Virginio Gazzola arrived in Canada in 1925 part of a huge wave of immigration that would make Toronto the second largest Italian-speaking city in the world. And like so many other Italian immigrants Virginio turned to construction to help support his wife Rose and their young family and build a new life.In 1952, Virginio started a landscaping business and quickly discovered that he was a born entrepreneur. He had an ability to wring every bit of value from a project, often salvaging copper pipe and other metal that he found and selling to the local scrap metal dealers. But starting a new business is never easy. Antoinette, Virginio's daughter, still remembers standing on street corners with the rest of the family, selling Christmas trees to help make ends meet.Two years later, Mark, Virginio's eldest son, joined the business. He was just fifteen years old and needed a special permit to drive the dump truck that, along with a roller, constituted the family's entire investment in equipmen more... See more text