44th Parl. 1st Sess.

February 1, 2024 10:00AM

Feb/1/24 5:23:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will give a recap because I am sure everyone has probably forgotten what I stated a few weeks ago. As I said, I, like many other members of Parliament in the House, have a Polish history. My grandparents on my father's side were Ukrainian, but my great-grandparents on my mother's side were Polish. Jacko and Mary Zatorski came from Poland in 1906. It is quite a few years ago they came to Canada, and the main reason they came was to build a better life for themselves. It was a very challenging time to bring a family of four young adults with them, as well as the baby Mary was carrying. They did prosper in their life here in Canada, which they started on a quarter of land outside of Skaro, Alberta, which is northeast of Edmonton. My great-grandparents had 13 children, which was quite an accomplishment back then because having so many children with none of them perishing at childbirth was quite spectacular. Life was hard, just like it was for anybody else farming at that stage. There were not nearly the mechanisms at that time that are now available. They had the ability to build a house. It is quite remarkable, but I was able to go to the their original homestead. Now, this was not the only house they built, as they built another house in I believe the thirties. The house was still standing. It was in quite a bit of disrepair, but at least it gave me an idea of what the house looked like, and it was quite interesting to see. My grandfather, who was born in 1913, Paul Zatorski, decided there was not enough land in that area. He also farmed and purchased a homestead near MacKay, Alberta, which is about an hour and a half west of Edmonton. He started his family life there, where he had four children, with the eldest being Lillian, my mother, and three sons after that: Lloyd, Leonard and Stanley. The life of any farmer was hard because clearing land was not an easy accomplishment, yet they knew life was going to be far better in Canada than it would have been if they stayed in Poland. One of the problems they had over the years in Poland was the amount of wars that were happening in Europe at the time. Possibly, if we look back in history, they might not have even been in Poland at the time because the borders kept changing so much. One might have been in Germany, Galicia or whatever other country at the time because the borders did change. One of the main factors to it not being the most desirable place to raise a family was knowing they could be in upheaval at any time. I will get back to what I was saying, which is that my grandfather started farming as well. We now had a generation of farmers in the family. At the time, in the early part of the 1900s, I think 92% of Canadians were farmers. It is quite the exact opposite now, where the majority of people live in urban centres and the farming community represents only about 2% or 3% of the population. With mechanization, we know how many more a farmer can feed now with the amount of land they have compared to back then. With homesteads, almost everybody lived on one quarter of land. As generations grew into the forties, fifties and sixties, people started to expand a lot more and could create a better life. They knew one quarter of land was not enough anymore. Tractors cost more than horses, and tractors could also do a lot more than horses could ever do, and that was one of the reasons farms expanded over the years. I look at the benefit of the heritage of the Polish community and how much it has contributed to Canada. My family, or part of my family, was very much part of the building foundation of this great country. We all pretty much became part of Canada around the late 1800s or early 1900s when we started to expand the west. Immigrants came earlier in the years, but it was quite the thing for my family to come to this country in 1906. I actually had the opportunity to visit Pier 21 in Halifax. I wanted to see whether I could find my family heritage and whether my family actually came through Pier 21, which was the other thing. The first question I was asked was how many years ago it was. If it was not within a set number of years, we actually were not allowed to look up the records, as there had to have been, I think, 50 or 70 years that had passed before we were able to look up people's records. I was quite fortunate as it had been well over 100 years, and I was able to look at the records. I was told not to be too concerned if not all the names are correct, but to make sure the last name is right, make sure the parents' names are very close and, if they had children, make sure those names are right. I was actually able to find that, yes, they did come in April 1906. The names Jacko and Mary were correct, although their sons' names were not quite right. The names varied a little bit, but still, I thought I had the right people because I do not think there were many Zatorskis coming into Canada at that time. To give members an idea of how much they have flourished, I have yet to find a Zatorski in Canada to whom I am not related. I cannot say the same about my last name, and I have had several people ask me whether I were related to so and so, but no, they were quite different families. I thought it was quite interesting that we could look up the records, and they were not as close and precise as they could have been. There was only one page on what they had brought with them, some monetary information, and that was about it. However, when my other grandparents, Joseph and Doris Soroka, came in 1929, there were actually two pages. There was a lot more information, which was a little more appreciated because it gave a better sense of the things they had brought and what areas they came from. It was much more detailed, not near what is available now, but at least it gave a little bit of history of my family. I think heritage and history are very important, and that is why we are celebrating this. It is to acknowledge Polish history month and what it would contribute. I also want to acknowledge that the members of the Canadian Polish Congress and its president, John Tomczak, do support this motion, which is great. I am not mentioning that they are here in the House, because I know that is not appropriate, so members do not have to worry about that. However, I am sorry if I erred in some way, and I do apologize for that. As I said, it is very important to honour the heritage of our forefathers and recognize what they endured and how they helped build Canada. I just gave one small example of my family.

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