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    Dear Friends, it has been too long since my last communiqué: On October 23 I attended the thanksgiving service for the 100th anniversary since the establishment of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Toronto's oldest Polish Roman Catholic parish. One hundred years ago, there was a working-class Polish-Canadian community in Toronto's Queen and Bathurst neighbourhood whose members would gather at a chapel at St. Michael's Cathedral for services. An Irish Catholic, Eugene O'Keefe (of the brewery fame), was so touched by their faith and hard work that he bought them a church at Denison and Queen. In a bi-cultural Canada, and a very British Toronto, St. Stanislaus Kostka was perhaps the first institution which spoke of the multicultural Canada that was to take shape. Sixty years later, in 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau officially declared Canada a multicultural country. It was quite fitting that the first Minister of State for Multiculturalism was Stanley Haidasz, a parishioner of St. Stanislaus Kostka. I have a personal connection to the parish and to the Queen/Bathurst neighbourhood; in the 1960s and 1970s, I would spend my weekends with my "babcia", my grandmother, in her apartment above Future Bakery. It was a working-class immigrant neighbourhood of central and eastern European refugees, displaced persons, from WWII. Every Sunday, work clothes were put away and people would don their Sunday best and go to their respective community churches with their families. After church, there was a traditional Sunday family lunch. Notwithstanding if they were Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, or Czech, they all had one thing in common: there had to be fresh rye bread on the table. Consequently, on Sunday mornings, right after early mass, I would be behind the Future Bakery counter with "babcia". The first customers to arrive were the Slovaks from St. Cyril and Methodius at Claremont and Queen; next were the Poles from St. Stanislaus Kostka at Denison and Queen; and finally the Ukrainians from St. Nicholas at Bellwoods and Queen. One Sunday stands out in particular; I remember the excited and proud conversations after the announcement of official multiculturalism and Stanley Haidasz's appointment as its first minister. That Sunday all the communities in Toronto's Queen and Bathurst neighbourhood finally felt that their ancestral cultures were equal partners in Canada's mosaic. We had ceased being D.P.'s (displaced persons) and had become fully Canadian. Warmest Regards, Borys
    Oct 31, 2011 7:51 am | Ontario, Etobicoke Centre
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    A little more of October, 2011
    Oct 26, 2011 9:04 am | Ontario, Etobicoke Centre
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    Heathercrest Park Community Planting. Oct. 15, 2011
    Oct 24, 2011 10:23 am | Ontario, Etobicoke Centre
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    Friends, here you can view my recent speech in defence of democracy in Ukraine. I made the speech at the demonstration in front of the Ukrainian Consulate General in Toronto following the sentencing of Yulia Tymoshenko to a prison term of seven years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQqyFXy-7TY
    In Defence of Demoracy in Ukraine. Oct. 11, 2011.
    Oct 24, 2011 10:19 am | Ontario, Etobicoke Centre
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    The Wrongfully Deported Tabaj Family Returns to Canada
    Oct 03, 2011 12:12 pm | Ontario, Etobicoke Centre
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    An Active August 2011
    Oct 03, 2011 12:06 pm | Ontario, Etobicoke Centre

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