Convention presentations and panels cover issues facing Ukrainian Canadian community (09/05/99)

Convention presentations and panels cover issues facing Ukrainian Canadian community

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Throughout the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation's biennial convention delegates were drawn into intense discussions of issues that face them and their community at the turn of the century.

On July 2, following the keynote address by former astronaut Roberta Bondar (see separate report on page 13), delegates attended the first plenary session, which addressed the questions: "Who are we? Where are we? What does the future hold?"

Panelists included: Michael Kostiuk, a geographer-cartographer of Ukrainian-Irish background, who served as the UCPBF's vice-president of Internet communications from 1995, maintaining the organization's website and in the winter of 1995, who also worked on a project to connect seven health organizations in Ukraine to the Internet; and Paul Grod, chairman and founder of the Canada Ukraine Internship Program (CUIP), a former president of the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union (SUSK) and an executive member of the Conference of Ukrainian Youth Organizations (CUYO), currently pursuing a career in law and business at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

The statistics of identity

Mr. Kostiuk presented data gathered from Statistics Canada to present a picture of Ukrainian Canadian demographics based on the 1996 Census.

The report, accessible at http://fox.nstn.ca/~mkostiuk/ukcandem.html, presents a the dramatic decline of position of Ukrainians among Canada's leading ethnic groups.

In 1971 Ukrainian was third, behind German and Italian, as a mother tongue for a language other than English or French - a reported 309,890 speakers; it slipped to fifth, behind Portuguese and marginally ahead of Polish (with Chinese rising to second place) by 1991 (down to 201,320 speakers); by 1996 Ukrainian dropped to ninth on the languages list (174,830 speakers), falling well behind Polish and Punjabi and just ahead of Arabic. Of those listing Ukrainian as their mother tongue, 47 percent were age 65 or older.

As to Ukrainian in the home, the language has not registered a position in the top 10 since it disappeared from the top-15 list prior to the 1991 census.

The most dramatic statistic dealt with language shift between 1971 and 1996, indicating the use of Ukrainian in Canadian homes declined by 76.5 percent (only German, at 71.2 percent, showed a comparable shift, and only Dutch fared worse, at 87.2 percent).

Mr. Kostiuk also presented information indicating the distribution of those professing knowledge of Ukrainian and actual use of the language across the country. Toronto led the country with 35,220 claiming knowledge of Ukrainian and 11,580 professing to use it at home; in Edmonton, 26,430 reported knowledge of the language, but only 2,320 use it at home; and in Winnipeg there were 2,550 home users among the 24,530 who reported knowing Ukrainian.

Identity maintained, but mixed

For Mr. Kostiuk, these grim statistics were not portents of doom, but markers of a reality that Ukrainian organizations in Canada needed to face. He derived comfort from the apparent fact that people continue to identify themselves as Ukrainians, despite their gradual mixing with other heritages.

He emphasized that in the 1996 census, 1,026,475 individuals reported a Ukrainian background, with those of mixed heritage outnumbering the "single response" Ukrainians 694,790 to 331,680.

Mr. Kostiuk's survey also gave figures for the number of individuals who reported that they had recently immigrated from Ukraine. Toronto was the leader, this time by a disproportionate margin with 4,030; Montreal at 785; Vancouver at 635; Edmonton, 515; Ottawa-Hull, 250; Winnipeg, a surprisingly scant (given the province's special immigration programs) 235; while 145 settled in Calgary; 120 in Oshawa, Ontario; and 100 in Hamilton, Ontario.

Give youth a "fix" of belonging

Mr. Grod began his presentation with the truism "the future equals youth," then outlined some of the challenges that Ukrainian Canadian organizations face.

The former SUSK leader and current SUM activist pointed out that most youth "don't tend to belong to a particular organization, and keep mostly to themselves, but show a need for an occasional fix of altruism and a sense of belonging - they will show up if made aware of specific projects and drives."

Mr. Grod said it is paramount for organizations to become more professional, engage in more strategic planning and rely on entirely different strategies than appeals to guilt or responsibility to the community.

The CIUP chair said his program is part of a movement that needs to be expanded - one that capitalizes on the emergence of an independent Ukraine by creating opportunities for individuals to express their altruism. Mr. Grod praised the Help Us Help the Children initiatives in support of orphans in Ukraine, and suggested that kibbutz-type efforts could be initiated in the eight-year-old country.

Mr. Grod said organizations had to begin "thinking outside the box" of their traditions and current practices, and address controversial questions. The questions the young banker-lawyer posed were provocative, including: Should all youth organizations be amalgamated into one? Should all unsuccessful organizations be disbanded? Should people agree to a minimum of two or three people on all executives?

Mr. Grod saw a further challenge in the apparent reversal in social mood away from the "ethnic chic" that prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s, to a darkening mood against them. He said Ukrainians have to be vigilant against the vilification of Ukrainians and the tainting of their history.

Tainted perceptions

At a workshop after the panel, the theme "Global Impressions: Perception versus Reality" addressed Mr. Grod's point about the vilification of Ukrainians.

Andrew Gregorovich of the Toronto-based Ukrainian Research and Documentation Center denounced as "historically myopic" the recent decision by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to bow to a complaint by a Toronto resident offended by the fact that a line of the Ukrainian-made "Hetman" vodka carried the likeness of 17th century Kozak leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

Mr. Gregorovich also presented a reading list of materials to be used to blunt arguments presenting Ukrainians as anti-Semitic.

Lesia Jones of Media Watch Ukraine recapitulated the history of the deportation, trial in Israel and subsequent continuing efforts to prosecute retired Cleveland auto worker John Demjanjuk.

Olya Odynsky Grod focused on the strongly negative impact that the Canadian Justice Department's program of denaturalization and deportation has had on the image of Ukrainian Canadians and on her own family (her father is the object of proceedings).

Volodymyr Halchuk, the newly elected president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) Ontario Provincial Council, galvanized the audience with his outrage at the defacing of the Ukrainian Cultural Center on Toronto's Christie Street on June 20.

UCC Toronto Branch President Maria Szkambara decried the lack of fortitude shown by lawyers of Ukrainian background in not standing up in defense of the community's good name.

A convention guest from the United States, Bohdan Vitvitsky, president of the Ukrainian American Professionals and Businesspersons of New York and New Jersey, rose to commend the panelists and participants for their fervor and convictions, but urged them not to allow "short-term discussions to turn into dilettantism" and called on the Ukrainian Canadian community to "call a conference and decide whether an appropriate amount of resources would be allocated to influence the media, government and the society at large in a proper direction."

Building an Internet community

The next plenary session was titled "The New Millennium: Modern Telecommunications" and chaired by the Ontario Advocates' Society Executive Director Alexandra Chychij. Ms. Chychij pointed out that one of the factors that accelerated the fall of the Soviet Union, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the attempted coup of August 1991, was the plethora of fax machines that had been smuggled into the moribund empire from the West.

Ms. Chychij said that computer technology has further democratized access to information and called on the Ukrainian diaspora's organizations to use this technology to expand on the traditional links among its members and accelerate the decision-making process that has made them slow-footed in the past.

Panelist William Roberts, current secretary general of the North American Broadcasters' Association, former senior vice-president for television at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and former senior policy analyst at the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, provided an excellent overview of the changes in telecommunications.

Mr. Roberts said massive changes are ongoing in the telecommunications industry, with the big companies that have dominated telephone, television, cable and Internet access services scrambling to assert control over the emergent "Wild West" in telecommunications.

The media analyst said the democratizing trend mentioned by Ms. Chychij offers opportunities for small players, such as small organized communities (ranging from a group such as the Ukrainian community in Canada, to farm cooperatives, to a neighborhood association active within six city blocks) to bypass the networks set up by the larger companies or ride piggy-back on them.

Mr. Roberts pointed out that setting up websites is relatively inexpensive, and through them everything from research information to radio and television broadcasts can be carried. However, he cautioned that the marketing of such sites so that a sufficient number of people are aware of the service being provided can be very capital-intensive.

"The future leans to the nimble," the media expert said, "and the nimble are often the smaller."

The other panelist in that afternoon's session, Donald Guy, is vice-president of the Toronto-based firm POLLARA, which conducts public opinion surveys, convenes focus groups for various clients and conducts executive interviews. His prior experience includes service as an advisor to an Ontario Provincial Cabinet minister, as a corporate government relations officer and a research analyst for the federal Ministry of Transportation.

Mr. Guy cited statistics suggesting that two-thirds of Canada's population had used the Internet in the past year; with 76 percent sending electronic mail, 74 percent conducting research (mostly consumer-oriented), and 62 percent buying goods or services.

He pointed out that privacy concerns are paramount. Anonymity is often preferred, and as such is an impediment to "relationship marketing" and the forming of stronger community ties.

The amount of time people devote to the computer screen has to come from somewhere, the analyst said, and he suggested that computer users often "cannibalize" the time previously devoted to community involvement.

And yet, Mr. Guy averred that since Ukrainians have a "brand identity" - their ethnicity - the Internet can serve as a neutral "guilt-free" medium that can attract those who have been at the community's fringes or not participating at all. This is particularly true of youth, the analyst averred, who can be drawn to the tasks of operating and troubleshooting for communications systems.

The double-edged sword, noted Mr. Guy, is that people can communicate with one another almost instantaneously via e-mail across vast distances, or download material from publications or data bases operating afar, yet they become less involved with their own local community.

Veteran UCPBF activist and panelist Olya Kuplowska, senior producer at the publicly funded television station TVO, suggested that Ukrainians have already made a good start in staking a presence on the Internet, but have to expand in a more coordinated and concerted fashion and noted that Ukrainian studies could be easily expanded because the Internet makes it easier to share material and to focus interest strategically.

Ukrainian entrepreneurial buzz

Participating in the plenary session "The International Marketplace," on July 3, was Eugene Luczkiw, an internationally recognized expert in the field of entrepreneurial development and enterprise education, founding director of the Institute for Enterprise Education (website at http://iee.vaxxine.com/iee/ented.html), a non-profit facility affiliated with Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, and an adjunct member of the faculty of business.

His noted success was in turning a company in Ontario's wine industry (formerly a laughingstock) into a presence in the world market. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., among others, and accompanied an Enterprise Canada delegation to Ukraine in 1995.

Mr. Luczkiw's talk was peppered with the buzz that seeks to "change the world by changing attitudes," boldly strike out into new conceptual territory with assertions such as "every citizen, every worker should think like an entrepreneur" and "attitude is more important than knowledge and skill."

Stephan Bihun, another panelist, joined Bell Canada as a repairman in the 1960s, rose through various management positions, exhibiting talent in marketing, and took on numerous overseas assignments on behalf of Bell Canada International until his retirement in 1994. Drawing on this experience, as well as a two-year period in which he helped break up British Telecom's monopoly in the United Kingdom, Mr. Bihun then ventured into business opportunities in telecommunications in the U.K., Thailand, Australia, France, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

Ukraine's business climate evaluated

The Bell veteran concentrated on dispeling any illusions businesspeople might have about opportunities in Ukraine, and of relying on the Canadian government's agencies to smooth the way.

"CIDA [the Canadian International Development Agency] is hopeless. Their business planning stuff is doing more harm than good," Mr. Bihun opined. "It has been proven to fail in North America and now it's being inflicted on Ukraine."

Mr. Bihun said the only hope is to sell Ukraine's politicians and leaders of vested interests on the benefits to their constituencies and their own pockets if they adopt proper business practices.

Mr. Bihun took up on the idea voiced earlier by Mr. Luczkiw, suggesting that what is required in Ukraine is a business concept that prompts workers in the country's industries, highly trained but inappropriately employed in labor-intensive projects, to embark on grass-roots entrepreneurship.

It was Mr. Luczkiw's turn to be grimly realistic, pointing out that most in Ukraine are forced by their circumstances into a different mentality. "People are in survival mode in Ukraine, and it is difficult, given the current situation, to switch over to self-actualization, the driving force in the West."

Mr. Luczkiw mentioned an interesting possibility that might allow Ukraine to capitalize on growing opposition to lumber-based paper production around the world, suggesting that if the country's traditional hemp (konopli) industry were to be revived, it would be very well positioned in terms of the world market in the coming decades.

The two-brother team of Andrij and Zenon Kulchisky also offered their insights during a session titled "Learning the Ropes in Ukraine." Investing the money they made in a successful video rental business in Hamilton, Trident Video, they established Marcan International, a joint venture producing bathroom products in Ukraine. Initiated in 1993, the company was eventually run into dormancy and has now been taken over by the Ukraine-based partner.

Zenon Kulchisky, a former lecturer in political science at York, McGill and St. Mary's universities, related that the most demanding task faced by a foreign entrepreneur is keeping track of the changing laws. "If you invest there, stay there with your money, read every issue of Halytski Kontrakty and Dilo [two business-oriented newspapers], and whenever you're confronted by an official demanding a payoff, pull out your clippings," he said," otherwise you'll be stiffed."

Mr. Kulchisky said there was no getting around the Soviet legacy in Ukraine. "You have to be able to deal with the burden of history," the businessman-scholar averred, "If the arrival of prosperity in Ukraine depends on the reduction of state power, as we believe in the West, the process will be excruciatingly slow."

In a nutshell, his advice to prospective investors: "Don't put all your eggs in the Ukrainian basket, but if you are Ukrainian yourself and are willing to stay in for the long haul, you can watch the gradual process and feel the rewards of having helped the economy in the land of your forebears."

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