Date: Tuesday September 9, 2025

Time: 7:00pm

Location: SJCC 21 Nadolny Sachs Private

Cost: $10 for Members; $15 for non-members

Join us September 9th at the Soloway JCC to listen to the history of Larocque’s Department store from Robert Vineberg himself.

Until 1971 Larocque’s was an independent—and bilingual—department store at the corner of Rideau and Dalhousie Streets. It was one of several department stores on Rideau Street and in the Market, several of which were owned and operated by families from Ottawa’s Jewish community.  Larocque’s was also the only identifiable French Canadian department store in Ottawa and became an institution for the largely French-Canadian residents of Ottawa’s Lowertown for almost 50 years. The author’s personal story of Larocque’s combines facts and memories—of the people, the business and the building that were also central to his family for 45 years.

Robert Vineberg

Robert Vineberg’s career in the Canadian Federal Public Service spanned over 35 years, of which 28 were with the immigration program, serving abroad, in policy positions at national headquarters and, most recently, as Director General of Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Prairies and Northern Territories Region, based in Winnipeg. He retired from the public service in 2008. Mr. Vineberg has written and published several peer reviewed articles on immigration history and on military history. His book, Responding to Immigrants’ Settlement Needs: The Canadian Experience (Springer), was published in 2012. He co-edited and contributed two chapters to Integration and Inclusion of Newcomers and Minorities Across Canada (McGill Queen’s University Press, 2011), and has contributed chapters to Immigration Regulation in Federal States: Challenges and Responses in Comparative Perspective (Springer, 2014), Immigrant Experiences in North America (Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2015), Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era (UBC Press, 2018) and the Global Atlas of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (Transnational Press 2023). He was Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax from 2017 to 2024. He is also a former Chair of the Board of Governors of Immigration Research West, the Board of Directors of the Immigrant Centre Manitoba, and the Board of Trustees of the Manitoba Opera. In August 2024, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Manitoba Centennial Centre Corporation. In 2020 Mr. Vineberg was a recipient of the Manitoba Honour 150 Medal, honouring people from across Manitoba who gave back to their communities. Mr. Vineberg has a BA in History from the University of Toronto as well as an MA in Canadian History and a Graduate Diploma in Public Administration, both from Carleton University, in Ottawa.