1997: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Ukrainians in Canada: redress still unresolved (12/28/97)

1997: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Ukrainians in Canada: redress still unresolved

The year began with a new Ukrainian Canadian face in the Manitoba Cabinet when Premier Gary Filmon, himself a Ukrainian Canadian, named Franklin Pitura the new government services minister. The other Ukrainian Canadian government officials are Darren Praznik, who was moved from the energy and mines portfolio to health, and Leonard Derkach, who remained minister of rural development.

In nearby Alberta, Ed Stelmach, re-elected to the provincial legislature on March 11, was appointed Alberta's minister of agriculture. Mr. Stelmach, of Andrew, Alberta, represents the Vegreville-Viking constituency in northeastern Alberta. As Alberta's agriculture minister, he secured one of the highest profile portfolios in the Alberta government, whose agricultural sector is the province's largest employer.

But there wasn't much of a change in the relationship between the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the federal government this year. Ottawa still said no to the UCCLA's redress claim for the internment of some 5,000 Ukrainian Canadians during World War I.

In a February interview with The Weekly, Canadian Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Dr. Hedy Fry questioned the effectiveness of the association's plans to place individual memorials at internment camps across the country. "We can only try to change our future by having learned from the past," said Dr. Fry, a physician, who represents the downtown riding of Vancouver Center in House of Commons.

Speaking in Parliament on October 10, Member of Parliament Indy Mark, who represents the Manitoba riding of Dauphin-Swan River, displayed a hand-written registry of enemy aliens interned at the Spirit Lake Camp in Quebec; the list contains the names of 257 Ukrainians interned there. Nearly all evidence of Canada's internment camps, save for this registry, had been destroyed by the government. Mr. Mark spoke out against the injustice done to Ukrainian Canadians and asked MPs to bring about justice and closure to this regrettable event in Canadian history.

Over on the West Coast, the Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo acknowledged its role in the interment of Ukrainian immigrants during World War I. On May 24 a plaque was unveiled to remember the almost 150 internees who were held in a camp there from 1914 to 1915. Funds for this project were raised entirely within the Ukrainian community.

The next unveiling took place June 7 in Vernon, British Columbia, the internment camp where thousands were imprisoned between September 18, 1914, and February 20, 1920. MacDonald Park and Seaton High School now stand on that site. The Vernon camp's only known survivor, Fred Kohse (internee No. 5019), attended the solemn ceremony. Late in the year, Mr. Kohse suffered a stroke.

Albert Bobyk and Sonya Karashowsky, the adult children of two Ukrainian Canadians who were unjustly interned at the Canadian concentration camp once in operation in Brandon, Manitoba, watched in quiet reflection as a memorial plaque for those who were interned there from November 27, 1914, to July 29, 1916, was unveiled on November 27. Mr. Bobyk's and Mrs. Karashowsky's fathers, William Bobyk and Michael Tuer, were two of the more than 900 Ukrainian Canadian men who were interned in Brandon. The plaque unveiled in Brandon was the eighth plaque placed by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It is the goal of the UCCLA to dedicate a similar plaque at each of the 26 internment sites across Canada.

Over 5,000 Ukrainians were imprisoned in concentration camps established across Canada during Canada's first national internment operations in 1914-1920. They were rounded up because they came from the Austrian crownlands of Galicia and Bukovyna, areas held by the Austro-Hungarian empire, and, under the War Measures Act of 1914, they were categorized as "enemy aliens."

In February, a traveling exhibit recalling the historic episode arrived in Ottawa. "The Barbed Wire Solution - Ukrainian Canadians and Canada's First Internment Operations" opened at the Karsh-Masson Gallery at Ottawa City Hall. The display was produced by the Toronto-based Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center.

Also in February, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" came under fire from the Ukrainian Canadian community over its "Canada's Dark Secret" program, which examined the presence of alleged Nazi war criminals in the country. In a January 31 letter to the federal broadcasting regulator, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, sent two days before the show was aired, Ukrainian Canadian Congress President Oleh Romaniw suggested the segment would "misrepresent the Canadian government's measures in regard to alleged war criminals in Canada, as well as the numbers and nationalities of these persons." An Edmonton television station did not air the program. A couple of weeks later, after it was accused of censorship by a local newspaper TV critic, the station broadcast the show.

The war-crimes issue within the Ukrainian Canadian community was revived on February 25 when the federal government named Serhij Kisluk, 74, of St. Catharines, Ontario, as a suspected Nazi collaborator. Accused of participating in "atrocities against the civilian population" in Ukraine as a member of the German-organized Ukrainian auxiliary police, Mr. Kisluk faced losing his Canadian citizenship and deportation. He became the ninth Canadian accused of being a Nazi war criminal by the federal government.

Two months later, the community was again rocked when Steven Rambam, a private investigator from New York City who appeared on the controversial "60 Minutes" episode, and Bernie Farber, national director of community relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress, unveiled a "1-800-rat-on-a-Nazi" toll-free telephone strategy to help hunt down war criminals in Canada.

Mr. Farber denied the campaign was aimed at any one ethnic group, and the UCC's Mr. Romaniw insisted relations between the Jewish community and the Ukrainian Canadians wouldn't be hurt by the project - though the UCC maintained its "made-in-Canada" solution for bringing suspected war criminals to justice.

At year's end, Canada's Ministry of Justice announced that American lawyer Neal Sher, former director of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, had been appointed as a special consultant to the ministry's War Crimes Unit. The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association reacted by noting the OSI's less than pristine record in pursuing war crimes cases in the U.S., as its personnel have been accused of using forged documents and of failing to disclose exculpatory evidence. The appointment of Mr. Sher came despite the fact that a group of Ukrainian Canadian leaders had met on November 13 in Edmonton with Justice Minister Anne McLellan and voiced their strong objections to Mr. Sher being put on the Canadian government payroll.

The UCC and the Canadian Jewish Congress held a roundtable on Canadian unity in March, in Winnipeg where Canada's Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion called on members of both communities to keep the country together.

Federal politics were also on the mind of some members of the Ukrainian Canadian community in April who worried that Canada's commitment to funding multicultural programs was wavering.

Following an April 21 meeting of the Canadian Ethnocultural Council in Ottawa, Dr. Bohdan Kordan, co-chairperson of the UCC's Government Relations Committee, blamed the federal government's preoccupation with preventing Quebec's separation from Canada for interfering with its commitment to other ethnic groups. "Ultimately, Canadian society is a federation of communities," he said, "which includes the multicultural community." Saying that Ottawa has been highlighting social justice issues, particularly those that affect recent immigrants to the country, Dr. Kordan added, "The Ukrainian Canadian community has also been subject to historical discrimination, such as the redress question."

Winnipeggers had something more immediate on their minds on May 1 when the Red River's floodwaters reached their crest. Some 8,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the city, bringing the province-wide flood exodus to almost 25,000.

Winnipeg's Ukrainian Catholic archeparchy, whose archbishop's residence overlooks the Red River, started its own flood-relief effort and sent monies raised to the Canadian Red Cross-Manitoba Flood Appeal. The Toronto branch of the UCC also helped out in the fund-raising push, sending $30,000 to Manitoba's flood victims. With flood-waters on their mind, Manitobans also didn't fancy the idea of thinking about the federal election, the campaign for which was under way. When the day arrived on June 2, several Ukrainian Canadians won seats in the House of Commons, including Ontario Liberal MP Walt Lastewka and Saskatchewan New Democrat John Solomon.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's return to power for a second term also mobilized the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation, which distributed an informal questionnaire to candidates on issues affecting the community and planned to work with MPs in the new Parliament to get the UCPBF's own agenda addressed. "All I hear from the community is that the government doesn't do this or the government doesn't do that," said former federation president Raya Shadursky. "But at no point in time does anybody provide solutions on how we can access politicians and get our message across."

Earlier in the year, in New Westminster, near Vancouver, the first and only Ukrainian Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross, Filip Konowal, was honored with his own plaque at an April 5 ceremony. The Ukrainian émigré was celebrated for his heroic efforts during the battle of Vimy Ridge. Konowal died in Ottawa in 1959.

There were several signs of new directions for Ukrainian Canadians.

The future of Canada's Ukrainian community in the next century was the principal issue discussed at the 1997 biennial convention of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation (UCPBF) held in Calgary on August 1-4. Some 135 persons representing Ukrainian professional and business associations from coast to coast participated. The UCPBF also elected a new president: Calgary journalist Donna Korchinski, who became the second woman to hold the post. Federation delegates agreed to focus on 21st-century themes, such as the Internet. Among other top issues: seeking redress for internment and expanding youth involvement.

The 34-year-old Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko in June welcomed a new president, Andrew Hladyshevsky of Edmonton, who also represents the UCPBF on the foundation's seven-member board of directors.

Ukrainian educators from across Canada met in Winnipeg on October 24-25 to develop an action plan, including an advocacy campaign for expanding use of the Ukrainian language and a nationwide needs assessment program. The conference led to a division of labor among the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (both national and provincial), the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Ukrainian Canadian School Board of Toronto bilingual program, parental organizations and educators. The results of the needs assessment are to be presented at the 19th Congress of Ukrainian Canadians in October 1998.

The 31-year-old National Ukrainian Festival in Dauphin received an injection of new blood, with Dr. Mark Symchych, just a year older than the annual celebration, taking the helm as president.

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