Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC, fi, Kanadan Suomalainen Järjestö) is a

Finnish Canadian Finnish Canadians are Canadian citizens of Finnish ancestry or Finns who emigrated to and reside in Canada. In 2016, 143,645 Canadians claimed Finnish ancestry. Finns started coming to Canada in the early 1880s, and in much larger numbers in the e ...

cultural organization. It was established in 1911 as the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada (''Kanadan Suomalainen Sosialistinen Järjestö''). FOC is the oldest nationwide cultural organization for Finns in Canada. It was first connected with Social Democratic Party of Canada and later with Communist Party of Canada. Today FOC is no longer associated with politics. It has fewer than 200 members, who are mostly senior citizens in the areas of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, Sudbury and

Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...

.Paul R. Magocsi: "Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples", p. 519–521.
Retrieved 10 January 2014.

History

The Finnish Organization of Canada was established in October 1911 by Finnish socialists who were expelled from the

Socialist Party of Canada The Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) was a political party that existed from 1904 to 1925, led by E. T. Kingsley. It published the socialist newspaper ''Western Clarion''. History Establishment The founding of the Socialist Party of Canada bega ...

. A key person in its founding was the Finnish-Canadian agitator and feminist Sanna Kannasto. By the end of 1911 FOC had 19 locals and more than 1,500 members. Three years later the member count was more than 3,000 with 64 locals across the country. Five hundred of the members were women. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the organization came into almost continuous conflict with liberal, social-democratic, and conservative factions both within and without the Finnish community in Canada, evidenced by the rumours of "reception committees" active in communities around Sudbury where newly immigrated Finns would be vetted by local committees which would separate them into "Reds" or "

Whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...

", with identified Reds being approved to settle and Whites encouraged to move elsewhere. In 1931 the

social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

left the FOC and organization was fully related with communists. It was banned in 1940 due to the

Defence of Canada Regulations The ''Defence of Canada Regulations'' were a set of emergency measures implemented under the ''War Measures Act'' on 3 September 1939, a week before Canada's entry into World War II. The extreme security measures permitted by the regulations ...

but declared legal again in 1943 as Canada had become an ally with

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in 1941. FOC published the Finnish-language newspaper '' Vapaus'' in Sudbury from 1917 to 1974. The previous newspaper ''Työkansa'' had gone bankrupt in 1915.

References

Finnish-Canadian institutions Communist Party of Canada mass organizations 1911 establishments in Canada {{Poli-org-stub

History

See also

Archives

References