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Oct. 10 - Oct. 17, 2004 |
The Importance of Being Italian
Former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci honoured by CIBPA-Canada
By Angelo Persichilli
A Gala held at a Niagara Falls hotel closed the meeting of the National Federation of Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association. This year the meeting also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the association that links the various CIBPAs all over Canada.
The guest of honour was former Supreme Court Justice and current interim Chair of the University of Toronto Frank Iacobucci. In his speech, Iacobucci summarized, with great efficacy, the history of Italian presence in Canada, with its successes and social, economic and cultural problems, especially during World War II. "In those years," he said, "the Italian language was lost, due to wartime events."
He mentioned that period as a black page in the history of this hospitable country. He remembered his relatives interned in Petawawa, "guilty only of carrying an Italian name."
"The element that contributed the most to assist our early immigrants was the family, the core of all our activities, our hopes, our future." He recalled the role of his father, an immigrant from Abruzzi, "without any formal education but with a keen intelligence and willing to work hard," and of his Calabrese mother, "who played an important role, since if my father supported our family, my mother created it."
A strong and active woman, despite the cultural barriers separating her from her new reality in Canada. "Just think that once, while rain was pouring, I told her that I was going to play ping-pong with a friend. My mother tried to stop me: how can you play anything while it rains?, she said."
Despite these obvious shortcomings in their knowledge of sports, his parents were the source of energy that enabled enormous difficulties to be overcome. "I am still unable to comprehend how my mother could save $400 while my father was making 25¢ an hour."
It was then, Iacobucci remembered, that Italian youth underwent a primary passage in their cultural transformation, i.e. the passage from Italian culture to integration in Canada.
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