Emil Hain was born in 1935 in Caliento, Manitoba. He moved with his family to Rivers, Manitoba in the 1940s where he attended elementary and high school. Hain graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1959 with a degree in Civil Engineering. During his time at university Hain was part of the first international chapter of the Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity (TKE), the Zeta Iota chapter. In his final year Hain served as a senior representative on the University of Manitoba Student's Union. In 1978 Hain married Lynette Tripney. In 2005 Emil and Lynette Hain established the Bereziuk-Kushniryk Archival Endowment Fund at the University of Manitoba which will be used to support the collection and maintenance of archival material relating to Ukrainian history. In 2010 they created the Emil and Lynette Hain Scholarship for Oncology Research, and in 2011 the Emil and Lynette Hain Graduate Scholarship for Engineering. In 2014 they further established the Bereziuk-Kushniryk Graduate Fellowship in Ukrainian Studies.

Lynette Hain (nee Tripney) is the granddaughter of Rev. Thomas Featherstone Watson. Born in New Zealand she immigrated to Canada in the 1970s. She married Emil Hain in 1978.