It is assumed that there are more than 800 000 Poles living in Canada, and together with people who declare Polish origin, there are approximately 1.2 million. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are Polish parishes and churches (in Ontario alone there are more than 30 Polish parishes), Polish schools, Polish houses, which are places of meetings and celebrations of local Poles, hundreds of Polish-Canadian organisations, including about 200 associated in the Polish-Canadian Congress, Polish foundations, scientific institutes, including the world's most famous Polish Scientific Institute in Canada, whose aim is "to preserve Polish scientific thought and tradition abroad".the preservation of Polish thought, scientific heritage and traditions abroad", there is the Chair of Polish History at the University of Toronto, there is the Polish Credit Union of St. Stanislaw and St. Casimir, with its headquarters in Toronto. There is a Chair of Polish History at the University of Toronto, the Polish Credit Union of St. Stanislaus and St. Casimir, with numerous branches, folklore ensembles, Polish shops, restaurants, travel agencies, etc. In Canada, there are Polish scientists, engineers, doctors, businessmen, people involved in culture and the arts, who are highly regarded in the Canadian community. At one time there were also Oblate priests (see Oblate priests' quarters) and Polish Oblate brothers.

In St Albert near Edmonton in the province of Alberta, there is a cemetery where Polish Oblate brothers, non-ordained religious, are buried. Here rests the first Polish Oblate to come to Canada in 1896, Brother Antoni Kowalczyk OMI (1866-1947 ), Servant of God, in respect of whom preparations for the beatification process began as early as the 1960s, and in 2013 Pope Francis signed the decree on the heroicity of Brother Kowalczyk's virtues.

Antoni Kowalczyk was born in 1866 in Dzierżanów near Krotoszyn as the sixth of twelve children. At the age of 20 and with a journeyman's certificate in the blacksmith's trade, he set out into the world in search of work. In Germany, he excelled in his profession. There he discovered the religious congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. After taking his religious vows in the Netherlands, he was sent to a mission in Canada.

A year later, at the mission in Lac La Biche, on 15 July 1897 to be exact, a tragic accident occurred while working in a sawmill. A machine crushed his hand and arm up to the elbow. By the time he reached the hospital, his hand had become unsalvageable. It had to be amputated. Instead of anaesthesia, the patient was then strapped to a table. Brother Anthony found this unnecessary. He knelt down, said three Ave Maria prayers, lay down, took the missionary cross in his left hand and, gazing at Christ, was ready for the operation.

After his convalescence, regaining his health and gaining strength, Brother Anthony one day made a miraculous discovery within himself. He found that "everything is grace, everything God wants". He realised with amazement how much he had changed internally. He had lost his arm and not only that he never complained about it, but pointing to his mutilated forearm he repeated: "This is a great grace for me". Sometimes, very confidently, he added an explanation: with the loss of his arm, the difficulties of adapting in a new country, the agonising longing for his homeland and the temptations to return disappeared. He was convinced that, without this accident, it would have been more difficult for him to accept the grace of salvation. He also received a new understanding of God's will and the grace to fully entrust himself to Holy Providence.

Throughout his life, he also remained a man of trust in the Blessed Mother, an "Ave Maria Brother", and as he was commonly referred to, a "Good Polish Brother".

"The special characteristic that brought Brother Anthony close to people, gained him sympathy and trust, and through which innumerable bonds were forged, was his human kindness and solidarity with the poor. This had all the more power to bear witness to the fact that Brother Anthony had been a cripple for 50 years. He had lost his right hand in an accident and it was replaced by a primitive prosthesis in his left hand, and he had developed rheumatism quite early in life, and so injured by life - as it is commonly called - he did a wide range of work at his missionary outpost, and outside of his hours of strict duties, he gave himself tirelessly to the service of the poor or undertook activities designed to alleviate their lot", wrote Fr. Leonard Głowacki OMI in his book He Made Me Go, (Missionaries Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Poznań 1999) and further: "Everyone who came into contact with Brother Anthony noticed immediately that this attitude of his was derived from the spirit of faith and that he drew strength from a trusting prayer, the effectiveness of which was transferred to the daily experience of believers. Hence they turned to Good Brother Pole with all sorts of troubles and considered it normal that what he could not do by ordinary means, he would remedy through prayer. And so the stories of Brother Anthony's "little miracles" spread up and down the Canadian prairies and estates.

He died in the reputation of holiness in 1947 and was buried in the Oblate cemetery in St. Albert. His grave is strewn with flowers and votive offerings and requests to the Blessed Virgin Mary for graces through the intercession of the Servant of God, written on cards left by the faithful on the grave.

Also buried in the cemetery on the so-called Albert Hill is Brother Michał Dąbrowski OMI (1901-1989), who came to the Apostolic Vicariate of Mackenzie in Canada in 1933. For more than fifty years he worked in various places in the vast diocese beyond the Arctic Circle, including many years as helmsman of a missionary ship on the Mackenzie River, bringing food, fuel, children to schools to the missions at Fort Providence, Norman Wells, Coppermine, Inuvik as far as Taktuyaktuk on the Glacial Ocean... He bound his 50 years of life to the North of Canada. He has lived and worked in conditions of both harsh winters of several months and short summers, whose sunny joy is always overshadowed by clouds of angry mosquitoes and black flies. To survive the winter and not die of starvation, he had to, often with Indians, hunt caribou.

Here is one of his accounts:

"I set out from Aklavik to hunt caribou. It was cold. I reached the Canoe Lake. I tied the dogs to some low bushes and brewed tea. I put the sled up with the skids, put a small bear skin on the snow and jumped into my sleeping bag. I couldn't squint my eyes from the cold. I was shaking as if I had a fever. In the morning I warmed up a bit and continued on my way. I rode about 15 miles up a hill called Fish Hole. I stood, meditating. On the other side high mountains. This is the Yukon frontier... The caribou herds didn't show. Only O. Biname hunted a single animal. And when we were caught in a snowstorm, he quenched his thirst with the animal's blood, tore off its skin and wrapped himself in it for the night, so that he somehow survived until morning... (...) The next day, the Indian spotted a herd of caribou, about 150 animals. We had to encircle them like in a war. We laid out a whole strategic plan. The Indian took the best position, because he is an experienced shooter. We slaughtered 25 animals. On the way back, we each took a few; the rest on the next day (...) In winter, a dog sled without a load is a piece of cake. The return journey, for example with a load of 340 kilograms, is already a problem, as the road sometimes slopes. If you lose control of the sled, it can break and kill several sled dogs. That's when the problems start..."

In 1986, Brother Michael left the Far North due to a serious illness and settled in a retirement home in St Albert, where he died in 1989 at the age of 88.

Here, after hard work in the Far North of Canada, they also found eternal rest among others.: Brother Stanislaw Szczepaniak OMI (1905-1955), who from 1936, for 25 years, worked mainly as a carpenter and joiner on various construction sites (among his most impressive missionary works were the construction of a hospital in Fort Smith and a Catholic school in Yellowknife); Brother Ludwik Jurczyk OMI (1907-1979), who worked at Fort Rae, Fort Resolution, Fort Chipewyan, Brother Ignacy Dorabiała OMI (1902-1993 ), Brother Joseph Cichocki OMI ( 1907-1963 ).

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A Canadian judge of the Superior Court of Ontario, a Pole by descent, Pawel I.B. Staniszewski recalled in his book Memoirs of a Judge (Tribune Printing & Publishing Inc., Tecumseh 2003): "In 1911 my parents became engaged, and were married in 1912 in Svisloch. A year later they boarded a ship crossing the ocean, belonging to the Hamburg-America line, and arrived in Canada. They disembarked in Halifax and travelled by rail to Montreal. (...) When I turned six, I went to St Anselm's Catholic School (bilingual), which was located on the corner of Rouen Street and Bercy Street in eastern Montreal. The school was run by nuns. Canadian women of French origin. They allowed French, Polish and English to be taught in the first three grades only. From grade four to eight, all lessons were in English only. Language and nationality were not an issue in Quebec at the time. Poverty united everyone".

The parents, both of Pavel Staniszewski and the other new immigrants, worked very hard and found it difficult to make ends meet, but they sent their children to school. They invested in education because it was the dream of both mother and father to educate their children so that they would have it easier in life than they did. They often assumed that it was enough for them to bring from home knowledge of the native Polish language, faith and a commitment to Polish traditions and culture. They realised that the opportunity for most of their children was to assimilate into Canadian society. Few parents, however, expected to reap the fruits of this investment in the first generation of children born in Canada and to be proud of their achievements. And certainly few expected their son to hold the highest office in the country where they had to live in exile and work, to be a politician proud of his background.

Hon. Pawel Ignacy Staniszewski (1925-2013); the first Canadian judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, born in Montreal. He graduated from Loyola College, the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School. Practised law in Toronto as a partner at Bagwell, Stevens & McFarlane. Liberal Party candidate in the federal election. Sworn in as a federal judge in Windsor in 1968. Later appointed as a judge on the Ontario Supreme Court of Justice. Founder of the Staniszewski Foundation for top law students at the University of Windsor. Well-known philanthropist and community activist, awarded the Honourable title. Author of five books. In recognition of his services and to commemorate Paul Staniszewski, one of the streets in Windsor was named 'Staniszewski Street'. He died in Tecumseh (Ontario) and is laid to rest in a family tomb at the local Heavenly Rest Cemetery in Windsor (Ontario).

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Canada, upon entering the Second World War, offered not only military but also humanitarian aid to the Allies, making a departure from the emigration policy. In 1940, the first transport of women and children from German-occupied countries was accepted, which included the wives and children of Polish officers residing in London.

In the same year, exactly on 12 July 1940, the Polish transoceanic ship "Stefan Batory" docked in Halifax, bringing with it to Canada the treasures of Wawel Castle, including the coronation sword "Szczerbiec" of Polish kingsThe treasures included the coronation sword of Polish kings "Szczerbiec", the Sigismund Augustus tapestry, a papal bull, cups, regalia, goldsmiths' wares, antique weapons, etc. In total, more than two hundred priceless objects were stored in Ottawa and Quebec City until 1959, when they returned to Poland.

For all these years, the most faithful custodian of these treasures and their restorer was the custodian, Lieutenant-Colonel Jozef Krzywda-Polkowski (1888-1981), who, together with Stanislaw ŚwierzZeleski, took the most valuable relics of Polish culture out of Krakow via Romania, France and the United Kingdom, saved them from plunder by the German invaders and looked after them with great care in Canada. Unfortunately, in 1946, by a decision of the London Government, he was deprived of his livelihood. Out of necessity, he took on a variety of jobs: he was a stoker in a boiler room, a night watchman in a hotel, a farm labourer, an employee in a Polish shop... Nobody appreciated or wanted to appreciate his contribution to saving the national heritage. It was not until 1956, "against his conviction and allegiance to the Republic", that he was granted Canadian citizenship, and with it a small social allowance from the Canadian government, his only source of income. This forgotten Polish patriot, extremely hard-working and dedicated guardian of the Wawel treasures, has a very modest grave with a small gravestone plaque with the inscription: POLISH ARMED FORCES. He died in Ottawa and was buried in the local Notre Dame Cemetery in a grave paid for by the city (Ontario).

Also buried at Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa are:

Prof. Dr. Adam Podgórecki (1925-1998); a prominent Polish sociologist of law. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute of Social Prevention and Rehabilitation at the University of Warsaw. He was deprived of the right to teach for criticising the communist authorities, so he decided to leave Poland in 1977. He lectured at Oxford and Stanford, among other places. He then moved to Ottawa, where he was a professor of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University there for several years. He was the author of more than 20 books and several hundred scientific publications. He worked on sociological theory, the methodology of sociotechnics, the sociology of law and morality, social deviance, and knowledge of the state. He also published some 50 volumes of parables by the fictional Chinese sage Si-tien. He died in Ottawa and is buried in Notre-Dame Cemetery (Ontario) .

Professor Bogdan Zaborski (1901-1985) , a world-renowned geographer and geomorphologist, professor at the University of Warsaw, during the war an employee of the Ministry of Information and Documentation of the Polish Government in Exile in London, firmly rejected the proposal of the communist authorities that he return to Poland and take up the chair of geography at the University of Warsaw. He chose to emigrate and went to Canada. In Montreal, he taught at McGill University, Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal, the Universities of Ottawa and Carleton and the University of Alberta in Edmonton. With seven Canadian scientists, he founded the Canadian Association of Geographers. He is the author of many books and publications, including Atlas of the Landscapes and Settlements of Eastern Canada. Concordia University in Montreal, to honour a Polish professor, founded the Bogdan Zaborski Medal, which is presented annually to the best geography graduate. The University of Ottawa, meanwhile, founded the Zaborski-Castonguay Scholarship. He died in Ottawa and was buried in Notre-Dame Cemetery (Ontario) .

Arch. Roman Stankiewicz (1911-1984), who took part in the 1941 battle of Tobruk (awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari) and later fought at Ancona and Gazala in the Italian campaign, graduated in architecture from the Polish School of Architecture at Liverpool University after his demobilisation in England. He arrived in Canada in 1955 and became known as an extremely capable architect who designed airport-related buildings, including control towers. He was also the author of the design for the Polish church of St Jack Odrowaz in Ottawa. He died in Ottawa and is laid to rest at the local Notre-Dame (Ontario) cm entory .

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In the village of Wilno, about 100 kilometres north of Ottawa, founded by Kashubians in 1858, a new Catholic cemetery provided a resting place:

Prof. Dr. Wiktor (Victor) Szyrynski (1913-2007); professor of psychiatry and psychology, member of the Polish Resistance Movement, officer in the Polish and Canadian armies, Polish activist, scoutmaster, who during the war served as a military doctor in the Sanitary Battalion of the 6th Lvov Infantry Division in Africa and the Middle East and was a lecturer in Polish Studies at the Polish Institute in Beirut. He also did postgraduate studies at the University of London (in Poland he graduated from the University of Warsaw). He obtained his PhD in psychology from the University of Ottawa and then specialised in neurology and psychotherapy. He worked at the University of Ottawa as professor of psychophysiology and psychiatry. He wrote more than 70 scientific articles in the fields of neurology, psychiatry, education and mental health and gave more than 500 lectures in Canada and abroad. Despite his many professional responsibilities, he was an active Polish activist, always most faithful to the Scouts. He died in Ottawa, and was laid to rest in the new cemetery in Vilnius, Ontario .

Professor Władysław Jan Wrażej (1894- 1975) was buried in the same cemetery; a graduate of the Lwów Polytechnic, professor of metallurgy and metallurgy, university lecturer, scout instructor, who received the Order of Virtuti Militari for his heroic defence of Lwów during the Polish-Soviet War. After mobilisation just before 1 September 1939, he took part in protecting the evacuation of Polish gold reserves to Great Britain. In London, he continued his scientific research work. In 1951, he emigrated with his family to Canada. He settled in Ottawa and worked in the department of the Ministry of Mines and Technical Surveys on the innovative use of uranium alloys. He authored many books, scientific publications and engineering patents. He and his family were extremely active in Polish organisations, including a tireless organiser of scouting life in Ontario's Kashubia. He died in Ottawa. He rests in the new cemetery in Vilnius, Ontario , in a family grave, where his wife, painter, Hermina (Rysia) née Booss (1897-1990), his son, an anaesthesiologist and researcher at the University of Ottawa, Władysław Janusz (1936-1983), and his grandson Michael (1962-1983) are also buried. On the grave, the gravestone plaque bears the inscription in Polish:

The late Władysław Jan Wrażej, professor of Polish universities at home and abroad, colonel of the Polish Army, knight of the Virtuti Militari, scoutmaster, born March 23, 1894, died July 14, 1975. Panno przeczysta intercede for him.

Dr Teodor Józef Blachut (1915-2004), surveyor and cartographer, creator of photogrammetric and cartographic instruments. He graduated from the Lwow University of Technology and defended his doctoral thesis at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich (ETHZ). He was interned in Switzerland from 1940 to 1945, worked as an assistant at the ETHZ and also taught at an academic camp for interned Polish soldiers in Switzerland. From 1951 he was associated with Canada, where he headed the Photogrammetric Research Section at the National Research Council of Canada until 1980. In his scientific work, he was concerned with geodetic and photogrammetric instruments and the design of novel surveying and mapping systems based on new techniques. His publications and textbooks have been translated into several languages. He is the author of 7 Canadian patents and 8 US patents. He received an honorary doctorate from the AGH University of Science and Technology (AGH) in Cracow in 1974. Founder of the Fanni & Teodor Blachut Foundation, established to provide financial assistance to students of Photogrammetry at AGH. Died in Ottawa. He rests with his wife in the new cemetery in Vilnius, Ontario .

Tomir H. Bałut, M .Sc. (1927-2018); while a student at the Gdańsk University of Technology, licensed to fly gliders and small civil aircraft, he became famous with his brother Przemysław in 1950 for an extremely daring escape from Poland in a school aircraft to Sweden. A year later, already in Canada, he started working in the aviation industry in Montreal. He then moved to Toronto, where he completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto. After obtaining a master's degree in strength analysis, he was a designer of water and steam turbines and worked at Ontario Hydro. He eventually became a nuclear power plant specialist, authorised by the Atomic Energy Control Board to supervise a reactor. He was one of three Poles to be authorised to control a CANDU nuclear power plant as Nuclear Shift Supervisor later changed to Nuclear Superintendent. For 3 years he was involved in the construction and commissioning of the CANDU reactor in India and from 1977 until his retirement he led a group dealing with calculations and stress analysis of mechanical structures in a nuclear power plant. He took the scout pledge in Poland in 1936 and remained faithful to scouting for the rest of his life. He died suddenly in Algonquin Park, Ontario. He is laid to rest in the new cemetery in Vilnius, Ontario .

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In turn, Professor Adam Chrzanowski (1932-2020) is laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery in Fredericton, New Brunswick; a prominent Polish-Canadian specialist in engineering and mining surveying. He was seen as an ambassador of Polish science in the global forum. At the AGH University of Science and Technology, he obtained a master's degree in mining geodesy and a doctoral degree in the discipline of geodesy and cartography. In 1964 he went to Canada for a post-doctoral fellowship, where he worked on developing the then pioneering applications of lasers in precision engineering and mining surveying. He refused to return to communist-enslaved Poland. From 1964 to 1971, he held a position as an associate professor at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in Fredericton. He was the author and co-author of more than 220 publications, including 18 monographs. He died in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and is buried in the local Catholic cemetery (New Brunswick) .

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At the beginning of the war, more than 600 Polish engineers and technicians were brought to Canada, mainly from England and France. They came on so-called temporary visas for the duration to work in the arms industry. After the victorious end of the war, they were to return to their country. On 15 June 1941, twenty Polish engineers, as soon as they arrived in Ottawa, organised a meeting, which in the chronicle of the Society of Polish Engineers (SIP) is considered to be the 1st General Assembly of the Society. The group of Polish specialists grew quite rapidly, for already in May 1942, when the Second General Assembly was held, the Association had 112 members: 40 came from the United Kingdom, 58 from France, 8 from Japan and 6 from Brazil (today, the SIP in Canada has eight branches: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, Edmonton, Oshawa, Mississauga and Peterborough and brings together nearly 500 Polish engineers).

The Polish scientists, despite initially difficult living conditions, rendered immense service to wartime Canadian industry thanks to their good professional training and high qualifications. They were, as it was described, "a creative and valued element by Canada", which significantly raised the Canadian authorities' opinion of the Poles. On 25 June 1946, the achievements of Polish engineers and scholars brought to Canada for the war period were presented in the Senate, including, among others: the launching of 5 branches of production completely unknown in Canada, the organisation of 6 manufacturing plants and the filing of 35 patents, 8 of which were applied to Canadian industry.

One of the most prominent and active members of SIP during its organisational stage was Wojciech M. Fangor , a mechanical engineer (1910-1980), a lieutenant of the Polish Army, who graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Lvov Polytechnic in 1937 and worked in the aerospace industry in Canada during the war until his retirement. He also taught at McGill University in Montreal. He was a member of the Corporation of Professional Engineers of Quebec. He died in Montreal and is buried in the Field of Honour military cemetery in Pointe Claire (Quebec) .

Of this contractual group of Polish specialists, Eng Czeslaw Piotr Brzozowicz (1911-1997) achieved the greatest fame in Canada. He began his professional career rather inauspiciously, not as a civil engineer, but as a surveyor on the laying of a highway between Prince George and Prince Rupert in British Columbia. He later moved to Toronto and opened his own consulting firm, CP Brzozowicz Ltd. His first client was the Canadian Breweries Ltd corporation, whose plans, typical of the time, required several reinforced concrete structures in Toronto, Waterloo, Windsor and Montreal. Brzozowicz used concrete structures reinforced with embedded steel bars. This was a relatively uncommon practice in Canada at the time and made the Polish engineer very popular. Among his many construction projects, the Toronto CN Tower, the Toronto-Dominion Centre - the world's first tower with a revolving restaurant overlooking Niagara Falls - and Toronto's first underground line are among the most important he consulted on. He died of pneumonia in Toronto and is laid to rest in the local York (Ontario) Cemetery .

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After the end of hostilities, the group of Polish engineers was joined by former soldiers of Polish military formations in the West, who, after demobilisation, found themselves in the United Kingdom and there, taking advantage of Polish schools and universities, prepared for civilian life by acquiring specific professions. To this end, professors of Polish polytechnics formed the Council of Academic Technical Schools (RAST). The Polish Polytechnic established by the RAST taught engineering, which enabled many Poles to graduate with an engineering degree, initially according to the formula of Polish studies and later English studies, which were recognised in the UK. Four Polish faculties were then established at British universities: medicine (1941) in Edinburgh, architecture (1942) in Liverpool and law (1944) at Balliol College, Oxford. After the war, the Polish Polytechnic was taken over by a technical college for Poles, the Polish University College (PUNO).

One of the former soldiers preparing students for matriculation in London was Leonard Victor Ramczykowski (1905-1988), a well-educated, teacher by vocation who, before the outbreak of the Second World War, had studied Polish, German, philosophy, psychology, experimental psychology, art history, Slavic philology, Greek literature and art at the University of Poznan. After graduating, he started working as a foreign language teacher at the Tadeusz Hołówka Gymnasium in Stołpy. Parallel to teaching, he also studied at Vilnius University: history of education, child psychology, experimental psychology, administrative problems of education, general teaching methods, didactic methods of language teaching. In 1931 Ramczykowski married his great love, Eleonora Anna Piskorska (1914-1999). Unfortunately, the war separated them for a good few years. Leonard was arrested by the Soviets and sent to Siberian gulags; after his release, he joined General Anders' army and took part in the Italian campaign. Eleonora, on the other hand, lived through the war in Poland. After a separation of several years, they were reunited only in London. Leonard Ramczykowski then worked as a teacher at the Joseph Conrad Polish School. He later taught Polish, English, history and mathematics at the Stowell Park girls' school. In 1952, however, the Ramczykowskis decided to leave the UK. In Liverpool they embarked on the ship 'Samaria' and arrived in Canada, where they worked as teachers on the Squaw Bay Indian Reserve near Thunder Bay, Ontario, until 1968. In 1963, as a token of their appreciation and gratitude, the Indians appointed Leonard Ramczykowski as Honorary Chief of the Ojibway tribe and named him Niganate (Guiding Light); Eleonora was named Kisssung (Little Sun). Being retired, they moved to Prince Edward Island. They died in the settlement of Summerside and are buried in Saint Mary Roman Catholic Cemetery in Indian River (Prince Edward Island) .

Many Poles, taught by Leonard Ramczykowski, went on to study at reputable English universities after passing their matriculation exams, but not only, as the Polish University College was also very popular among his compatriots at that time. Graduation from an English university, upon arrival in Canada, placed graduates at the head of long queues for work. They had diplomas, which in a country where the representative of the British monarchy is the Governor General, was and is extremely important, and, not least, they spoke English or French very well.

Henry Slaby (1925- 2009) studied administration and commerce in Glasgow and later in London. He worked in the Finance Department of the British Ministry of Industry. He qualified as a chartered accountant in Canada in 1955 and then opened his own business. Among other things, he was co-founder of the Slaby and Ungar Fund for the Polish Language and Literature Programme at the University of Toronto. He was a great advocate of Polish culture, a friend of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, decorated with the "Medal of Merit for the Catholic University of Lublin", and honoured with the titles of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Catholic University of Lublin and Protector Universitatis. He died in Toronto and is buried in the local Park Lawn Cemetery (Ontario) .

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In the Notre-Dame-Des-Neiges cemetery in Montreal, there is a modest grave of the most eminent Polish landscape and portrait painter, writer and publicist living in Montreal, Rafał Malczewski (1892-1965), son of one of the most eminent Polish painters, Jacek Malczewski. He studied at the University of Vienna and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He was a mountaineer and a great lover of Podhale and Zakopane. During the Second World War he travelled to Brazil, and from there in 1942 he reached Canada, where he managed to persuade the Canadian railways CPR to sponsor his travels across Canada in exchange for some of the paintings he had painted. This agreement resulted in more than a hundred paintings of Canadian landscapes. Author of many exhibitions and author of several books, including his memoirs about the Tatra Mountains, climbing and Zakopane. He died in Montreal and is buried in the Notre-Dame-Des-Neiges (Quebec) cemetery .

Bronisława (Bronka) Michałowska (1915-2015 ), a Polish-Canadian artist, also settled in Montreal shortly after arriving in Canada in 1951. In 1936, she began her studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. She was a fourth-year student (in Tymon Niesiolowski's studio) when the Second World War broke out. She continued her studies and artistic work in Great Britain. In 1945, she graduated from the University of London, Courtauld Institute of Fine Art, with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours (Art History).

In Canada, her early work consisted mainly of oil paintings, gouaches, drawings, watercolours and, later, linocuts. Fascinated by ceramics, she bought a ceramic kiln soon after her arrival in Canada and specialised in the art of artistic ceramics. Bronka Michałowska died in Toronto and her ashes were laid to rest in the chapel at Park Lawn Cemetery (Ontario) .

In the same cemetery, urns containing the ashes of a literary couple are in the tabernacle: J adwiga Jurkszus-Tomaszewski (1918-1996) and Adam Tomaszewski (1918- 2002).

Jadwiga Jurkszus-Tomaszewska is a Polish writer, reporter and literary critic. She graduated from a secondary school in Nowogródek, then studied Polish philology at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. She later took part in clandestine journalism classes at Warsaw University. She collaborated with the underground press and was a liaison officer in the ranks of the Home Army, using the pseudonyms Wiśka, Ada, 909. She took part in the Warsaw Uprising. After its collapse, in Belgium, she completed her studies in journalism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, obtaining a Licence en Journalism . In 1949, she left for Canada, where she taught Polish literature at the University of Ottawa. Two years later, she defended her doctoral thesis at the University of Montreal and, following her defence, moved to Toronto, where she worked professionally for the Ministry of Immigration and Employment for twenty-five years. She has written and co-authored numerous reportages and literary texts in the Polish press and five books, including Chronicles of Fifty Years. Cultural Life of Polish Emigration in Canada (1995).

Her husband was Adam Tomaszewski; a Polish émigré writer, prose writer and reporter, Polish émigré activist, who was born in Kościan, studied in Lwów and Warsaw, and took part in the Warsaw Uprising. Imprisoned by the Nazis in the prisoner-of-war camps at Sandbostel and Westertimke, he remained in the American occupation zone, from where he emigrated to Canada in 1948. There he completed his Slavonic studies at the University of Ottawa. In the 1950s, he was a member of the Dragon's Den Artistic Fraternity. Between 1961 and 1964, he and his wife edited the "Prąd Literary Supplement". He was actively involved in émigré activities, especially in publishing and editing. He belonged to the group of co-founders of the Polish Publishing Fund in Canada, and from 1976 for a year he was editor of "Głos Polski" in Toronto. He was a member of the Association of Polish Writers Abroad and, after his return to Poland, of the Poznan branch of the Polish Writers' Association. He wrote and published 11 books, including three memoirs about his home town. In 1997, he received the Honorary Citizenship of the City of Kościan. A few years later, a plaque was unveiled on the wall of the local library with a quote from the writer's works: "... this country will stay with us to the end of destiny, a beautiful country, the Koscian Land".

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An extremely important Polish foundation in Canada, created to support Polish artists in exile, was the "Wladyslaw and Nella Turzanski Foundation". Operating from 1988 to 2015, it awarded writers, musicians, fine artists and scientists with the internationally prestigious Wladyslaw and Nelli Turzanski Foundation Award. The Foundation was established by Capt. Władysław Grzymała-Turzański (1905-1986) and Nella Turzańska-Szymborska (1917-2012).

As a fifteen-year-old boy, Władysław Grzymała-Turzański took part in the 1920 war, fighting in the assault company of the 29th Kaniowski Rifle Regiment. Nineteen years later, after the Soviet army entered the territory of the Republic of Poland, he was sent to a gulag, which he left after two years of Gehenna, joining the Polish Army being formed in Russia. After leaving Russia, he took part in the Italian campaign with General Anders's army. Awarded the Cross of Valour for the Battle of Monte Cassino, he ended the war with the rank of artillery lieutenant. He arrived in Canada in 1948 with a group of several hundred soldiers. He was a co-founder of the Association of Polish Veterans in Canada and co-founder of the veterans' relief and loan fund.

His wife, Nelli Turzańska (née Barańska), was involved in the scouting movement from an early age, and just before the war she took up a job at the Ujazdowski Military Hospital in Warsaw. In November 1939, she joined the Union for Armed Struggle, later transformed into the Home Army. During the Warsaw Uprising, she fought in the "Horn" grouping (battalion "Dzik") in one of the most difficult areas of insurgent Warsaw - in the Old Town, from where she managed to get to Śródmieście (downtown) through sewers. After the fall of the Uprising, she left Warsaw, and after the end of World War II, she settled in Łódź and took up a job at the School Inspectorate; at the same time, she began studying at the Faculty of Humanities at Łódź University. From 1951, she was active in the underground organisation Polish Fatherland Front, and in February 1952 she was arrested and imprisoned with an eight-year sentence. She was imprisoned in Cracow in the Montelupich prison, then in Grudziądz and Fordon. Released after 3.5 years, she decided to leave Poland - thanks to a marriage per procura with a Canadian citizen, Stanisław Krysiak, she managed to do so in May 1958. After her husband's death in 1973, she remarried Władysław Grzymała-Turzański and was widowed in 1986. In 1994, her third husband was Zbigniew Szymborski.

The Turzanski Foundation awarded a total of twenty-one main prizes and ten distinctions to so-called Young Talents. After the end of the foundation's activities, and with it the awarding of the prize, the remaining funds, in accordance with the will of the foundation's founder, were allocated to the creation of a 'scholarship fund for doctoral students of Polish Studies at the University of Toronto'. The founders of the Foundation died in Toronto and are buried in the local Park Lawn Cemetery (Ontario) .

Rudolf Karol Kogler (1919-1998) was for many years associated with the Adam Mickiewicz Foundation in Toronto, which supported Polish education and important Polish-Canadian initiatives. Karol Kogler had a good job in Toronto, of which others could only dream (as a domographer he was involved in statistical research of the population in the province of Ontario), and he devoted every free moment to social work and was active in Polish-Canadian organisations (veterans, the Canadian Polish Congress and the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association). He was president and director of the Canadian Polish Research Institute. He gained his dutifulness and inner discipline from scouting and from his school in Wadowice, where he was a classmate and friend of Karol Wojtyla, later Pope and more recently Saint John Paul II. He took part in the 1939 campaign. Interned in Hungary, he escaped to Syria, where he joined the Polish Army and fought at Tobruk and Monte Cassino. After demobilisation, he studied at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he obtained a degree in economics and experimental psychology. In 1952 he came to Canada. He authored and co-authored many books documenting the history of the Canadian Polish community, including The Polish Community in Canada, Half a Century of Canadian Polish Congress, Poles in Toronto. He died in Toronto and is buried in the local Holy Cross Cemetery (Ontario) .

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Dozens of Canadians with Polish ancestry have been honoured for their work and achievements with Canada's highest civilian honour, the Order of Canada (see Order of Canada recipients). There have also been, and still are, politicians with Polish ancestry, proud of their origins, who sit on parliamentary benches in the federal Parliament in Ottawa or in individual provinces (see: Stanley Haidasz - the first Polish senator).