FILIPINO HERITAGE MONTH CELEBRATION

In June 2017, the City of Toronto, in partnership with notable Filipino-Canadian community leaders, officially declared June as Filipino Heritage Month starting June 2018. (Shutterstock Photo)

One of the significant events that took place last year in Canada’s Parliament is the unanimous passage of a motion officially designating June of every year starting 2019 as Filipino Heritage Month throughout Canada.

In June 2017, the City of Toronto, in partnership with notable Filipino-Canadian community leaders, officially declared June as Filipino Heritage Month starting June 2018. Salma Zahid, Member of Parliament for Scarborough Centre, expanded it from the local to the national level through her Motion 155 which passed the House of Commons on October 30, 2018.

As Filipinos or Canadians of Filipino ancestry, we should all feel proud that our community is being recognized in the high echelons of government for our distinct contributions in making Canada the great multicultural country that it has become since its founding on July 1, 1867.

Declaring Filipino Heritage Month across Canada, from the Pacific to the Atlantic to the Arctic regions, is one unprecedented acknowledgment of our roles in enriching the larger communities from coast to coast to coast.

Even as we observe eight decades of being an essential part of this country, no such recognition has ever been extended to the Filipino diaspora since 1930 when the first recorded Filipino immigrants settled in Canada.

Knowing our unprecedented success in staging the Taste of Manila festival in the last five years, MP Zahid has humbly requested us to undertake and organize the celebration on behalf of the Filipino community.

With the government’s full support and our extensive know-how in handling events of that magnitude, the first Filipino Heritage Month in Canada promises to be a momentous event in Philippine-Canadian relations.

We would like to mark that occasion officially on June 1, 2019, the first Filipino Heritage Month in Canada, in MP Zahid’s constituency in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough Centre, as a courtesy for shepherding the passage of Motion 155 in the House of Commons.

We invite you to be with us during this significant milestone in both Philippine and Canadian history and look forward to your presence onSaturday – June 1, 2019, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. at the Albert Campbell Square, 150 Borough Drive, Scarborough, ON M1P 0B1.  Further event details will be forwarded to you in the very near future.

LET’S BE ONE IN CELEBRATING US!