsored play-writing contests to
encourage the flowering of Finnish-Canadian theatre. In 1934,
the FOC nurtured the development of the Youth Clubs of the
Finnish Organization (YCFO; in Finnish: SJ Nuorisoklupit). The
following year it saw to the incorporation of Vapaus Publishing
Company Limited, first, for assuming responsibility for the
FOC's own "in-house" publishing arm and newspaper, Vapaus, and
secondly, for initiating new ventures such as the publication of
Liekki (The Flame), a literary weekly. Throughout the late 1920s
and the 1930s, the FOC also actively supported the involvement
of its membership in the activities of such organizations as the
Canadan Suomalaisten Työläisten Urheiluliitto (Finnish Canadian
Workers' Sports Association) and its successors, the Workers'
Co-operative of New Ontario Limited and the Lumber [and
Agricultural] Workers' Industrial Union of Canada, as well as
other organizations associated with the radical left in Canada.

The heavy influx of new arrivals from Finland (which ended in
1930 with the worsening of the Great Depression) also included a
large contingent of former adherents of the White Guard, most of
whom were absorbed into the conservative faction of the
Finnish-Canadian community.  The presence of these new "White" Finns
sparked a revival of religious interest and activity in the community
that manifested itself in the establishment of new congregations
belonging to the Suomalainen Evankelis-Luterilainen Kirkko (Finnish
Evangelical Lutheran Church), that is, the denomination that
represented Finland's state church in Canada. The "White"
newcomers also spearheaded the founding of locally based
Suomalaiset Kansallisseurat (Finnish National Societies) during
the late 1920s. By the early 1930s, these nationalistic
societies managed to unite themselves under the umbrella of the
Central Organization of the Loyal Finns in Canada (later renamed
the Loyal Finns in Canada; in Finnish: Kanadan Kansallismielisten
Suomalaisten Keskusliitto [originally, Keskusjärjestö], and
subsequently, Lojaalien Suomalaisten Keskusliitto) as their means
for combatting the influence of the "Red" FOC and securing
employment exclusively for their "reliable, `White' membership"
in times of severe economic depression, unemployment and radical
agitation across Canada during the "Hungry Thirties."

The number of Swedish-speaking Finns in this country also
increased as the result of the great tide of inter-war
immigration from Finland, particularly on the West Coast where
Swedish-speakers tended to gravitate. Like many of their
Finnish-speaking compatriots who arrived here at that time,
these newcomers also displayed a heightened sense of Finnish
nationalism. The effect of that patriotic fervour was shown in
the dramatic spread into Canada from the United States of the
Order of Runeberg, a Swedo-Finnish organization that soon was
able to boast of thriving member lodges in Vancouver and many
other parts of British Columbia. Indeed, the intensity of
Finnish nationalism felt by both Finnish-speaking and
Swedish-speaking "White" Finns was such that the two groups were
sometimes persuaded to forget their age-old linguistic
antagonisms in favour of sponsoring a variety of co-operative
endeavours as a viable alternative to the attractions of the
FOC, as they did, for example, with their fielding of a joint
athletic club in Vancouver.

Finland's "White" government also sought to nurture the rising
spirit of Finnish patriotism and conservatism sweeping through
the Finnish-Canadian community during the inter-war years. Its
base of operations in Canada was the consulate that it had
established in Montreal during the early 1920s and upgraded to
the status of consulate general in 1925. Akseli K.L. Rauanheimo,
who served first as consul and then as consul general until his
death in the early 1930s, became the chief instrument in
achieving his government's aims. For example, he championed the
establishment of the Montrealin Pyhän Mikaelin Suomalainen
Luterilainen Seurakunta (St. Michael's Finnish Lutheran
Congregation of Montreal) and Montrealin Suomalainen Seura
(Finnish Society of Montreal). He also enlisted the aid of the
Suomen Merimieslähetysseura (Finnish Seamen's Mission Society)
in Helsinki, which complied by sending Pastor Frithjof J.
Pennanen to Canada in 1927 with a mandate to establish and
maintain a Suomalainen Siirtolaiskoti (Finnish Immigrant Home)
in Montreal. Because Montreal was the major port of entry
and stopover for incoming Finnish immigrants, these
institutions effectively served as purveyors of official
Finland's religious and political ideologies to the new arrivals
who, once resuming their journeys to other parts of the country,
would then propagate these views across Canada.

The political authority of the FOC was challenged from another
quarter as well. A small group of social democrats led by
Reinhold Pehkonen and Bruno Tenhunen broke away from the FOC and
Vapaus in 1931, eventually establishing their own publishing
house with its newspaper Vapaa Sana (Free Press). The leadership
of that group also tried to associate itself with the
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a new Canadian
political party that was based on social-democratic principles.
They, especially through their control of Vapaa Sana, succeeded
in establishing themselves as the primary opposition to the FOC
in the community by the outbreak of World War II.

The Great Depression itself, of course, wreaked hardship on the
Finnish-Canadian community. The most recent newcomers from
Finland were most affected by the economic crash, for they had
not yet had time to learn either the English or the French
vernacular and otherwise adapt themselves to the needs of a
shrinking employment market. Rather than waste away in
bread lines and soup kitchens, many of them abandoned Canada for
supposedly "greener pastures" in the United States or returned
in disgust to Finland. The Finnish-Canadian working-class
movement was particularly hurt by the reemigration phenomenon of
the 1930s, for, in addition to those losses of its members to
the United States and Finland that it shared with the rest of
the community, it also suffered the further loss of some 2,000
of its most active and dedicated veterans, who emigrated to
Soviet Karelia between 1930 and 1935 in the belief that they
could find a better future in the "building of socialism in one
country" there. It also lost some of its most promising younger
members to the Spanish Civil War-those who had voluntarily
enlisted in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to fight and die on
behalf of the doomed Republican government in its losing
campaign of 1937-1938.


The Third Wave
of Finnish Immigration,
1948-1961

World War II proved to be a trying experience for the
Finnish-Canadian community. First, it witnessed the defeat of
Finland at the hands of the Soviet Union in the Winter War of
1939-1940, an event that further served to alienate its "Red"
and "White" elements. Then, from June 1940 until late 1943, the
FOC was banned under a new invocation of the War Measures Act.
When Finland launched its Continuation War of 1941-1944 in
concert with Germany's attack upon the Soviet Union, the
Canadian government once more declared Finns in this country to
be "enemy-aliens." When forced to capitulate to the Soviet Union
in 1944, Finland was saddled with paying an onerous reparations
bill to her former enemy as well as having to relocate many of
her citizens who had been forced to abandon their homes in those
Finnish territories that were now ceded to the Soviets. Finland's
desperate plight elicited such widespread sympathy here that,
for once, the whole of the Finnish-Canadian community united under
the auspices of the Canadan Suomiapuyhdistys (Canada-Finland Aid
Society Fund) in the common cause of collecting monies for her
postwar recovery.

With the normalization of relations between Canada and Finland,
a third great wave of Finnish immigration washed upon these
shores. For the most part, these immigrants were anti-Soviet and
anti-Communist, and, therefore, eschewed the FOC for harbouring
sympathies to the contrary.  Therein lay one of the chief reasons
for the FOC's decline in popularity and influence since the
war's end. Also contributing to the FOC's post-war decline was
the fact that the ravages of time were inexorably thinning its
ranks of loyal veterans who were not being replaced by their
Canadian-born offspring. The younger generations being better
assimilated into the Canadian mainstream and more upwardly
mobile than their parents, found little to attract them in the
activities of a left-wing immigrant organization, especially
after it had become the focus of the government's extreme
displeasure during the era of the Cold War and the spread of
McCarthyism into Canada.

Meanwhile, the right-wing elements in the community were being
rejuvenated and revitalized by the heavy influx into their midst
of a younger generation of immigrant Finns. Despite their
underlying antipathy towards the radical left, most of these
newcomers still prided themselves on being "apolitical." As the
influence of these post-war immigrants grew, it was they who
largely determined the demise of such highly politicized,
right-wing institutions as the Loyal Finns in Canada, the
"political neutralization" of others like Vapaa Sana, and the
creation of a new "non-political" national umbrella association,
the Kanadan Suomalainen Kulttuuriliitto (Finnish Canadian
Cultural Federation), about the turn of the 1970s to coordinate
the staging of the Kanadan Suomalaisten Suurjuhlat (Finnish
Canadian Grand Festivals) and to promote other cultural activities
and aspirations of its member organizations at the national level.

Even so, this "de-politicization" of the more conservative elements
in the Finnish-Canadian community proved not much more successful
in healing the breach between the "White" and "Red" Finns than did
the earlier transformation of the chief institutions of the latter
(that is, the FOC and related associations) from frontline political
agencies of the radical left into predominantly cultural institutions.
In other words, the historic differences dividing "Reds" and "Whites"
in the community were too powerfully felt to allow for any reconciliation
between the two sides even to the present day.  Nonetheless, there have
been signs of a new dynamic emerging in the community during the last
few decades, the effect of which has yet to be fully documented and
understood.


The Finnish-Canadian Community
from the 1960s to the Present

As the result of declining immigration from Finland since the
early 1960s, the now-predominant "apolitical" element has
already fallen heir to the same problems of an aging membership
that previously afflicted the Finnish-Canadian left.
Moreover, the few Finnish immigrants now entering this country
generally appear to be less willing to participate in organized
activities of the community than were their predecessors. As a
group, they are better educated and better equipped with
professional, semi-professional and linguistic skills than were
any of their earlier-arriving compatriots. Consequently, they
usually do not feel the same need to belong to, sponsor and
maintain "ethnic" support organizations of the type associated
with earlier arrivals here.

Other factors have also led to new attitudes and organizational
aspirations in the Finnish-Canadian community. Most important of
these has been the growing acceptance by Canadian society of the
notion that Canada largely comprises a nation of immigrants and
their descendants. Because this has made this country a more
receptive, tolerant and generous land towards her newcomers,
there has been less need on the part of recent Finnish
immigrants to band together into "defensive" associations to
protect themselves against the ill will of overtly hostile
nativists as was often the case in earlier decades. Moreover,
the intervention of federal, provincial and local governments
with policies of multiculturalism has also contributed both to
the diminution of nativism in Canadian society and the changed
focus of organizational life in the Finnish community. Then, too,
many of the younger Finnish Canadians have begun to appreciate
the precious uniqueness of their heritage and are now actively
seeking to preserve it. The archival documents that are now
being created by the Finnish-Canadian community should eventually
tell us what the end results of those new developments in the
community will be.


RESEARCH AT
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
OF CANADA

The National Archives of Canada is a federal government
department that serves as the national archival institution for
the historical records of the federal government and also
preserves the private papers and nongovernmental records of
individuals and organizations of national interest that have
contributed to the development of Canadian society. Through the
Finnish Canadian Archives Program, begun in 1974, the National
Archives acquires and preserves for use by researchers records
of national significance relating to the Finnish-Canadian community.

Staff archivists of the National Archives Building,
395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, can be consulted weekdays
from 8:30 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. Some research rooms are open to
registered researchers 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
Researchers are urged to contact the archivist responsible for
the Finnish Canadian Archives Program prior to their visit to
the National Archives for information regarding access to
collections listed in this guide. Access to certain collections
requires written permission from the donors. Researchers should
also note that portions of the National Archives' holdings have
been microfilmed and may be borrowed through the interlibrary
loan program without visiting Ottawa.

Information of particular interest to researchers of the
Finnish-Canadian past can be found among the holdings of the
various divisions of the National Archives: the Manuscript
Division, the Government Archives Division, the Documentary Art
and Photography Division, the Moving Image and Sound Archives,
the Cartographic and Architectural Archives Division, and the
National Archives Library.

In the National Library of Canada, which is a separate
government department located in the same building as the
National Archives of Canada, researchers have access to a
variety of Finnish-language newspapers, books and penodicals, as
well as other publications in the official languages containing
information on Finnish Canadians.