Passionate Investigative Journalist Born, 1948, Lachine, Quebec, Victor Gregory Malarek has been a Canadian journalist since 1970. Of Ukrainian descent, Victor, co-host of CBC’s Fifth Estate since 1990, and a senior reporter on social policy issues with The Globe & Mail since 1976, is a passionate journalist whose strong concerns about social issues have led him to two Michener Awards, 1985 and 1988, and a Gemini Award, 1997, as best Canadian broadcast journalist. Author of several fascinating investigative books, Victor, who now lives in Toronto, in this view, speaks on the 1996 Tenth Anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in his ancestral homeland, Ukraine. [Photo, courtesy Andrew Gregorovich]

Following in the Footsteps of His Great-Great-Grandfather In Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrants often felt compelled to anglicize their surnames, the perception being, perhaps correctly, that if one had an Anglo surname, job opportunities were more accessible. Such is the case with Steven Peters. Recently elected to the Ontario Legislature for the Riding of Elgin-Middlesex-London, Steve’s paternal grandparents immigrated to Canada, circa 1905, from the Horodenka area of Ukraine. Settling first in Saskatchewan, by the time the family migrated to Toronto, in the 1930s, the family surname, Pidwerbeski, had been changed to Peters. Steve’s maternal family also immigrated to Canada from Ukraine. In fact, Steve’s great-great-grandfather, on his mother’s side, was Mayor of Werchrata for 10 years. As with his ancestor, Steve, from St. Thomas, Ontario, was elected Mayor of his hometown in 1991. The youngest Mayor in the city’s history, he served three times before being elected a Liberal MPP, 1999. In this view, Steve Peters, Mayor of St.Thomas, is presented to Her Majesty The Queen on the occasion of the Royal visit to St. Thomas, June 27, 1997. [Photo, courtesy St. Thomas Times-Journal]