INTERVIEW: Cipywnyk comments on Cabinet changes (03/03/96)

INTERVIEW: Cipywnyk comments on Cabinet changes

Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk, a former president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the current president of the Ukrainian World Congress, also serves as the president of the Canadian Ethnocultural Council (CEC), a national umbrella organization representing over 35 ethnic bodies and over 100 individual groups.

At the CEC's last board of presidents' meeting in November 1995, the finishing touches were put on a position paper prepared in answer to the government's decision to revisit the 25-year-old policy of multiculturalism, titled "The 42 Percent Solution: Making Equality a Reality - A Response to the Strategic Review of the Multiculturalism Programs of the Department of Canadian Heritage."

After it was presented to the office of then Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Sheila Finestone on December 6, 1995, Dr. Cipywnyk and CEC Vice-President Emmanuel Dick formed part of a delegation that met with her on December 18, with to discuss the position paper.

On December 22, 1995, Dr. Cipywnyk sent Ms. Finestone a follow-up letter, summing up his impressions of their meeting.

On January 25, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien shuffled his Cabinet, and Ms. Finestone was replaced by Hedy Fry; Michel Dupuy was replaced by Sheila Copps as heritage minister; and Stéphane Dion was appointed minister for intergovernmental affairs.

The interview below was conducted by Andrij Wynnyckyj on February 5.

Q: How might the appointment of Hedy Fry as secretary of state for multiculturalism benefit Canada's ethnocultural community?

A: While it's still too early to tell, I think Ms. Fry may have a better sense of the broader ethnic community in Canada than her predecessor.

Q: How about the Heritage Ministry?

A: Obviously, Sheila Copps will be a great improvement over Michel Dupuy. She has profile and speaks her mind. I think he was simply lost. It was simply much too large a portfolio for him to handle, and he wasn't of any assistance to Finestone either.

Q: How was Ms. Finestone's perspective limited?

A: She had a good understanding of the community she belongs to, the Jewish community, but over-generalized her perception as if all communities function the way hers does. Which is clearly not true.

This is not to say that the way the Jewish community works is not desirable. In fact, it could even be used as a model. It's simply a fact that other communities work differently.

Each group has its own particularity - Italians run their community in a particular way, the Germans in their way, Ukrainians in theirs, Jamaicans in theirs, Jews in theirs. The problem was that during her time in office, Ms. Finestone never truly visited any community.

During the so-called hearings on the review of multiculturalism that were held last year, she simply talked to her own assistants and advisors at various points around the country, then hired her own consultants to duplicate what the Canadian Ethnocultural Council did in gathering feedback on how the country's multiculturalism policy should be modified.

It seemed that Finestone was very much focused on eastern Canadian matters, even specifically on those in Montreal, and there is obviously much more to the portfolio than that. That said, the people in Montreal - the coalition of Jewish, Greek and Italian communities, for instance - do a great job with respect to the unity issue and in presenting arguments against separation.

Q: They won the referendum didn't they?

A: (Laughs) Right. "Money and ethnics." [A reference to former Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau's controversial remarks blaming his side's loss in the referendum on "money and ethnics."]

Q: Will you soon be meeting with the government's new federalist point man, Stéphane Dion, the minister for intergovernmental affairs?

A: We haven't made any specific plans yet. We struck a Unity Committee to deal specifically with the issues arising in the aftermath of the referendum, notably the singling out of the "ethnic" vote [by Mr. Parizeau], but we haven't prepared a specific strategy that we could present to Dr. Dion yet.

But it's defintely a good idea. We should strike while the iron is hot.

Q: Was Ms. Finestone evasive about meeting with members of the ethnic community? Did she take on her portfolio half-heartedly?

A: No. She would always insist to us that she was very forceful in representing the position of the ethnocultural communities in Cabinet. She would emphasize that hers was a strong voice in Cabinet.

Publicly, now that was another matter.

As far as meetings were concerned, she was generally willing and available, in fact she was very accommodating for our last session at her offices in December, which actually happened during the Jewish holidays.

Q: Did you discuss the results of the referendum?

A: We sure did. With some interesting results. As you know, pretty much until [current Quebec Premier Lucien] Bouchard took over the [separatist] referendum campaign, the federal government felt pretty confident the "no" side would win, as long as nobody rocked the boat.

In fact, the unspoken reason for the federalist silence on the multiculturalism policy was not to alienate French Canadians, who have always been suspicious of it.

In fact, Finestone asked us not to say anything. After, the referendum, she asked us why we hadn't spoken up, gotten more involved.

We protested that we had been told to keep a low profile, say nothing. Then she said, "Who told you to do that?" and we answered, "You did."

Q: In your letter to Ms. Finestone following the CEC's December meeting, you write that you realize her "open door policy precludes the establishment of any formal consultative and advisory roles" for the CEC within her Secretariat. How does one follow from the other?

A: It doesn't follow really. It's simply a statement that we understand how Finestone views the CEC and how she would consult with us, but would not recognize us as the representative body speaking for the ethnocultural community in the country.

For a while she thought she could amalgamate the CEC with certain sections of her department, but then gave up when she encountered resistance. An "open door policy" in this case simply highlights her insistence that anyone she chose to consult with could be considered representative, and that no special status would be as an advisory body would be given to the CEC.

It also means, in terms of the government bureaucracy, that her staff and the various consultants employed by federal ministries would still be considered authoritative on ethnocultural affairs, that little funding would be channeled to us, and no status on the institutional or official level would be offered.

This is what we are now insisting that the ethnocultural community in Canada be granted. We want a partnership in government, representation in the bureaucracy, at the levers of policy.

The December meeting with Ms. Finestone was very productive in that it provided a very clear and definite idea of where everyone stood, and also made it clear that the CEC's policy paper, "The 42 Percent Solution: Making Equality a Reality," is a consensus position arrived at by Canada's ethnocultural communities and has to be reckoned with.

Ms. Finestone took particular umbrage at our first recommendation that an "ongoing consultative and advisory role for ethnocultural communities be formalized within the federal government." She loudly declared that no group was going to tell her or the government what to do.

She also said that it was problematic to provide funding or to give official status to the CEC as a body that represents a bunch of unicultural organizations.

That's a bit of a canard, since all of the various groups got together to consult on matters of inter-ethnic relations, and try to arrive at a common ground from diverse points of view.

But the thrust of her remarks is an insistence that ethnocultural organizations in the country will no longer get basic federal support. It's all going to be generalized and made strictly project-oriented.

That's not such a bad idea. It should send both the CEC and many of its member-organizations back into their communities to look for hard support.

On the one hand it forces the organizations to get a truer grip on how representative they are, in that they have to reach out very specifically within their community for support. On the other hand, it also breaks the pattern of dependency.

Q: Weans organizations off the public teat, as it were.

A: Right. Canada's ethnocultural organizations, the [Ukrainian Canadian Congress] included, will most certainly mature if they get back to the grass roots and really find out where their base of support is.

In another sense, as ethnocultural organizations mature, we will be much better at selling the notion that we are one of Canada's major assets, not simply a "special interest group" clamoring for a piece of the pie.

As Canada's economy is progressively globalized, as is every other country's, Canada will have a distinct advantage in that we have a large internal representation of the world at large, and thus a natural calling card to all sorts of business opportunities.

In fact, this is the topic of a conference in Toronto [held February 15-16], "Ethnocultural Diversity: A Source of Competitive Advantage," to which Ms. Fry was invited to be keynote speaker.

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