Saskatoon's Filipino community celebrates its first-ever music and food street festival

SASKATOON -

Before starting his business in 2017, the owner of Le Suerte Bakery & Restaurant in Prince Albert did a feasibility study that included a Filipino population survey to see if there was enough of a customer base.

“I was amazed based on my study, there’s more than I expected. That’s why I pursued this,” said Ben Docapo.

He says the large number of Filipino's in Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Melfort prompted him to start a bakery specializing in traditional Filipino baked goods, food and desserts.

His business now delivers over 3,000 packages of Filipino style buns alone to speciality grocery stores and restaurants in the province.

Statistics Canada 2016 data shows there are 32,340 Filipinos living in the province. And Tagalog is the second most spoken language, after English. The population of Filipinos in Saskatchewan has doubled since 2011.

The organizer of the first-ever Saskatoon Filipino Music and Food Street Festival, Chris Rod, estimates there are around 33,000 Filipinos. He says Saskatoon has a Filipino population of about 12,000. And about 9,000 in Regina.

The festival running on August 7 and 8 and located on 23rd Street East aims to promote Filipino culture through food and music with food vendors and musicians from all over Saskatchewan, Rod said.

“We are expecting the Filipino community to be here and celebrate with us. Aside from that we are looking at the diversity that we have here of the different communities to also come,” said Rod.

Filipino dishes like lechon (roasted pig), pork barbecue, lumpia (spring roll) and pancit (stir fried noodles) will be available from food vendors, as well as a fruit tent.

Rod says employment is the main reason the majority of Filipinos came to Saskatchewan and a large number of them work in health care, the food service industry and the manufacturing sector.

“We are basically a very a tight knit community in how we work. A lot of Filipinos are doing double jobs right now just to make sure they can provide for their families,” Rod said.

Docapo says he's looking forward to attending the festival next year as he isn’t able to take time off this summer.

He decided to make Saskatchewan his home because of the people and has been in the province since 2007.

“The people here are nice, as we are also nice. It was easy to interpret them and to work with them,” Docapo said.

“People are very much approachable, the locals when I came here. In just a few minutes they are already my friends so I decided to stay here in Saskatchewan,” said Docapo.