"This is a historic moment for Bulgarians in Canada, because it is happening for the first time," the consul general said excitedly in an interview with Radio Bulgaria, as it is the result of several months of effort. According to her, it is the first time a municipality in Canada has designated a Bulgaria Day and on the initiative of the consulate, the date is not accidental, namely May 24 - the Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture.

"On May 25, there will be a special ceremony - the first Bulgarian school in Vancouver "Sts. Cyril and Methodius" turns 30 years old and the children have prepared with a special concert. A representative of the Municipality will come to this important event for them and read the so-called Proclamation that May 24 has been announced as the Bulgarian Cultural Heritage Day in the city of Vancouver," explained Velislava Panova

The city of Vancouver itself hosts a large part of the Bulgarian community in British Columbia, which according to unofficial data is between 5,000 and 6,000 people:

"This is a large part of the people who participate in different types of events that for the last 3 and a half years we have been able to organize precisely in this most remote province of Canada - British Columbia. This is the most western province where we have started to organize outsourced consular days, which had not been done for a long time. The first were during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was something extraordinary for people there because they had access to services that were otherwise 6 hours away by plane. And when we started doing them, they actually had to come to the city center and present themselves to us to do the service.This motivated us to start different initiatives that became quite successful and we continued in the territory of all the other 9 provinces, for which the Consulate General is responsible in the territory of Canada."