Hard work should be a virtue to cherish

I’ve heard a few comments in recent days disparaging immigrants, and it’s a little hard to take, both in Canada and the United States. That’s because, if you don’t have a treaty card in your pocket, you are, in some manner, an immigrant.

This week I had the pleasure of staying overnight at my friends’ place in Saskatoon. For the past eight years, Melanie from the Philippines has been their live-in caregiver. She had a big day that day. She would be attending her citizenship ceremony, becoming a full-fledged Canadian.

There are many Filipinos in Saskatchewan now. There’s a store in downtown Estevan selling Filipino wares. That, I would sort of expect. But now I see there’s even a small shop in Preeceville doing the same thing.

Many of these Filipinos are visible in the service industry, but some are in nursing or other sectors. Personally, I think anyone willing to come from the other side of the planet, endure Canadian winters, to work at a menial job, deserves Canadian citizenship.

The appearance of these Filipino stores was in the back of my mind when I picked up a book in the Coles bookstore in Yorkton. Yorkton, as you may or may not know, is the heart of the perogie belt. It is filled with onion-domed churches. The surrounding countryside is dotted with onion-domed churches. This book documented a large number of these churches, many now abandoned, many in poor repair. I couldn’t find all of the ones I was familiar with, but I found the one just south of Tadmore where my late great-uncle Paul is buried.

The onion-domed churches and Filipino stores mark waves of immigration to Saskatchewan set 80 years apart. Both are still very much part of the Canadian fabric.

I would hope most of these new immigrant are currently receiving better treatment than my ancestors. My grandfather, Harry, who got off the boat when he was 12, told me how a Ukrainian man with a degree couldn’t get work as a foreman on a logging crew near Good Spirit Lake, but an Englishman with no education could.

Looking at the vitriol in the United States against Mexicans, especially from the Donald Trump campaign and Trump himself, I wonder why? If people are risking their lives to come to work in America, and so many undocumented people are already doing the work many Americans consider beneath them, why not grant them citizenship? Isn’t hard work a virtue to be cherished?

I’m also reminded that the Zinchuk clan got out of Ukraine just before the Holodomor. That’s the largely unknown genocide of Ukrainians, when Joseph Stalin figured they didn’t need to eat. Millions starved. If they had not escaped when they did, I would not be here today.

How many people from Central and South America have come to America in similar circumstances?

In Melanie’s case, she has spent eight years in Canada. Prior to that, she spent three-and-a-half years in Hong Kong and seven years in Taiwan. She had learned of Canada from postcards her sister used to receive.

I asked her why so many Filipinos work in other countries. She said there aren’t many jobs at home.

And now, today, she is a Canadian.

Let’s open our arms to more Melanies.

— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].