Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak in support of Motion No. 73 put forward by my colleague the hon. member for Kitchener South—Hespeler.
I had the honour of representing a good portion of the riding that my colleague currently represents but due to changes in the last electoral distribution I now have the honour of working next door to my colleague.
Let me read Motion No. 73:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should recognize the contributions that German-Canadians have made to Canadian society, the richness of the German language and culture, and the importance of educating and reflecting upon German heritage for future generations, and that the Waterloo Region is host to the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany, by declaring October, every year, German Heritage Month, and the nine days commencing the Friday before Thanksgiving, every year, Oktoberfest.
I will focus my remarks primarily on the first part of the motion.
I am honoured to speak in support of the motion because of its content and because I am also proud of my own German heritage. My ancestors arrived in Canada around 1850.
In 2011, the census results reported that 28,490 of my constituents indicated that they were of German ethnic origin. That is about 31% of my riding.
Almost one-third of my riding shares my German heritage and this is something that has contributed greatly to the fact that the riding of Kitchener—Conestoga is the very best riding in all of Canada.
Germans who report their ethnic origin as solely or partly from Germany, or are of German ancestry, are one of Canada's largest ethnic categories of European origin. In 2006, over three million people in Canada reported German as their ethnic origin and in 2011, 430,000 people in Canada reported German as their mother tongue.
Canada's Germans have come from virtually every east European country, Asiatic Russia, the United States, and Latin America.
German colonists have been migrating to eastern Europe since the Middle Ages and to colonial America since 1683.
Canada's main source of German immigration was Russia, especially from the Volga, the Black Sea coast, and Volhynia. Some of the religious allegiances represented in this group are Mennonite, Hutterite, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Moravian, and Jewish. The mother tongue includes High German, Low German, Pennsylvania Dutch, and numerous regional dialects.
I remember well listening to my parents dialogue in Pennsylvania Dutch. I remember hearing conversations in Pennsylvania Dutch between my parents and my uncles and aunts and neighbours who would come to our farm to help with work, threshing grain together, participating in quilting bees in our home, or watching a barn raising in our community as neighbours came together to rebuild barns after destruction by fire. While I did not understand every word they said, I knew by their smiles and laughter that in the midst of their hard work they enjoyed working together as a community.
There are two defining elements that define those of Germanic descent and they are hard work and team work. These are defining characteristics of the German immigrants who came to Canada, especially to Waterloo region. Still today these values of collaboration are very strong. The current Governor General when he was president of the University of Waterloo would often comment about the barn raising spirit in Waterloo region, and that is largely as a result of the German ancestors who settled in our area.
I want to focus a bit on the story of the German Mennonite communities that immigrated from Pennsylvania. These pacifist Anabaptist farmers fled the fervour of American nationalism and sought land for their growing population. Preferring cohesive settlement, they acquired a huge tract of land in Waterloo County. Through chain migration they transplanted their families and Pennsylvania German culture. Their Waterloo County colony, with a hub community named Berlin, developed into an area of concentrated German settlement. From there, German settlements spread to Perth, and Huron and Bruce and Grey counties.
In 1916 during the First World, what was know as Berlin changed its name to Kitchener, when citizens, especially business owners, wanted to combat any perception of disloyalty due to its sizable German-speaking population. In the Second World War, Kitchener was the site of a training camp for the Canadian Women's Army Corps.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Kitchener and its citizens led the nation in first welcoming new German refugees who fled or were expelled from eastern Europe, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland, and the Soviet Union. It has since its retained its place as one of the centres in Canada most likely to receive refugees, aided by its vibrant local economy. I would like to add that this past year through the resettlement of Syrian refugees, it has been very encouraging to see again the same level of generosity from the Waterloo region that was shown over nearly 70 years ago.
Let me now share a few personal stories about local organizations and the townships and towns that make up the Waterloo region and we will see from the names and the characteristics of these villages the strong German heritage.
Berlin, as I said earlier, changed its name to Kitchener as a result of the First World War and not wanting to appear disloyal to Canada.
A little town called Merryhill in my constituency used to be called New Germany. Heidelberg, New Hamburg, St. Jacobs, Schindelstettel or Shingletown, Schmidtsville, which was renamed to Wellesley, Baden, named after Baden-Baden in Germany. Recently in Baden we installed the first statue of previous prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald and all 28 previous prime ministers will have a statue installed in the town of Baden at Castle Kilbride, which is the township office for the Wilmot Township in my riding. I am proud of that new icon we will have right in my riding, which will be a tourist destination for sure. Other villages are called Strasburg and Mannheim. We can see from the names of these villages the strong German heritage in my riding and in the Waterloo region.
Companies in my area include Ontario Drive and Gear, started by an immigrant from Germany now working on things like the lunar rover for NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. Schneiders meats has been an icon in our community for years. ATS was started by a person of German heritage.
The German-Canadian Remembrance Society and many other German clubs in our area do a great job of preserving our German heritage. We have the German-Canadian Business and Professional Association, the Alpine Club, German-Canadian Hunting and Fishing Club in Mannheim, the Transylvania Club, the Schwaben Club, and the Concordia Club. We have German Pioneers Day, when each year we celebrate people of German ancestry who have contributed greatly to the economy in the Waterloo region. As my colleague mentioned, we have Christkindl Market at Christmas each year, which is coming up shortly.
Let me now return for a moment to some of the towns I mentioned earlier. The town of New Hamburg, which is of German origin, is popular and known for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons that I am proud to be part of New Hamburg is because of Howie Meeker, a former NHL star who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs for nine seasons. He also served here in Parliament as the member for Waterloo South, which is the predecessor of the riding I currently represent. I was honoured to be with Mr. Meeker when he received the Governor General's Order of Canada.
New Hamburg is also home to Ontario Drive and Gear, a company that produces all-terrain vehicles, including the ARGO, and it is also doing work for NASA on the lunar rover. It is also home to Oak Grove Cheese. People may not have heard of Limburger cheese, but Oak Grove Cheese Company is one of the only cheese factories in all of North America that continues to produce Limburger cheese. I never developed a taste for Limburger cheese. My dad enjoyed it immensely. Maybe one of the reasons I did not was because the smell was not the greatest, to say the least.
St. Jacobs is another town in my riding that is famous for its farmer's market, a popular tourist destination. Walter Hachborn of German ancestry was the person who started Home Hardware in 1963. He brought a number of independent hardware dealers together and formed an association. Today, Home Hardware has a network of over 1,100 stores across Canada. Their headquarters and distribution centre are still in St. Jacobs.
As for the little town of Schmidtsville, which is currently called Wellesley, I am going to read what I found on the Internet. Prior to the 20th century, the area was home to doctors, blacksmiths, and merchants, as well as a tannery, hotels, and churches. Into the early 1900s the village carriage and wagon maker, George Diefenbaker, whose preferred spelling was with an extra “c”, would entertain his grandson, John Diefenbaker, each summer in the little town of Wellesley.
Another little town people have never heard of is Punkeydoodles Corners. It is in the far west of my riding, and it is known for the quaint name, not for any significant settlement. It is a tiny hamlet situated where the counties of Oxford and Perth intersect with Waterloo county. The Huron Road passed through this locale in the late 19th century. It had a blacksmith shop and a tavern, where it was said that the German tavern keeper sang his version of Yankee Doodle, which came out sounding like “punky doodle”, and that is where the name came from.
I want to encourage my colleagues to support the motion. We can be proud of our German ancestry and the immense contribution the German community has made to Canada.