Scandinavian Community Centre

Don’t miss this fun fam­ily fes­ti­val! Eat eth­nic foods, watch enter­tain­ment from all cor­ners of Europe and find trea­sures at the 32 cul­tural booths!

Date: Sat­ur­day May 29, 2010
Place: Scan­di­na­vian Com­mu­nity Cen­tre
Cost: Admis­sion $7, Chil­dren under 12 years FREE

Gates open at 10am — Open­ing Cer­e­mony 10.30am
Cul­tural dis­plays, Mar­ket­place & Children’s tent open until 6pm
Food booths & Beer Gar­den open until 8pm
Non-stop Stage Enter­tain­ment until 9pm
DANCE TO LIVE MUSIC 9pm – 1am

The Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of Fin­land now has an oper­a­tional portable pass­port sys­tem that will first be avail­able at the Finnish Embassy in Ottawa, then it will travel to the Finnish Con­sulate in Van­cou­ver and lastly to the Con­sulate in Toronto.

The portable pass­port sys­tem will be avail­able in Van­cou­ver this fall, towards the end of Sep­tem­ber or early Octo­ber. The date will be con­firmed early August on the embassy web site www.finland.ca and in the Finnish news­pa­pers in Canada.

Instruc­tions

The appli­ca­tion process is vir­tu­ally the same as at the Embassy in Ottawa.

A pass­port appli­ca­tion form is no longer in use. The pass­port sys­tem gen­er­ates the appli­ca­tion and with the portable sys­tem the photo will be taken as part of the appli­ca­tion process (this is dif­fer­ent from the process at the Embassy in Ottawa, where the appli­cant pro­vides a pho­to­graph). The appli­cant signs on an elec­tronic tablet, and a fin­ger­print scan is taken. As the fee is set in euros, it may chance with exchange rate fluc­tu­a­tion. Valid fees are posted in the Ser­vices sec­tion of the Embassy web­site ($137.00 in May 2010).

The appli­ca­tion can only be processed if the applicant’s per­sonal data (name, date and place of birth) in the Finnish pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter is up-to-date (fur­ther infor­ma­tion: www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi or www.maistraatti.fi). For exam­ple name changes due to a mar­riage or divorce can­not be processed in the pass­port sys­tem. These have to be updated in the pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter ahead of time. Also, chil­dren born out­side of Fin­land can­not be issued a Finnish pass­port until their birth and cit­i­zen­ship details are entered into the Finnish pop­u­la­tion register.

Future use of the portable pass­port sys­tem in Canada

The Embassy will inform the Finnish com­mu­nity of the cir­cu­la­tion of the portable pass­port sys­tem at suit­able venues within the Finnish Com­mu­nity via press releases and on the Embassy web­site. The costs involved in bring­ing the portable pass­port sys­tem to events and cities within Canada will cre­ate con­straints on avail­abil­ity. There­fore, the portable sys­tem might be in a spe­cific area only for few days in any given year.

Pass­port appli­ca­tions can be made in Fin­land at the local police sta­tion. The pass­port can be for­warded to the Embassy in Ottawa (by request) if it can­not be issued by the end of the stay in Fin­land. In fact, a pass­port appli­ca­tion can be made at any pass­port issu­ing point in the world and the pass­port for­warded to Canada. Check the For­eign Min­istry web site www.formin.fi for loca­tions and con­tact infor­ma­tion for Finnish mis­sions. The Embassy in Ottawa will then make arrange­ments to for­ward the pass­port to the appli­cant, who should get in touch with the embassy upon return to Canada with their con­tact infor­ma­tion. A pre-paid courier or Canada Post Xpress enve­lope must be pro­vided by the applicant.

Con­tact for the media: Embassy of Fin­land, Head of Con­sular Affairs Tanja Neu­vo­nen,
tel. (613) 288 22 40, if.nimrofnull@nenovueN.ajnaT

Come cel­e­brate Nor­we­gian Con­sti­tu­tion Day at the Scan­di­na­vian Centre!

Date: Mon­day May 17, 2010
Time: Bar opens at 6pm, din­ner at 7pm — Catered by Fiesta Cater­ing
Place: Scan­di­na­vian Com­mu­niy Cen­tre
Cost: $35.00
Con­tact: For tick­ets con­tact SOlvi Stokholm at (604) 540‑1099, Aaslaug Boulier at (604) 929‑3826 or Mar­sha Unheim at (604) 929‑3972

Dance to the live music of Gaslight from 9 pm to midnight!

Date: Sun­day May 16, 2010
Time: 11:00 — 15:00 (11am — 3pm)
Place: Scan­di­na­vian Com­mu­nity Cen­tre
Con­tact: For infor­ma­tion con­tact ac.evilnull@sazurenuj (604) 929‑2184

Games for the chil­dren, speaker, sand­wiches and waf­fle lunch available!

Cana­dian Friends of Fin­land Sun­day After­noon Films presents:

Man­ner­heim

Czarist Gen­eral – Mar­shal of Finland

Orig­i­nally made for Swedish TV in 2007, this com­pre­hen­sive doc­u­men­tary traces Mannerheim’s child­hood, mil­i­tary train­ing in Ham­ina and St. Peters­burg, his career and rise to gen­eral in the Russ­ian Army, and his return to Fin­land and role in the Finnish Civil War and in the Win­ter and Con­tin­u­a­tion Wars. A num­ber of inter­views are in Swedish, but this ver­sion is nar­rated in Finnish by the well-known Finnish actor, Peter Franzén, and has Eng­lish subtitles.

Date: Sun­day May 2, 2010
Time: 14:00 (2pm)
Where: Scan­di­na­vian Com­mu­nity Cen­tre
Cost: Admis­sion by dona­tion. Refresh­ments served.