Cabinet ministers, MPs, MNAs and city councillors pay homage at salute to Tamil Heritage Month
Up to 3,000 people of Tamil origin turned out at the Château Royal congress centre in Chomedey last Sunday afternoon to be part of one of their community’s most important annual events.
The eighth annual celebration for Tamil Heritage Month was produced by the Quebec Tamil Heritage Month Federation, in conjunction with more than 50 organizations in the Quebec Tamil community.
Elected officials from the federal, provincial and municipal governments, including the cities of Laval and Montreal, came out to express their support for the Tamil people, while also paying homage to the contributions of Tamils since their arrival in Canada.
For those from the Tamil community, it was an opportunity to reinforce their identity as a people, while for others it was a chance to learn about a community that has grown numerically and in its influence in Canada over the last few decades.
Today and the next generation
“This is an event that is very important for the Tamil community today and for the next generation,” Karikalan Jeewaratnam, a prominent member of the Tamil business community in Laval, said in an interview with The Laval News.
“We are very thankful for all the support we have received from all the elected officials from the federal, provincial and the city councils,” he added.
Since 2010, Tamil Heritage Month has celebrated the history of Canada’s Tamil community and its contributions to the social, cultural, political and economic strength of Canada.
The federal government declared January Tamil Heritage Month, recognizing the importance of the Tamil community on a national basis.
While recognizing the Tamil community’s accomplishments and tracing its roots, Tamil Heritage Month also provides opportunities to celebrate the Tamils’ history in Canada.
A Tamil calendar celebration
The month of January was chosen as Tamil Heritage Month for a number of reasons. The Pongal festival, the most important and widely-celebrated festival among Tamils around the world, falls in the middle of the month.
Pongal is both a time of thanksgiving for the blessings of the past year and a time to look forward to the start of a new year. The first month of the Tamil calendar, Thai, begins in the middle of January.
Throughout the morning and early afternoon, members of Tamil cultural and community groups performed musical numbers and folk-dance routines. Short documentary film presentations were also projected, providing background on the history of the Tamil people, as well as more recent developments in Sri Lanka.
