The community of Serbian Canadians (; ) includes Canadian citizens of Serb ethnicity, or people born in Serbia who permanently reside in Canada. Serbs (and Serbians) have migrated to Canada in various waves during the 20th century. Today there are five or more generations of Serbs in the country. The 2021 census recorded 93,360 people in Canada declaring themselves as "Serbian". Serbian Canadians generally belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church and follow the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
History
The first Serbs to arrive in Canada came to British Columbia in the 1850s. Many of them came from the state of California in the United States, while others directly emigrated from the Balkans. They primarily originated from the Bay of Kotor and the Dalmatian coast which had similar climates as their destinations. A second wave of Serb emigration occurred from 1900 to 1914. In both instances, the majority of these migrants came from territories controlled by Austria-Hungary for political and economic reasons, and only a small number came directly from Independent Serbia.
Those who settled were typically young single men and employed in mining or forestry near such towns as Phoenix, Golden Prince Rupert and Kamloops. Fishing and the search for gold were also among the primary occupations of these early settlers. In the Yukon, Black Mike Winage arrived from Serbia in 1898 near the end of the Klondike Gold Rush and became a pioneer.
During the second wave of emigration, Serbs arrived in the prairies. In Saskatchewan, they took up farming. In Alberta, coal mining and road construction was a source of employment. Many Serbs worked on the construction of railway lines that now extend from Edmonton to the Pacific coast. Communities of Serbs emerged in Regina, Lethbridge, Edmonton and Calgary while significant populations formed in Atlin, British Columbia and Dawson, Yukon. In Ontario and Quebec, Serbs were drawn to work in the industry sector. By 1914, the Serbian community of the city of Hamilton, Ontario numbered around 1,000. Further Serb settlement was established in Niagara Falls, London, and Windsor. The first Serbian immigrants to the city of Toronto arrived in 1903; by 1914 there were more than 200 Serbs.
During the Great War, military-aged Serb males who hailed from Serbia or Montenegro were considered allies but those who were born in Austro-Hungarian territories were deemed enemy aliens by Canadian law, even though their sympathies tended to lie with the allied cause. The latter were restricted in their freedom of movements, had to wear special identity cards and had to identify themselves regularly at the police station. Several hundred were interned in prison camps throughout the country under terrible conditions. Physicist Mihajlo Pupin, Serbia's consul in New York during the war, and Antun Seferović, the honorary consul of Serbia in Montreal, advocated for the rights of the classified aliens and internees through diplomacy via the Srpska Narodna Odbrana u Kanadi (Serbian National League of Canada) which resulted in exemption, compensation and the release of many ethnic Serbs. Another advocate for the rights of Serbs of Austro-Hungarian origin was Serbian-born court interpreter Bud Protich, who enlisted in the Canadian Army and was wounded in action in 1917.
Prior to World War I, many arriving Serbs were variously categorized under related Balkan groups, making the exact number of Serb immigrants difficult to determine. After 1921, all immigrants from Yugoslavia, including Serbs, were designated as "Yugoslavs". The interwar period saw a major increase in Serbian immigration to Canada. More than 30,000 Yugoslavs came to Canada between 1919 and 1939, including an estimated 10,000 Serbs. Many of these immigrants were single, working men who settled in the northern region of the province of Ontario. During this time, ties to Europe were strong and pressure from Belgrade and Ottawa resulted in certain Serbian Canadian newspapers being banned due to their communist ideas. They were mostly written by pro-Russian Yugoslavs who were not necessarily of Serbian origin.
After the Second World War, Serbian political émigrés who were opposed to the newly established Yugoslav communist government sought refuge in Canada. Many of these were POWs and laborers from Austria and Germany who refused to return to their homeland. They settled in cities such as Toronto, Sudbury and Hamilton. Between 1957 and 1971, some 23,000 Yugoslavs arrived in Canada, of whom 10-15% were Serbs. They established organizations, newspapers and cultural events.