Immigration of Knowledge and Expertise

The vast majority of Italians who immigrated to Canada came from small towns and villages with populations of less than 10,000, typical of Italy's rural areas.

Peasants and artisans for the most part, they brought with them a wide variety of trades and expertise: agricultural knowledge; expertise in working with metals, wood, stone or textiles; and experience in industrial work acquired through emigration elsewhere.

	Luca Carloni's Canadian Shoe Shine and Repair Shop, 8th Avenue, Calgary, Alberta, 1929 Source: © Antonio Valerio

Laying curved track on Lappin Avenue and Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ontario, August 1915 Source: © City of Toronto Archives

Given this professional versatility, Italian workers were able to take advantage of the employment opportunities offered by the Canadian labour market, although they often lacked job security and worked under difficult conditions, especially in their early years in Canada.

	Tools brought from Italy to Canada These tools belong to Mr. Arduino Dino Rossi, who arrived in Canada in 1956. He brought them from Italy, ready to do whatever work was available. Trained as a metal worker, he found employment in his field, as well as in landscaping, machining and the terrazzo industry.

	Zupido D'Amico working in a coal mine, Nordegg, Alberta, 1940s Source: © Courtesy of Anne (McMullen) Belliveau, author of Small Moments in Time: The Story of Alberta's Big West Country, 1999

From the late nineteenth century to the 1930s, and again in the 1950s, many Italians worked in sectors such as forestry, mining, and the construction of railways, roads and canals. As Canada's cities grew, however, they attracted an increasing number of Italian immigrants, who found work in the construction of urban infrastructures (roads, sidewalks, sewers, tunnels, streetcar lines, etc.), homes and public buildings, the steel industry and manufacturing, especially the garment and textile industries.

	Italian-Canadian woman working in a factory, Montreal, Quebec, c. 1970 Source: © Casa d'Italia, Montreal, Quebec

Construction workers pouring cement on the 14th floor of the Harbour Castle Hotel, on the Toronto waterfront, 1973 Photo: © Vincenzo Pietropaolo

The creation of Little Italies also expanded employment and business opportunities in the service and commercial sectors. This urban shift in employment increased after 1945 due to the unprecedented growth of several Canadian cities.

	Woman working at the Crupi brothers bakery on Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, 1972 Photo: © Vincenzo Pietropaolo