From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Australians/Ann Capling
Australian clubs and associations in Canada have tended to be Australasian, that is, they also include New Zealanders. This fact is partly due to the strong links and similarities between the two countries, and partly because of the small numbers of both groups who have settled in Canada. The first association of Australians and New Zealanders in Canada was the ANZAC Club, founded in 1931 by the New Zealand trade commissioner in Toronto, J.W. Collins. In its early years the principal aim of the club was to provide mutual assistance and social activities for both recently arrived and well-established Australians and New Zealanders in the Toronto area. The original club was apparently disbanded and then, in December 1950, it was re-established by Bruce Beir as the Australian and New Zealand Club. In 1964 it had 250 members and was headquartered in rented premises on Sherbourne Street. Two years later it was reincorporated as the Toronto, Australian and New Zealand Associated Clubs or, as it was more popularly known, the TRANZAC Club, and its membership was extended to Canadians and expatriates from Great Britain. This new club purchased a permanent headquarters at 292 Brunswick Avenue in Toronto in October 1971.
The aim of the TRANZAC Club is to provide a meeting place for both transient and immigrant Australasians; to celebrate holidays such as Australia Day, Waitangi Day, and ANZAC Day; and to promote friendships between Canadians and Australasians. Since 1972 it has had a booth at the Toronto cultural festival Caravan, where it serves dishes such as lamb chops, pavlova (a meringue dessert created by a Perth chef in 1934 in honour of visiting ballerina Anna Pavlova), and, more recently, lamb sausages, barbecued prawns, and shish kebabs. However, the TRANZAC Club has had a difficult existence since the early 1970s when its membership began to decline, partly because of changes in immigration laws which led to a reduction of the number of Australasians settling in Ontario. The decrease in numbers forced the club to expand its membership to affiliated clubs, among them an acting group, a rugby team, and Maori and Morris dancing groups. This measure did bring new members to TRANZAC, but it also reduced the influence of Australians and New Zealanders within the club, so that by 1985, of the 670 members, only 16 percent were of Australasian origin.
Considerable dissension was the result. By mid-1989 TRANZAC was racked by an internal conflict between non-Australasians and the Australian and New Zealand expatriates, who felt that they were losing control of the club. Tension was evident in the club newsletter, TRANZACTION, and was manifested through incidents such as the one that occurred during club renovations in 1991, when there were complaints that having the bar redecorated with fake-beam ceilings and brass rails would make it look British, not Australasian. The plans were subsequently altered so that the new bar would be fashioned after the interior of a woolshed, in keeping with the cultural and economic significance of the wool industry in both Australia and New Zealand.
The other association for Australians and New Zealanders in Canada is the ANZA Club of Vancouver, which was founded in 1935. Like its counterpart in Toronto, this club provided assistance to newly arrived Australasians and a meeting place for them as they became established in Vancouver. In 1959 it established a reception committee, which furnished information to intending immigrants and greeted newcomers upon their arrival in Canada, usually by ship. The ship reception work began informally when a group of ANZA Club members carrying placards saying “Welcome Aussies and Kiwis – Can We Help You?” met the new arrivals at the wharf as they disembarked. Initially the Canadian officials were wary, but eventually they granted permission to the ANZA reception committee to set up a booth to welcome the newcomers before they cleared customs and immigration. It was not always a warm reception for arriving immigrants – during the 1957–61 recession, immigrants from the antipodes were greeted by Australians and New Zealanders bearing placards saying “Aussie Go Home!” because of the downturn in employment prospects in Canada. In addition to welcoming new immigrants, the ANZA Club arranged hospitality for visiting Australian sailors; for instance, in the September 1967 edition of the club newsletter, 150 girls were requested to provide hospitality and act as dancing partners for the crew of the HMAS Melbourne when it docked in Vancouver in October.
The ANZA Club flourished through the 1960s and 1970s; by 1967 it had over 500 members, most of whom had come from Australia or New Zealand. Four years later, while TRANZAC was struggling to survive in Toronto, the ANZA Club had over 1,000 members in Vancouver and had established a branch in Calgary, followed by branches in Edmonton and Victoria. Among ANZA’s most popular services to its members were cheap airfares to Australia. Because the trip back was long, arduous, and expensive, Australians tended to make visits of between four and eight weeks; the club would make block-seat bookings on certain flights, which allowed them to provide a discounted rate to members. Especially popular were flights at Christmas time for the annual exodus of Australian expatriates wanting to flee the Canadian winter, as well as flights designed to bring Australian families to Canada for six weeks over the Christmas period. Also popular were flights in July and August, which were booked to coincide with the teachers’ summer holidays, again a reflection of the fact that many Australian immigrants to Canada worked as school teachers and university professors.
In its heyday in the early 1980s the ANZA Club had over 4,000 members – 2,400 in Vancouver and the rest in its western branches. Because the number of Australasian immigrants to Canada had slowed considerably by that time, and those who did come most often travelled by air, the ANZAC ships reception committee concentrated its efforts on greeting Australasians who stopped in Vancouver as a port of call on Pacific cruises. The club’s efforts were devoted to publishing its newsletter,ANZA News (Vancouver, 1960– ), and organizing social events to commemorate Australian and New Zealand holidays. Australia Day was always celebrated, and Australia’s biggest horse race, the Melbourne Cup, held annually on the first Tuesday of November, was parodied with a Melbourne Cup Frog Race in Vancouver.
Australian sporting events also played a large part in ANZA Club activities. In the early 1980s, before Australian Rules Football was broadcast on television, Qantas Airways arranged for the annual Victorian Football League grand final match to be shown at the club, albeit many months after the event. The club’s Billabong Lounge was the site of a big celebration, which saw its stocks of Victoria Bitter beer drunk dry, when Australia II won the America’s Cup yacht race on 26 September 1983. However, in the same month that record numbers crowded into the club to watch this Australian sporting victory, the annual ANZA Ball had to be cancelled for lack of interest. By 1990 the club was in severe financial straits because of declining membership and non-participation in club functions and social events.
The rise and decline of the TRANZAC and ANZA clubs correspond closely to the boom years of Australian immigration to Canada from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. It is no surprise that the clubs continued to attract new members during the period when over 1,000 Australians migrated each year; the meeting point they provided was especially important because Australian immigrants rarely arrived in groups but came alone or with their immediate family. Membership in the clubs was a good way to get news from home, by word of mouth and through the club newsletter, and it provided Australians with the opportunity to meet and mingle with others who might have similar settling-in experiences. Yet, as the number of Australians immigrating to Canada began to drop sharply in the late 1970s, there were fewer new people to join these clubs, which tended increasingly to reflect the interests of their older members. In a sense, a generation gap emerged and was evident in the clubs’ deliberate efforts to sponsor events that would attract younger people to their premises.
Australian culture, of course, extends beyond the area of institutional life. For example, there is the matter of cuisine. While the Australian diet is basically similar to the Canadian one, there are nonetheless some uniquely Australian dishes that are preserved by the community such as damper, lamingtons (sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and coconut), and a South Australian favourite, pie floaters (meat pies in pea soup). Australians, who are accustomed to baking items such as self-raising flour, castor sugar, corn flour, and greaseproof paper, find that they have to learn the Canadian names for such items or to substitute for what is not available in Canada. Many endeavour to locate jars of Vegemite, an Australasian spread with a salty, yeasty flavour, which is far more common than peanut butter. It is now readily available in large grocery stores in western Canada, but Australians living east of Alberta have to rely on their friends and families back home to replenish their stocks. An Australian favourite which seems to have survived the shift to Canada, at least among older Australians, is the traditional steamed Christmas pudding, which is doused in brandy and set alight. It is somewhat ironic that this very English custom ever caught on in a nation where Christmas Day is often celebrated in sweltering heat, but it is dear to a large number of Australians and has been continued by many families in Canada. Recipes featuring Australian fare were collected in a cookbook published by ANZA, Good Tucker from Down Under (1983).
No discussion of Australian culture would be complete without reference to the issue of chauvinism. The ethos of male mateship is at the core of the Australian legend and has pervaded virtually every aspect of cultural, economic, and political life. As a result, Australia has been depicted as having a patriarchal society that has discriminated against women in virtually every way. This image has been held both in Australia and abroad and for some women has been the single most important reason for their decision to emigrate. There is evidence that this situation is now changing, and Australian women and men who have come to Canada within the last ten years generally believe that the status of women in Canada is not markedly different from that in Australia.
