Chairman’s Report 2019 Calgary, June 11, 2019.

Communication
One of the most important functions for USP/FEP is to distribute information to Finnish-Canadians and other expatriates. FEP news have been incorporated into the Suomi-Seura ry Suomen Silta publication and into the monthly digital newsletter, called formerly Sutinat. The digital news have been distributed to all member organizations and those who have attended the FEP sessions or have requested to be included on the mailing list. Most clubs have then shared the information with their individual club members. I have translated the newsletter into English for the last four years. Recently the format of the newsletter was changed so that it is primarily in Finnish, but all important sections are translated into English and Swedish.
In addition to the translation, I have compiled news of interest and sent the “Extra” along with the Suomi-Seura ry newsletter. Selected additional information was distributed by e-mail.

Finnish Elections
After 20 years of work, the mail vote was finally instituted. It was used in both the Finnish Parliamentary and European Union elections. In both elections the expatriate participation rose slightly, to 12.6% in the Parliamentary and 5.8% in the EU election. The numbers of mail votes were 6,166 and 2,391 respectively. Participation in Finnish elections by expatriates is still quite low, but increasing, compared to the numbers of voters in Finland. Although there are about 12,500 eligible voters in Canada, less than 6,000 notifications were sent due to lack of complete addresses.

Research Projects
USP, Canada region, assisted with two research projects by distributing the questionnaires across Canada. Lori Ojala and Outi Arvola are studying Finnish culture in Canada. Results can be expected in the fall of 2019. Thank you to the many hundreds of Finnish-Canadian youth who participated in these studies.

Vice-Chairman
Maarit Koivunen has decided to live in the USA. Therefore according to USP/FEP by-laws, she is unable to continue in her position of Vice-Chairman, Canada region. In anticipation of this, Irina Ilmokari was elected at the 2018 AGM to replace Maarit.

USP/FEP Membership
The number of member organizations in Canada has increased to 66. Canadian membership represents about 12% of the 530+ FEP members. A campaign aimed at the remaining 20+ non-member Finnish-Canadian organizations produced an increase of five members. There are further possible memberships in New Finland, SK (2), Ottawa (4) and Toronto (1). A large membership is very beneficial to USP/FEP in its representation of the nearly 2 million expatriates to the government of Finland, and for keeping the largest possible number of Finnish-Canadians informed about items of concern to them. Please inform me if you are aware of clubs interested in joining.

Veli Niinimaa
Chairman, Canada Region

Veli@nucleus.com

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