IN MEMORIAM: Bohdan Mykytiuk: tireless advocate of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada (10/17/99)

IN MEMORIAM

Bohdan Mykytiuk: tireless advocate of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada

Bohdan Mykytiuk, 70, president of the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society, died on September 1 of a heart attack following cancer-treatment surgery. Funeral services were conducted at St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Toronto on September 6.

by Lubomyr Luciuk

Whenever I think of Bohdan Mykytiuk I shall remember him as he was when we last had a chance for a leisurely conversation. We were late lunching in Ed's Warehouse, after participating in the unveiling of a memorial plaque at Toronto's Stanley Barracks. Recalling the imprisonment of Ukrainians stigmatized as "enemy aliens" during Canada's first national internment operations was one of Bohdan's many passions.

This is not surprising, given that he was born in Smooth Rock Falls, Ontario, the only child of Ukrainian immigrants whose home was a kind of boarding house for itinerant forest workers. Young Bohdan grew up hearing tales of the Canadian concentration camps from the few brave enough to whisper of what they had endured.

Disgust over this injustice and a profound understanding of the harm done to the organized Ukrainian Canadian community by it, motivated him, later in life, to dedicate himself to helping Ukrainian immigrants. He was president of the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society (CUIAS) from its inception in 1977 to his death, nearly a quarter century later.

This was not always an uncontested effort. More than once Bohdan had to take up the cudgel against the many bureaucrats, shills and swindlers who batten off the uncertainties central to a genuine refugee's experience. Characteristically, he always told these Philistines precisely what he thought of them, the personal consequences be damned.

Years of hands-on experience dealing with immigration issues also more or less convinced him of a pernicious Ukrainophobia within some government circles. Ukrainian immigration to Canada has been dammed down to a trickle of what it once was, when the brawn and brains of thousands of Ukrainians turning prairie sod or working as miners burrowing deep into the Canadian Shield helped bring prosperity to this country.

Bohdan and I discussed whether a "quota" now exists on Ukrainian immigration. We concluded that one does and that racial prejudice constitutes its core, while conceding it would be hard to prove, discrimination against non-visible minorities not being one of the fashionable causes of our day. Yet how else to explain why it is nearly impossible for a Ukrainian to legitimately emigrate to Canada, yet easy for someone claiming to be a refugee to find asylum, even after admitting payment of $50,000 to a smuggler in order to be illegally dumped on Canada's shores?

Few refugees Bohdan knew had that kind of cash. For that matter few Canadians do. Bohdan didn't get rich helping immigrants. He did it for free. That certainly didn't endear him to those who help refugees for profit.

Bohdan was unbowed by the apparent indifference, ignorance and, sometimes, hostility of the Ottawa mandarins and their minions who shape immigration policy not for humanitarian motives, but for political gain. His commitment was apolitical.

He worked hard to ensure that his society's staffers became competent lobbyists and understood how they now constitute a proven, stalwart source of assistance and counsel to immigrants and refugees - not only to the few hundred Ukrainians who annually make it here but also to others from eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Many times I saw Poles, former Yugoslavs, even Somalis and defectors from the Soviet occupation army in Afghanistan availing themselves of the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society's help. The society's door, unlike Canada's, was always open to anyone genuinely needing help. That was one of Bohdan's rules.

He was a passionate man. On the fall day when we last spoke he railed against the injustice he perceived in contemporary government efforts to denaturalize and deport Canadians suspected of having been collaborators during the second world war. The accused are not afforded a fair trial in a Canadian criminal court. Bohdan, like many, was dismissive of the miasma whipped up around this issue, patiently explaining to those who have ears and wish to hear that he, like others, demanded that compelling evidence of wrongdoing be produced before someone's guilt is decreed.

Bohdan saw himself, as he once told me, as continuing in the tradition of those great Canadians who, like the RCAF's Bohdan Panchuk, lobbied to make it possible for thousands of Ukrainian displaced persons to come to Canada just after the war - my parents among them.

Panchuk, and Bohdan Mykytiuk after him, were men of determination and fortitude, leading from the front rather than mumbling rationalizations for doing nothing from the sidelines. To deal with the criticisms that inevitably came his way, Bohdan deployed a fine wit and a dry sense of humor, more than enough armor to deflect barbs hurled at him by those for who always perceive a man of this calibre as threatening.

Perhaps most remarkably, Bohdan accomplished everything he did despite fighting off the debilitating effects of several cancers over a period of two decades. In that time I never knew him to be disconsolate. He was a thruster. He never quit. And so I am sure he would say that none of the Ukrainians for whom the CUIAS helped secure sanctuary in Canada owed him anything, other than becoming good Canadians. Our community has yet to fully sense what a prince we have lost.

Bohdan was blessed with a loving wife, Claudia, and two fine children, a daughter, Melania, and a son, Markian. Understandably, their loss is deep. But they will find consolation in contemplating the great good Bohdan achieved through his life of service to his people and his country. He was what his name Bohdan means - given by God.

Prof. Lubomyr Luciuk, former chair of Kingston's Ukrainian Refugee Aid Committee, says he has thought of himself as a pupil of Bohdan Mykytiuk for some two decades.

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