Without tins of the luncheon meat Spam, many Filipino pantries are considered not up to scratch.

The appetite for Spam follows Filipinos all over the world, including in Canada, where children of immigrant families grow up with a taste for the canned product.

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has made a promise regarding caregivers working as temporary foreign workers in the country.

Ahmed Hussen assured in a statement on February 16, 2018 that Canada is not abolishing its caregiver program, and that caregivers have a guaranteed path to permanent residence.

In an awards ceremony held on February 15 at the MacEwan University, the Edmonton Arts Council (EAC), City of Edmonton and Edmonton Community Foundation recognized the 2017 recipients of the annual Cultural Diversity in the Arts project grants and the Edmonton Artists’ Fund awards.

The B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has appointed Rene-John Nicolas to the Board of Governors of the Vancouver Community College (VCC).

In the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia, Canadian Filipino long track speed skater Gilmore Junio showed the world the true meaning of sportsmanship.

After qualifying for the 1,000-metre race, the Alberta-born and –raised athlete gave his spot to his teammate Denny Morrison, who he believed had a greater chance of winning a medal. Morrison won silver.

Junio, 27, is getting another shot at Olympic glory, this time at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games in South Korea.

The long track speed skater is competing in the 500-metre race, his strongest category, on February 19.

According to his official profile with the Canadian Olympic team, Junio started playing hockey when he was seven years old. In 2003, his father suggested that he try speed skating.

Junio is one who doesn’t allow setbacks to stop him in his tracks.

As a junior short track speed skater, he suffered back fractures during a crash in 2009. As he was recovering, he decided to switch to the long track.

Junio’s parents Gino and Julie came from the Philippines. They met in Winnipeg during the 1970s. Later in the 1980s, the two settled in Calgary, where they raised a family. Junio has two siblings.

Junio is taking up kinesiology at the University of Calgary, with plans of becoming a physiotherapist.

He won his first World Cup medal in the 500-metre race in 2012 in Nagano, Japan, where he took silver. He earned his first gold at the 2013 World Cup in Salt Lake City, Utah.

According to his official profile, Junio won seven World Cup medals in the 500-metre race during the 2016-2017 season. His haul included two gold medals.

In the 2014 Sochi games, Junio placed 10^th in the 500-metre category.

The PyeongChang Olympics’ website notes that Junio’s philosophy in life goes, “Always learn. Always grow. Give what you have.”

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A motion declaring the month of June as Filipino Heritage Month across Canada is expected to be taken up in the House of Commons in the spring.

The motion was filed by Salma Zahid, a federal Liberal who represents Scarborough Centre in Ontario as its Member of Parliament (MP).

She was a poet, playwright, critic, and journalist. Petronila Cleto was also an activist, who fought for democracy in the Philippines. In Canada, where she moved in 1991, she was a fierce advocate of migrant rights.

A dying sport in Canada may still find its lifeline in an unlikely source – Filipino immigrants.

The year 2018 welcomes the publication of a new cookbook, The New Filipino Kitchen, chronicling the immigrant stories and their personally-picked recipes of Filipino chefs and food writers scattered around the globe.

The federal Liberal government is taking steps to ensure that thousands of mostly Filipino women who came to Canada as caregivers under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) will be rejoined by their families at last.

Tobias Enverga Jr., the first Canadian Filipino appointed to the Senate, died on November 16, 2017. He was 61.

On October 25 this year, Statistics Canada released select figures from its 2016 Census, which deal with ethnic diversity.

The results show that immigrants from the Philippines comprised the biggest group of new arrivals who came to Canada from 2011 to 2016.

The Pacific Canada Heritage Centre (PCHC) Museum of Migration Society celebrates its fifth anniversary with an inaugural gala and first fundraising event on November 25, 6:30 p.m. at the River Rock Theatre in Richmond, B.C.

On September 27 this year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau inaugurated the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa.

Formed like a stylized Star of David, the memorial commemorates one of the darkest periods in human history, when six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Chicken-catching is a job catching chicken in barns for processing. It is not a glamorous job. Some call it 3-d: “dirty, dusty and dangerous”. It is night work. Not many apply for these jobs locally.

Starting with the September 2017 term, many Grade 11 and 12 classroom-based and self-paced courses are tuition-free for Graduated Adults (students who have previously graduated in BC or in another part of Canada or any other country).