Italian language in Canada

The Italian language in Canada has been widespread since the 19th century, particularly due to Italian emigration. In 2020, 407,485 Canadian citizens in the country were native speakers of Italian (1.23%), and Italian emerged as the most widely spoken unofficial language after Punjabi, Chinese, Spanish and German. Italian is also being learned as a foreign language in Canada by 37,375 students.

History of Italian emigration to Canada

The first generation of immigrants (1861-1945)

Immediately after the unification of Italy, the young nation experienced the phenomenon of emigration on a massive scale. While until that time the migratory destinations had been mostly European, starting in the second half of the 19th century transatlantic emigration to the Americas emerged, in the direction of lands that became typical destinations for Italians. The first immigrants, most of whom came from Basilicata, Sicily, Apulia, Piedmont, Lazio, Abruzzo and Molise, settled in Canadian lands in isolation; they were mostly single men who had left their country of origin due to population growth, lack of work and high taxation, intending to return soon.

In the 1870s, Argentina and Brazil were the non-European nations to which most emigrated, while from the following decade North America became one of the most̀ involved destinations. North American cities such as New York and Toronto thus saw within a few decades a conspicuous increase in the number of the Italian population present. Italian workers in that period, as described by Lucy di Pietro, were seen "as transients and judged, according to the stereotype, as warm-blooded people with violent and criminal dispositions." Italians were among the immigrants considered "undesirable," as expressed in Canada's first law concerning immigration, dating back to 1869. This law provided for certain categories of foreigners deemed more "desirable," precisely, for reasons of cultural affinity or stereotypes related to labor industriousness, favoring workers from Great Britain or Northern European countries. Italians were usually referred to by the nickname navvies, short for navigator, a term coined in England to refer to laborers and which from 1830 onwards was applied in a derogatory sense to those who worked on tunnel or railway construction in uncomfortable conditions.

By the 1880s Canada was a booming country in need of major infrastructure works that could improve transportation and communication between the vast areas of its territory. Dating back to these years was the construction of major railroad and canal sections that generated a growing demand for labor. The number of Italians moved to Canada for the construction of the Canadian railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, in the 1881 census amounted to 1,849 citizens. Around the turn of the century, there was a further growth in the number of Italians in Canada, with a change in the migratory flows, consisting not only of adult men between the ages of twenty and forty-five, but also of women and children. From 1900 to 1913, although in smaller numbers than in the United States, Brazil and Argentina, Canada welcomed about 60,000 Italians, mostly from the south (Calabria, Abruzzo, Molise and Campania) and the northeast (Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) who went to settle not only in the industrial hubs in Ontario, Toronto and Ottawa, but also in small towns. Among them, the following cities have a significant presence of the Italian community even today: Hamilton, Guelph, Windsor and Thunder Bay.

These years also saw the birth of the so-called Little Italies, neighborhoods with a strong Italian presence. Within these cities there was a move away from the typical occupations required of Italians, namely those of laborer and factory worker: Italians had the opportunity to open small businesses and practice the trades that had been learned in their countries of origin. Many of them became barbers, shoe repairers, grocers, fruit vendors and bakers. These stores thus began to characterize the appearance of Italian neighborhoods. There soon developed what is called a "migratory chain,"(MacDonald and MacDonald, 1964) that is, emigrants who arrived in the great oceanic country generally went to form homogeneous aggregates according to the geographical area of origin, creating a network of solidarity and economic, linguistic and social support. Thus migrants from the same region, and often even the same municipality, went to live in the same cities, the same neighborhoods, even the same streets. Migrants learned about opportunities, methods of travel, obtained employment and housing through social relations with those in the land of destination.

In the late 1930s, however, emigration from Italy to Canada decreased due to a combination of several factors. The first factor was the policies of the interwar Italian Fascist government, which expressed strong hostility toward emigration to the rest of Europe and America, considering it dangerous both economically and politically and instead encouraging emigration to the African colonies. The second factor was the Canadian policy that during the Great Depression implemented measures to put a limit on the arrival of foreign workers. A further curb on migration came with the outbreak of World War II, during which Italian-Canadians were looked upon with suspicion and were subjected to significant discrimination. As a result of the War Measures Act, between 1940 and 1943, between 600 and 700 Italian-Canadian men were arrested and sent to internment camps, such as Camp Petawawa, suspected of having connections with fascists.

Mass immigration to Canada (1945-1989)

The migration "boom" from Italy to Canada occurred from the end of World War II and involved to a greater extent those from Lazio, Abruzzo, Friuli, Veneto, Campania, Calabria and Sicily. There were also numerous Italians from Istria and Dalmatia who emigrated to Canada as a result of the Julian-Dalmatian exodus (also known as the Istrian exodus). In the 1950s, about 20,000 Italians emigrated to Canada each year, a total of 250,812 people, surpassing those who went to the United States during the same period.

Postwar emigration mainly followed two directions. The first, mainly from the Northeast, headed for Quebec after an intermediate stop in the mining towns of Belgium to learn French, a sine qua non condition for obtaining an entry visa. The second directing towards Ontario - Hamilton, Toronto, Windsor - more massive and more central-southern (Abruzzo, Calabria, Lazio).

In both cases, immigration was more inclined to integration with the destination community and the immigrants ensured that their children, the new Italian-Canadian generation, received the education of the destination country.

In 1948, relations between Canada and Italy were formalized through the opening of a Canadian embassy in Rome and an immigration office; there were bilateral agreements that nullified the restrictive policies recorded during the Great Depression and World War II. These facts, together with the new naval link between Genoa and Canadian shores, were behind the remarkable growth in the flow of immigration.

In addition, the migration boom was fostered by the Canadian government's willingness to incentivize the arrival of foreign labor, and by social factors, such as migratory chains that resumed their work of solidarity toward newcomers with greater force. The extraordinary expansion of the postwar Canadian labor market did the rest, creating opportunities for the new generation of Italians to settle in Canada.The Canadian governments' policy in favor of emigration took shape in the instrument of sponsorship. Under this policy, applicants for immigration would enjoy a special ease of admission to the country provided that their relatives already residing in Canada agreed to take care of their housing and initial livelihood. More than 90 percent of the Italians who entered Canada between 1946 and 1967 were sponsored, and thus supported and helped, by relatives who had already been in the North American country for some time.

During this period, the procedure for acquiring citizenship was changed with the application of ius soli, a principle of law that allows children born in a given country to automatically become its citizens, and welfare state policies in favor of emigrant families were improved: from 1950, when the number of immigrants experienced a small lull, Ottawa changed the family allowance program by including immigrant families in the payments, with a special allowance. This encouraged the development of Italian entrepreneurship in Canada, which experienced its greatest expansion during this period. In general, the entrepreneurship of Italians abroad was expressed in many fields, from musical instruments to tobacco manufactures to wine companies, which were also implanted in North America. All this led to a gradual improvement in the status of the Italians of Canada, an affirmation and recognition in the world of work and politics also stimulated by the multicultural program sought by Pierre Trudeau.

Canada thus began a multicultural policy that resulted in a strengthening of the identity of the different ethnic groups present in Toronto. Among them, the Italian one experienced a strong socio-cultural transformation due to multiple factors. As the mistrust caused by the fascist period ceased, Italians were able to improve their living conditions, with an increase in the social mobility of young Italian-Canadians. The second generation, better educated, began to abandon the manual jobs traditionally performed by their parents in favor of jobs for which a good level of education was necessary. Many of these young people began to speak English as their first language, moving away from the customs of their parents in a process of constructing their own specific Italian-Canadian identity, different from the category of "Italian citizens residing in Canada" or "population of Italian origin." Thus, a new identity profile was born that originated from the fusion of two cultures to become something else and evolve in its own way.

The new generation of migrants (1990s to the present)

Since the 1990s there has been a general decrease in Italian emigration to Canada. In ten years, from 1991 to 2000, there were 4,765 Italians who entered the country. Following the economic crisis of 2008 there was a massive upswing in emigration, especially by young people. According to data published by AIRE (Anagrafe degli italiani residenti all'estero), there were 140,633 Italian citizens residing in Canada in 2017, about 500 fewer than the previous year but 3,000 more than the data collected in 2012. In 2019, there were 139,578 Italians residing in Canada, including 67,251 females and 72,327 males.

Canada is the 11th destination country for Italian emigrants and among non-European countries the fourth after Brazil, the United States and Australia (a total of 18,000 Italian citizens).

Compared to the past, the skills of migrants have changed: today there are many researchers, skilled workers and entrepreneurs. In 2018, more than half of the Italian citizens who moved abroad (53%) had medium-high educational qualifications: 33,000 high school graduates and 29,000 college graduates. Compared with the previous year, the number of emigrated high school graduates and college graduates increased (+1% and +6%, respectively). The increase is much larger if the time spectrum is broadened: compared to five years earlier, emigrants with medium-high educational qualifications grew by 45%. Highly qualified people are in demand in Canada in areas that are lacking in the territory, particularly in information and communication technologies.

Today, migratory chains have lost importance, while the numerous blogs and forums reporting the testimonies of Italians living in Canada constitute a source of information and support for making the choice of a possible relocation.

Italian immigrant population in Canada

Year	Population	% of immigrants in Canada	% of Canadian population
1986	366.820	9,4%	1,5%
1991	351.615	8,1%	1,3%
1996	332.110	6,7%	1,2%
2001	315.455	5,8%	1,1%
2006	296.850	4,8%	0,94%
2011	260.250	3,6%	0,78%
2016	236.635	3,1%	0,67%

Use of the language

According to 2016 census estimates conducted by the Canadian government, 25,913,955 people in Canada have an official language as their first language: 18,858,980 citizens are native speakers of English and 7,054,975 citizens are native speakers of French. Of the 6,567,680 Canadian citizens who have neither French nor English as their first language, 375,645 are native speakers of Italian (1.23%). Italian thus emerges as the most widely spoken unofficial language after Punjabi, Chinese, Spanish, and German. Also according to the 2016 census, 21,457,075 Canadian citizens speak English at home, 6,827,865 Canadian citizens speak French at home, and 139,485 Canadian citizens speak Italian at home. Compared with the 2011 census, there has been an overall decline in the use of European languages at home: Italian (-10.9%), Polish (-5.5%), German (-3.3%) and Greek (-2.3%).

Data from the 2011 Toronto Census are noteworthy. 55.4% of the population are native English speakers while the other official language, French, is used by just 1.3% of the population. Another interesting aspect of this census is the high percentage of those who use neither official language: 43.3% of the population, in fact, are native speakers of neither English nor French. 8.1% of the population are native speakers of Chinese and 3.1% are native speakers of Italian, which happens to be the third most spoken language in Canada's most populous center.

Data from 2011 on the use of Italian by young Italian-Montrealese in the family context report that "38% of them speak Italian, solely or in combination with other languages, in interactions with their mothers and 34% in interactions with their fathers, while if only Italian is considered, these percentages drop to 3% with their mothers and 7% with their fathers." The percentages of Italian-only use go up in interaction with grandparents: 60 percent of young people speak only Italian with their grandmother and 58 percent only Italian with their grandfather.

According to Bruno Villata, Italian:

• is used mostly in the family sphere or in communication with friends;
• is spoken mostly by older people;
• is no longer employed to transmit knowledge;
• enjoys little prestige among young people because they perceive it as belonging to the past.

Italian language in Canada

Year	Native speakers of Italian	Total speakers of non-official languages (not English or French) (%)	Total speakers (%)
1991	449,660	12,7%	1,7%
1996	484.500	10,5%	1,7%
2001	469.485	9,0%	1,6%
2006	455.040	7,4%	1,5%
2011	407.485	6,2%	1,2%
2016	375.645	5,1%	1,1%

Italiese and Italianese

A distinction is made in the literature of the Italian-Canadian language into italiese and italianese. The combination of English, Italian dialects and standard Italian gives rise to Italiese, a term coined by Gianrenzo Clivio in 1975, referring to the language spoken by the descendants of Italian immigrants in Canada. Italiese has the morphosyntax of standard Italian, a largely English vocabulary and the typical pronunciation of the dialect of the area of origin.

The term was later employed to refer to English used in the United States, England, Australia and New Zealand, and recently it is also used in Italy to refer to borrowings from English.

Italiese differs from the language spoken in French-speaking areas, Italianese, in that the language borrowings come not only from Canadian English but also from Canadian French, another official language of Canada spoken particularly in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.

Thus, Italiese and Italianese consist of a mixture of Italian dialect, standard Italian (although not spoken fluently by the majority of speakers), borrowings from Canadian English or Canadian French, and represent a common Italian code for communication between speakers of different dialects. Pronunciation varies depending on the dialect of origin of the speaker.

Language erosion

Lexicon

According to Clivio and Danesi (2000) and Villata (2010), lexical borrowings constitute a psycholinguistic response to the new country and refer to objects and ideas from the immigrant's working and social world: home, work tools, everyday objects, feelings and clothing. In other words, they describe all those terms that are essential for everyday communication and for moving within the new environment.

Below is a list of some borrowings of common English words that have been transformed into the Italian-Canadian form:

• storo (store);
• sinco (sink);
• checca (cake);
• morgheggio (mortgage);
• fenza (fence);
• ticchetta (ticket);
• pusciare (to push);
• pintare (to paint);
• frisare (to freeze);
• smarto (smart);
• cippe (cheap).

Below is a list of some common French word borrowings that have been transformed into the Italian-Canadian form:

• asciuranza (assurance);
• cava (cave);
• majorità (majorité);
• fermare (fermer);
• sciomaggio (chomage).

In some cases the possibility of borrowing from both languages has led to having two equivalent terms, one French and one English, to designate the same concept. For example, the Italian-Canadian word "permesso" comes from French permis de conduire which has as its equivalent from English "licenza" from driving license or "magazine" which comes from French magasin which has as its equivalent from English "storo" from store. According to Villata (1990), French was the basis for the Italian-Canadian lexicon of the first generation, while the second generation mostly used terms from English.

There are also frequent occurrences of using Italian words that resemble English but have different meanings:

• "gioco" (joke);
• "messa" (mess);
• "principale" (principal);
• "sopportare" (to support);
• "tronco" (trunk).

From the lexical point of view in Italian-Canadian, the phenomena of calques are also frequent, that is, "a particular type of borrowing for which in the receiving language the word is not taken over, but its structure is reproduced," such as "aspetto per" (Eng. I'm waiting for), "fa senso" (Eng. it makes sense), "guardi bene" (Eng. you look well [good]).

The use of diminutives is very common, e.g., forms such as "È passato un trocchetto" (Standard Italian "camioncino", Eng. little truck), "bechiceddra" ("small bag", from bag, influenced by the Cosentino dialect) and "loncitieddru" ("little lunch", from lunch, influenced by the Cosentino dialect) are attested.

Morphosyntax

In a study carried out by Kristin Reinke based on 30 in-depth interviews with Italian-Canadians conducted from 1999 to 2004 and published in 2006, some interesting aspects emerge regarding the morphosyntax used by Italian-Canadians.

Nouns: gender and number

Regarding nouns and any errors determined by their use, there is a significant difference between the first generation and the second generation: 2.8% and 5.0% of the nouns used by the two groups of speakers, respectively, have deviations from the standard. While 65.5% of the errors are due to incorrect use of gender, 35.5% refer to number. These percentages confirm what has been shown by studies on learning Italian as a foreign language: gender is acquired later than number. The errors mainly concern nouns in the plural (85.1 percent) and the feminine gender and to a large extent may be related to language contact with the French language; this could explain forms such as "artrose" (instead of "artrosi") on influence from French arthrose, a "libre" (instead of a "libro") on influence from livre, "le tax" (instead of "tasse") from les tax and "le program televisive" (instead of "i programmi televisivi") from French les programs. In addition, 26.3 percent of the errors concern the application of the -i ending, of class I (e.g. libro/libri) and masculine class III (e.g. fiore/fiori), to nouns that belong to the inflectional class II (e.g. personi instead of persone). In this case there is no influence of French but one of the hypotheses to explain this phenomenon is the contact with some Italian-Romance dialects such as Sicilian, which uses a single plural gender marker (Rohlfs, 1968; Varvaro, 1988). The deviated forms cannot be due to an influence of English, since in this language there is no reference to gender except in special cases. On the contrary, knowledge of the gender rule would lead to its addition where not necessary in terms present in the standard vocabulary and would be the consequence of forms attested in the language used by Italian-Canadians such as barro (bar), sporto (sport), nordo (north), sudo (south) and clubi (club). Some nouns such as associazione, generazione, informazione, etc., frequently become invariable and are used in the singular, most likely in analogy to the inflectional class II ending in -e; it is therefore possible that speakers already perceive the ending -e as a plural marker. The same conclusion is reported by Chini (1995) in his study on the acquisition of Italian as L2 and by Bettoni (1991) on spoken Italian in Australia.

Personal pronouns: use of voi instead of lei

The first generation of Italian-Canadians, according to Reinke's studies, make errors in the use of personal pronouns in 1.1% of cases, the second generation in 3.0% of cases. On some occasions, by Sicilian descendants, the Sicilian form idu is used instead of lui. In general, the most frequent error is the use of the second person plural voi instead of the third person singular lei (66.6%). This can be traced in part from linguistic contact with French where the polite form is, in fact, the second person plural vous; in part the phenomenon is also present in the Italian language although in rare, archaic cases or those expressing deep respect. Voi is, moreover, currently considered the polite form in several Italian regions such as Calabria, Naples, northern Apulia, Rome, Ticino and Corsica (Rohlfs 1969), Campania (Radtke 1988) and Sicily (Varvaro 1988).

Morphology

Verbs: the subjunctive

89.9% of the verbs used during interviews conducted by Reinke with Italian-Canadians belong to standard Italian: the first generation used 4.3% wrong forms and the second generation 16.9%. In general, there was a tendency not to use the subjunctive (98.4% of cases), a tendency that is also manifested after all in Italy (Berruto, 1987). In thirty interviews only two forms of the subjunctive were recorded as being used correctly ("sembra che sia una cosa buone", "a meno che non piova") along with two phenomena of overcorrections ("e allora ecco perché ci sia la differenza", "so(no) veramente, come si dice, non mi vengono"). The subjunctive is replaced by the expressions forse, probabilmente, può darsi ("credo che forse ha ragione") or the future tense, an orientation also observed in spoken Italian in Italy. Another frequent error observed in dialogues is the omission of the conjunction che ("non penso [che] sarà come adesso / penso piuttosto / sarà come a New York, mi sembra [che] sarà un po' difficile you know"), probably due to the influence of English since the word that, under certain conditions, can be implied. The tendency to avoid or misspell the subjunctive can be traced largely to the limited use of the subjunctive in the dialects of southern Italy, areas from where emigration to Canada has mostly been active. A further reason can be traced to the widespread idea of the difficulty in its use and its low functionality, so much so that in countries where Italian is learned as a second language it is the last verbal tense to be studied.

Syntax

Omission of determinative articles before the possessive

In Italian-Canadian there is a high number of deviations from the standard about the use of possessives (17.0%). First-generation Italian-Canadian speakers use 8.0% deviated forms from the standard and second-generation speakers 18.9%. The most frequent error (18.4% of cases) is the omission of the determinative article in front of a possessive ("mio paese," "mio libro"). One explanation for this phenomenon may be contact with English and French where the article+possessive form does not exist or, as Berruto (1993) believes, this can be traced back to working-class Italian. The lack of the article also characterizes the Italian of workers in Switzerland (Berruto 1990; Beretta 1990; Valentini 1990; Berruto 1991; Banfi 1993 and 1994; Chini 1995; Chini and Ferraris 2003) and Italian in other emigration contexts (Bettoni 1990; Gobbi 1994).

Orthography

From the orthographic point of view, numerous are the phenomena of approximations, that is, English or French words that are spelled as they would appear in Italian, such as donguori (don't worry) and tencsalotto (thanks a lot) (Clivio 1986; Danesi 1985).

Code-switching

Code-switching "is the switching from one language to another within the speech of the same speaker. [...] It is not to be confused with code alternation, which is instead the choice of one or other of the languages spoken by a bilingual speaker depending on the situation or communicative sphere (family, friends, school, university, offices, stores, etc.)."

Code-switching is now frequently used by second and third generations who, unlike their grandparents, rarely resort to the "Italianization" of English terms and, when they have difficulty with expressing themselves in Italian, use the corresponding English term ("Arrivederci and take care easy").

In addition, code-switching is found, both in writing and speaking, to differentiate those dialogues and situations that occur in the home environment from the language used at work or in the community. For example, in the case of three Italian-Canadian authors such as Nino Ricci (Leamington, 1959), Frank Paci (Pesaro, 1948), and Mary Melfi (Rome, 1957), Italian and its dialects are employed to identify those who belong to the Italian community, for dialogues and for terms used in family intimacy (Camarca, 2005). Code-switching in literature is also employed as a tool to increase the realism of certain scenes, to highlight the importance of the language and culture of belonging (Jonsson, 2005) and to represent the author's internal voice when it appears within the narrative text (Callahan, 2004).

Italian language teaching in Canada

Canada is the 12th largest country in the world in terms of the number of students of the Italian language, with a total of 37,375 pupils.

Interest in the Italian language is mainly due to personal reasons and the desire to relate to family members of Italian origin, as well as cultural and sometimes professional enrichment: several journalists, scholars, doctors and artists are Italian language learners.

The teaching of Italian in the school system

Within the Canadian school system Italian is one of the so-called International Languages and Italian language programs are called Extended Day. Usually within schools, curricular subjects are taught only in French or English, and as a result the curricular teaching of a third language starting in secondary school is a limited experience. In general, in most classes, the teaching of Italian is optional and takes place on Saturday mornings; in others, where the majority of the district's residents are of Italian descent, the teaching of Italian is integrated with the other curricular subjects and involves all students, including those who are not of Italian descent. For elementary schools, no special qualifications are required of language teachers other than that they know the language. In middle and high schools, teaching staff are required to possess specific qualifications.

In many Canadian universities, such as those in the province of Quebec and the four main universities of Montréal, there are Italian sections in the Foreign Languages departments. However, it is necessary to have a minimum number of enrolled students to activate the course and universities often fail to meet these requirements.

The teaching of Italian outside of schools

Extracurricular Italian language courses are taught by Management Bodies, nonprofit organizations whose aim is to promote and disseminate the Italian language and culture.

Ten Management Bodies are active in Canada:

• Montréal

- Italian-Canadian Cultural Association (ICCA) of Nova Scotia;

- Patronato Italo-Canadese Assistenza agli Immigrati (PICAI);

- Centro Scuola Dante Alighieri (CESDA);

• Ottawa

- The Italian Canadian Youth Formation Centre;

• Toronto

- Centro Scuola e Cultura Italiana;

- Società Dante Alighieri - Comitato di Winnipeg;

- Hamilton Dante Centre for Italian Language and Culture;

• Vancouver

- Italian Cultural Centre;

- Società Dante Alighieri - Comitato di Edmonton;

- Centro Linguistico e Culturale italiano di Calgary (CLCIC).

Italian cultural institutes (IICs) also carry out activities for the dissemination of Italian language and culture in the world "[...]through the preparation of an annual cultural program as well as through the creation of a network of relationships with the institutions of the host countries, proposing themselves as propelling centers of cultural cooperation, activities and initiatives and contributing, in particular, to the creation of favorable conditions for the integration of Italian professionals in international cultural contexts." Two IICs are active in Canada: the one in Montréal and the one in Toronto. Also active in Canada is the Dante Alighieri Society with seven branches in Edmonton, Montréal, Ottawa, Québec, Vancouver, Windsor and Winnipeg. In addition to the Management Bodies and IICs, there are other associations involved in organizing Italian language courses, some internal to universities such as U.S. News Education and the Italian Association of Language Agents and Consultants for Study Abroad (IALCA). There is also Immigration Canada: Studying in Canada, which also deals with study-stay programs for foreign students.

In 2017, under the Renzi and Gentiloni governments, four-year funds were established for the management bodies worth 150 million euros, broken down as follows: 112,350,000 euros to the Toronto Centre School, 35,000 euros to PICAI, 15,000 euros to CESDA, 67,000 euros to the Vancouver ICC, 4,000 euros to the Edmonton management body, and 4,000 euros to the Dante Alighieri in Calgary. These grants were made in order to promote Italian language and culture. In 2019, PICAI had to discontinue Italian language courses due to a lack of funding, mobilizing parents of students who signed a petition requesting that contributions be reinstated.

Canada and minority languages

In Canada, minority language communities are recognized the right to maintain their language and culture of origin with special programs in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). In the 1980s in Ontario more than 40,000 elementary school students were enrolled in Italian courses, accounting for nearly half of the total enrollment for unofficial languages.

Students must receive at least basic instruction in their heritage languages and study culturally relevant material from their country of origin. Within the school, classes may be taught following a parallel bilingual curriculum (teaching is given in both the language of origin and French or English) or transitional bilingual (i.e., teaching is in the language of origin, side by side with teaching in French or English, which will take over with the years until it is the only language used). In fact, as Naghmeh Babaee points out, parallel and transitional programs exist only in a few provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia) and for a limited pool of languages such as Ukrainian, Spanish, Mandarin, Hebrew, Russian, and German.

This is because education in Canada falls under provincial jurisdiction, which is why language status varies from province to province based on the ethnic communities present; grants and funds made available depend on the number of ethnic minority people and the number of enrollments. The courses, which are open to all, turn out to be attended almost entirely by students belonging to the community itself.

Italian media in Canada

The dissemination of Italian language and culture was encouraged from the postwar period through the mass media, which were important in keeping alive the sense of belonging to one's country of origin.

Canada's first multilingual radio station was founded in 1966 by Johnny Lombardi, a son of Italian immigrants, and was named CHIN-FM. Today CHIN-FM is one of the most important radio stations in Toronto and broadcasts its programs in more than 30 languages.

The first multicultural television channel (CFMT-DT) was founded in 1979 by Dan Iannuzzi, a third-generation Italian-Canadian. Iannuzzi was a key figure in the history of multicultural media. Twenty years earlier, together with Arturo Scotti, he had founded (on June 2, 1954) the Italian-Canadian newspaper Republic Day, distributed in Ontario and Quebec. Later, as owner of the Multimedia Nova Corporation he was responsible for the publication of numerous magazines including: Town Crier Community Newspapers, Corriere Canadese (in Italian), Tandem Magazine (English-language newspaper for the children of Italian emigrants), Correo Canadiense (in Spanish), O Correio Canadiano Nove Ilhas (in Portuguese) and Insieme (in Italian).

Currently, the Italian media outlets active in Canada are:

• RAI international.
• TLN - Telelatino. It began broadcasting in October 1984 and offers programs in Italian, Spanish and English. Programming consists of Canale 5, Video Italia and until 2003 of RAI programs.
• Corriere Italiano. It was founded in Montréal in the 1950s by Alfredo Gagliardi. Today an online version is also active.
• Cittadino Canadese. It is the oldest Italian-language newspaper in Canada, founded in 1941 by Antonio Spada. With a circulation of 15 000 copies and 20 pages in tabloid format, it is the premier weekly newspaper in Quebec and Canada. It provides home service for subscribers and pickup at distribution points every Wednesday. It offers news from the world and Italy.
• Panoram Italia. Founded in 2002 by Antonio Zara, today it is read by 1.5 million Italian-Canadians. It is published every two months in two separate editions: one for the Montreal and Ottawa area and one for the Toronto area. The purpose of the newspaper is "to maintain or rekindle the connection Italian-Canadians have to their heritage, by turning a spotlight on outstanding actors in the community, while also presenting the beauty and diversity of Italian art, food, history and travel to all Italophiles."
• L'ora di Ottawa. Established in late 1968 by Neapolitans Mario Colonnese and his son-in-law Elio Coppola. They called it L'Ora di Ottawa because Mario Colonnese's grandfather in Naples had published a little newspaper called "La Mezzora." It was initially published every two months and then switched to a weekly issue.
• La voce. Founded in 1982, it is aimed at anyone interested in Italian-Canadian culture, especially entrepreneurs. It comes out every two months and highlights the work of entrepreneurs of Italian descent in Canada. It has 2,500 subscribers of which 80 percent are in Quebec.
• Accenti. It was founded in 2002 by Domenic Cusmano and Licia Canton. Its topics are Italian lifestyle and culture; since 2005 it has launched a writing contest and since 2007 a photography contest.
• CFMB. Multilingual radio station established in 1962. On weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Italian-language programs are broadcast.

See also

• Languages of Canada
• Italian Canadians

Bibliography

• Audenino, P.; Tirabassi, M. (2008). Migrazioni italiane. Storia e storie dell'Ancien régime a oggi. Milan: Bruno Mondatori. pp. 43–48.
• Avveduto, S. (December 2004). La mobilità delle alte qualifiche in Europa, Canada e USA in Studi emigrazione, anno XLI. pp. 889–910.
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