Calgary man searching for group that helped him immigrate to Canada 3 decades ago
Ivo Ceko was a member of a military police unit that was guarding a hotel in a town in central Bosnia when he met a group of young Canadians and Americans in the summer of 1994.
His English wasn't very good back then, and they couldn't speak fluent Croatian – but they managed to exchange some sentences.
"We chat, we laugh," he recalled in a recent phone interview. "I didn’t expect anything from that (meeting)."
When a young woman in the group told Ceko that she was travelling home to Canada and asked if she could bring him anything back, he jokingly responded: "Get me a passport."
"'Really, you want to get out from here?'" he remembered her asking. "I say, 'who wouldn't?' It was a desperate situation."
Three weeks later, the man in his 30s received a brown envelope. Inside were blank Canadian immigration forms and a pair of socks. He filled out the paperwork, applied for a visa and arrived in Canada in March 1997.
Now, nearly three decades later, Ceko is looking to reconnect with the group to tell them how grateful he and his family are for what they did.
"I just want to find them and say thank you and, you know, hug them and maybe have a drink with them," Ceko said from Calgary.
Ceko doesn’t remember much about the five or six men and women who helped him, asides from that they were in their twenties and had a guitar.
He thinks they might have Croatian roots as they were visiting after Croatia announced its independence in 1991 – and during the brutal civil war that broke out within the former Yugoslavia in the years after – to see how things were going in their newly founded ancestral country.
They could have also been employees of charities affiliated with churches that were involved in delivering aid to the desperate population back then.
He said the members of the United Nations peacekeeping forces were in the town and at the hotel, but he doesn’t think the group was part of any military.
The news that he had received the forms travelled fast across Novi Travnik, a small town where everyone knew everyone. Soon, friends showed up, asking if they could make photocopies.
Ceko said he doesn't know how many people actually immigrated to Canada using the photocopies, but he is sure that a few – including one of his friends – did.
Until now, Ceko hasn't had time to think about reconnecting with those who helped him. He's spent the past 26 years raising two children, sending them off to university, and starting a flooring business.
He closed his business when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His children are now grown and living on their own. As his 60th birthday closes in, he said it is the right time to start the search.
"I always have (finding them) on my mind, but I didn't have the time. Now I have time," he said.
Last week, with the help of his daughter, he wrote a post sharing his story on a Croatian-Canadian Facebook page.
So far, he hasn't uncovered any leads, but he hopes he will eventually get "lucky" enough to meet the group that changed his life.
"I am going to tell them the happy story," he said. "They probably forget about that, but I didn't."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
Fewer medical students going into family medicine contributing to doctor shortage
As some family doctors are retiring and others are moving away from family medicine, there are fewer medical students to take their place.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
Photographer alleges he was forced to watch Megan Thee Stallion have sex and was unfairly fired
A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
Competition bureau finds 'substantial' anti-competitive effects with proposed Bunge-Viterra merger
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.