For the nearly forty percent of the Canadian population that his mother tongue is neither English or French, the Ethnic Press of the Country performs a unique function within the boundaries of the Canadian mass media.

Generally, its purpose is to inform its readers in a language more readily understood than the official languages of the Country.

There are four hundred newspapers and magazines today published all over Canada, serving more than twelve million Canadians from all over the world, which made Canada their home.

This informative publication is produced in order to celebrate the 26^th anniversary of the founding of the Ethnic Press and Media Council Of Canada, which eventually has been developed to NATIONAL PRESS AND MEDIA COUNCIL OF CANADA, The only national Ethnic Press and Media organization in the Country.

For many years now, no other attempt for the creation of a central force to represent and speak with “one voice” on behalf of the multilingual media has been succeeded. This is the reason that today we are celebrating an achievement and feel proud of ourselves.

This year’s anniversary of the Ethnic Press is considered by the editors and publishers as an occasion to acquaint those who are interested in the present and future developments of our Canadian society in general, with some basic facts and services of the Ethnic Press and Media to Canadian life for the last decades.

Further, this publication is not intended to be as a souvenir of the celebrations of the ETHNOMEDIA WEEK, its aim is to record and to be a source of history of the vitality and dynamism of the Canadian Press and Media in the non official languages, and they own influence and contributions during a period of enormous changes of the Canadian society.

We have included in this publication all the known to us ethnic newspapers and publications, regardless of the fact whether or not they are members of this organization, in order to provide a more complete picture of the work of the family of the members of the Ethnic Press and Media of Canada.

It focuses particularly on changes which affected the large segment of the Canadian population of other descent than English or French.

The role of THE NATIONAL ETHNIC PRESS AND MEDIA COUNCIL OF CANADA is to represent the members of the foreign languages publications of Canada, on the Federal and Provincial levels and to take a stand on fundamental questions such as the national unity, equality among Canadians, the respect of human rights, social justice and social acceptability for every citizen or Canadian resident, as well as the preservation and respect of the cultural heritage of all Canadians and finally an input in the development of the Canadian Foreign policy.

For various reasons this publication will not give a whole picture of the problems the publishers of ethnic newspapers are facing, nor the pressing needs of the multilingual communities are facing. It is a pilot publication about pioneers and their efforts and struggle to honour and preserve a language and culture alive in a linguistic ocean of the multilingual mosaic of our Country.

For the last twenty six years the ethnic press and its members organizations have shown considerable development as well as linguistic and ideological diversity, as educated immigrants from various parts of the world daily arrive to Canada.

As Canada develops more open daily able and willing to accept an inclusive for all of its citizens policy, the ethnic press and its members will be pioneers in consulting and guiding the government for the creation of the “ just society”, by introducing laws that will bring changes to education, the socioeconomic affairs of the new Canadians and the acceptance of the new ideas by the Canadian society.

For all this reasons the role of the ethnic press in many respects will remain of primary importance.

We thank you for your attention at the ETHNIC PRESS and MEDIA of CANADA.

The Board of Directors
National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada
Conseil Nationale de la Press et Media Ethniques du Canada