Little Ukraine of Saint-Jérôme

That day, at Costco in Saint-Jérôme, an employee invited customers to download the store’s app when paying for their purchases. Her name was Olga and she spoke French with a Slavic accent.

“Are you from Ukraine?

— Yes, she answered us. There are many Ukrainians in Saint-Jérôme.

And a lot of Ukrainians, we later discovered, work at Costco. “Right now, it’s nine people,” Olga said.

According to Statistics Canada, Ukrainians living in the country are significantly less likely to live in large cities than the general population. There are around 200 of them in the MRC of Rivière-du-Nord, of which Saint-Jérôme is the capital.

Some have been here for a long time. This probably explains why they were joined two years ago by some of those who obtained emergency visas issued by the federal government after Russia invaded their country.

Why Saint-Jérôme? “Because my husband was transferred to Airbus in Mirabel,” says Olga Sushchenko, who has lived in Quebec since 2008 and has permanent residency. “Before, we lived in L’Île-Perrot for nine years. But it was almost a two-hour drive. We moved. Here, it really is a great quality of life, it’s peaceful and we have all the services we need.”

Their three daughters, aged 7, 8 and 12, were born here. “Three little Quebec ladies.”

Picnic in the park

In Saint-Jérôme, there has even been an Association of Ukrainians since 2022. On July 13, a picnic was organized on the shores of Lake Jérôme.

Oksana Stohnii, 43, was there with her two sons, aged 13 and 16. “I got to know several families,” she explains in correct French. “My children also got to know other children.”

Oksana arrived in Quebec on July 9, 2022, with an emergency visa. Friends, she says, helped her settle in.

For a year, she lived in a seniors’ residence in Montreal, Le Symbiose, near the Radisson metro station. Her apartment, a four-and-a-half “very nice, with all the necessary things,” didn’t cost her a cent. “These friends helped me in every way,” she says. “They collected clothes and allowed us to have furniture and dishes. They also offered me my first job at Symbiose: I washed the walls, the baseboards and disinfected the doors.

Her husband, Volodymyr Stohnii, 48, came to join her about a year ago. He was able to leave Ukraine because he is sick. Together, they made the decision to settle in Saint-Jérôme for work.

“It’s a good place for my job and for my husband,” says Oksana. “In Montreal, it’s very difficult because my husband doesn’t speak French. I’ve been taking French language courses since October 2022. I can find work, but he can’t. It’s very difficult.”

They both work at Costco. She works in the bakery five days a week from 1 to 9:30 p.m. He works in the deli, where he prepares cooked meals.

Their apartment, a five-and-a-half, costs them $1,565 a month. “I like the peace and quiet of Saint-Jérôme, the security, the friends, the parks. It’s very good.”

Uliana Nahaichuk, 31, likes the city’s quietness, but what drew her to move here was the availability of housing. She, too, came to Canada to escape war.

“It’s very difficult to find an apartment in Montreal,” observes the mother of two young children. “I had no job, no credit history. In Saint-Jérôme, it’s easier. Now, I like living here. I don’t want to change. I like everything. There’s a beautiful lake, it’s quiet. For a family, it’s perfect. And there are a lot of Ukrainians.”

Her apartment, a four-and-a-half, costs $1,000 a month. “It’s not new, it’s not perfect, but it’s OK,” she explains.

A new clientele

Of course, Ukrainians are not the only immigrants in Saint-Jérôme, whose population is growing visibly.

According to data from the Institut de la statistique du Québec, there was an explosion of immigration in the south of the greater Laurentides region in 2022: 1,200 new arrivals in the MRC of Rivière-du-Nord, where Saint-Jérôme is located, and 1,500 others in Mirabel. There were only about 300 in each the previous year.

The population of Saint-Jérôme has grown from 80,000 in 2021 to 84,000 today.

To accommodate all these people, more than 1,000 housing units are built each year. “We need to do more,” acknowledges Mayor Marc Bourcier. “Like many other cities in Quebec, we have this housing problem.”

Line Chaloux founded and directs the Centre d’orientation et de formation pour encourager les relations ethniques traditionnelle, le Coffret, which serves immigrants from a large part of the Laurentians. The organization has 25 employees: 3 Ukrainians, 6 Africans, 1 Lebanese, 1 Syrian, 1 Moroccan, 1 Colombian, 1 Nepalese and 11 Quebecers.

“Our clientele has doubled since the pandemic,” she notes. “Usually, we are overwhelmed. We even have difficulty finishing in the evening because there are so many people who need our services.”

It is also a clientele that has changed in recent years.

But what attracts most immigrants to Saint-Jérôme is not the woods. It is the fact that this municipality is a good size and can offer services to a foreign population. Like an ethnic grocery store just a stone’s throw from the heart of the city and Place Curé-Labelle. And a developed downtown, where the multi-ethnicity of the inhabitants is visible.

And the fact that it is not too far away. In principle the regional capital, Saint-Jérôme has become, de facto, a suburb of Montreal, three-quarters of an hour from the metropolis – outside of rush hour, of course – and even less from Laval. Moreover, every Sunday, Uliana, who is Catholic, goes to mass at the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Montreal. “It’s a Greek-Catholic church where I feel good,” she confides.