Politics

The earliest Lithuanian immigrants left a tsarist Russian regime that barred from government service all non-Orthodox. Later immigrants came from an independent country, but most were young and without much education or political experience. Those who took Canadian citizenship, which often was not easy to get, did vote, but economic problems left them little time for political activities. A few leftists and liberals took part in union work and helped candidates at election time. It was only the Soviet and German occupations of Lithuania that prompted the large body of immigrants to political action. Both those who supported the Soviets and those who did not formed organizations and wrote letters to the Canadian government urging appropriate action. Leftists raised money for an ambulance for the Red Army; rightists formed the Lithuanian Council of Canada in 1940 to lobby for independence.

Years in camps deeply politicized post-war immigrants, who wanted to continue in Canada the struggle for Lithuanian independence. Canada was one of many Western nations that did not recognize Soviet incorporation of the three Baltic states. Throughout the Cold War Lithuanians held demonstrations and commemorations to which government members were invited, wrote letters to newspapers, and collected funds to publish books and carry out actions on behalf of the homeland. International attempts to ease Cold War tensions culminated in the 1975 signing of the Helsinki Accord, which gave Lithuanians in Canada the right to appeal to their government to press the Soviet Union on the rights of their co-nationals in Lithuania. The Lithuanian-Canadian Community submitted memoranda, testified to parliamentary commissions, and sent observers to human rights conferences set up by the accord. Members of a Helsinki Accord committee created in Lithuania in 1976 were persecuted, and so cooperation with it was not possible. It was only after the nationalist Sajudis movement was formed in 1988 that Lithuanian Canadians were able to organize joint efforts in support of human rights in Lithuania and ultimately in favour of renewed independence.

The Lithuanian-Canadian Community was the first major Lithuanian immigrant organization in the world to appreciate the significance of Sajudis and to work closely with it. Since 1990 Lithuanian Canadians have been extremely generous in raising money for Lithuania, including purchase of a house in Brussels to serve as its embassy in Belgium.

An annual Baltic Evening in Ottawa was started in 1973, involving members of parliament and senators. The Lithuanian coordinator was J.V. Danys. The Baltic Federation, founded in 1941, was an important centre for organizing such cooperation, as was the Canadian European Captive Nations Council.

Lithuanian independence led to new kinds of activities. Canadians born in Lithuania can renew their citizenship and participate in Lithuanian elections; overwhelmingly they have voted for Sajudis candidates. The Lithuanian-Canadian Community, as a member of the World Lithuanian Community, has a delegate in Vilnius.

Lithuanian immigrants have been too few in number to play a significant role in Canadian politics. In early years the DPs tended to vote in federal elections for the Liberal Party, which most supported immigration. Lithuanians have run unsuccessfully in provincial and federal elections for various parties. There is no riding in which the Lithuanian vote would be decisive; even in Toronto, where Lithuanians number several thousand, they have moved to the suburbs, away from their traditional places of settlement in the Dundas-Queen area and the High Park district.