Men, women and children with roots in more than a dozen countries gathered in the downtown YMCA/YWCA Tuesday to celebrate multiculturalism in Ottawa.
Eric Murphy, Centretown News
Ottawa youths present a traditional Palestinian Dabke dance at the Argyle Street YMCA/YWCA.
Surrounded by tables advertising services for new immigrants, the audience had the chance to hear the “Game of Thrones” theme played on a lute, watch young Ottawa residents step out a traditional Palestinian Dabke dance, and taste food from around the world.
“I think multiculturalism is the fabric of our nation,” says Tanya Mendes-Ghenon, senior director of the YMCA’s Newcomer Services Information Centre. “Without immigrants choosing Canada or having to come here for security, we wouldn’t be where we are as a country.”
It’s Mendes-Ghenon’s bureau that ran the YMCA’s multiculturalism day, held three days before Canada’s official Multiculturalism Day on Friday, June 27.
The Newcomer Centre’s event is part of Welcome Ottawa Week, or WOW, which includes 35 events leading up to Friday that celebrate both new and settled immigrants in Canada.
The week’s final event is the 10th annual Community Cup, a soccer tournament organized by Ottawa’s Catholic Centre for Immigrants and held at Brewer Park, near Carleton University.
Running from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., the cup also includes a health-information fair for immigrants and a folk concert featuring international artists.
Canada held its first Multiculturalism Day in 2002, under Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government. WOW week and the Newcomer Centre’s associated event grew around that.
For Yasmina Proveyer Llopiz, a team supervisor at the centre, showing new immigrants what services are available is just as important as making them feel welcome.
“They need to be aware that there’s a lot of agencies out there,” she says. “They are there to help them get connected and provide a network.”
Llopiz knows as well as anyone how important those connections can be. She was born in Cuba, but arrived in Canada in 2008 after spending years in China. She chose to settle in Canada because it was close to her aging parents in Cuba and because of what she calls the country’s “generous” immigration protocols.
While these practices certainly benefit many immigrants and refugees, generous might not be the right word, according to Mendes-Ghenon, who says Canada’s open policies benefit the country just as much as they help newcomers.
“We know that the labour force is shrinking,” she says. “We know there’s not enough of us to support the labour market. Without newcomers we won’t get to where we need to be to compete in the global market.”
The newcomer centre welcomes refugees almost as often as immigrants. Working with the YMCA, they’ve been bringing proposals to the government to try to help more Syrian refugees enter Canada.
“There’s a lot of work being done in the sector in the hopes of being heard,” says Mendes-Ghenon. “We’re ready to serve. We’re ready to do what we need to do to help these newcomers.”