FROM EAST TO WEST
The first waves of immigrants to Canada came from France and Britain, but by the late 1800s fewer and fewer citizens of these countries were willing to relocate here. With the United States eyeing Canada’s western territories, pressure mounted to find new peoples to populate the prairie region, and Canada began to target potential immigrants living in Eastern Europe. According to a 2016 Canadian census profile, Ukrainians today make up the largest bloc of Eastern European immigrants (1.36 million), followed by Poles (1.1 million) and Russians (600,000).