From war-torn Argentina to the place 'I could walk freely on the street'

Gustavo Arteca only planned on being in Canada for a year and a half when he left his home country of Argentina in 1986.

Arteca had just finished his graduate work in the field of chemistry at the National University of La Plata, and decided to pursue post-doctoral work at the University of Saskatchewan.

Democracy was only just returning to the South American country, which had been under the control of a right-wing military government from 1976 to 1983.

"All my teenage years and university time were very marred by dictatorship," Arteca says.

During the dictatorship, more than 30 thousand people disappeared or were killed, including some of Arteca's close friends. He didn't feel comfortable walking outside at night, in case the paramilitary stopped him on the streets.

When he moved to Canada, Arteca says he felt the contrast immediately.

"Being in Canada, to me, it was the first place that I could walk freely on the street," he says.

"I just felt like I could live here very happily, very much at ease."

After putting off his return home for three years, Arteca applied to be a landed immigrant in Canada. In 1992, he moved to Sudbury to take a job as a professor and researcher at Laurentian University. He became a Canadian citizen in 1994.

Arteca says he never questioned his decision to stay in Canada, and was proud to lay down roots in Sudbury.

"I have known things and met friends that I would have never made in Argentina."

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