Today marks the beginning of the 2012 Lunar New Year holiday, known by many as the Chinese New Year. The festival celebrated by billions, in addition to over a million Chinese-language speaking Canadians, it is also a traditional festival for the Vietnamese, Korean and many others of East Asian populations across Canada. The Year 2012 [...]

As he explains in the clip below, the cross-cultural (musical) adventure of  Mickey Hart, American musicologist and former percussionist of The Grateful Dead, began as a young boy soon after discovering Duke Ellington and Count Basie in a collection of LPs inherited by his mother. The collection also included The Pygmies of the Ituri Forest [...]

Joseph Hong came to mind today. (I made reference to him in a previous blog post.) Hong was a 23-year old World War II Flying Officer in the Canadian Armed Forces who gave his life for our country, and remembered in Eric McGeer’s Words of Valediction and Remembrance: Canadian Epitaphs of the Second World War.) Prompting [...]

Every week, 2,000 newcomers arrive in Ontario; and, every day they are helped by inspirational community-building leaders who not only support the settlement and integration of newcomers but celebrate Ontario’s diverse cultures by their actions. Since 2007, the Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has celebrated Canadian Multiculturalism Day with a presentation of the province’s [...]

June is the month to celebrate the peoples of Canada – from the federally recognized National Aboriginal History Month, to Vancouver designating June as Greek Heritage Month and Portuguese Heritage Month, even TVOntario’s programming focus on Canada’s South Asian community. Numerous cultural events and activities abound…something for everyone! In 1996 Governor General Romeo LeBlanc declared [...]