July 22, 2016

125 years of Ukrainians in Canada

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Nothing, absolutely nothing, convinces me more of the future of Ukrainians in Canada than Lemon Bucket Orkestra’s “Counting Sheep,” a guerrilla folk opera staged in Toronto.

The performance was phenomenal – and filled to capacity. The interactive cast and audience sang, danced, battled, shouted, threw bricks and wept. The mostly non-Ukrainian audience lived through the life cycle of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in the 99-minute performance.

Believe it or not, real borsch was served a la the soup kitchens on Kyiv’s Maidan. Then, the dining tables were overturned and stashed into barricades. In dead silence, the audience saw the carnage and became a cortege following the dead heroes – killed by the Russia-directed Berkut snipers – down into the crypt. Then there was a resurrection! But you must see the performance for more.

“Counting Sheep” is being performed next at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Get it for your city.

If Mark and Marychka Marczyk – the power and talent behind countingsheep.com can accomplish some of the best theater in Toronto, consider the potential of all Ukrainian Torontonians – some 200,000. Or the 1.3 million in Canada; 10 million in the diaspora worldwide; and the over 40 million in Ukraine.

The human capacity is there; the leadership must lead.

As it approaches its next congress marking the 75th anniversary of its existence, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) needs to set guidelines for member organizations to take Canadians of Ukrainian descent into the future.

The UCC’s issues divide quite neatly: those dealing with the future of Ukrainians in Canada and those designed to assist Ukraine. This piece deals with the former.

Although the UCC leadership claims to represent all Canadians of Ukrainian descent, some surveys indicate that only some 200,000 are part of the UCC umbrella structure. This means that most Canadians claiming Ukrainian roots are not formally engaged.

The Ukrainian Churches comprise the largest memberships: the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church leads with some 160,000 members, while the Ukrainian Orthodox Church claims some 50,000. The Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League of Canada is the largest secular organization with over 4,000 members. Most memberships are smaller. There are about 1,500 in the Ukrainian Youth Association and 1,400 in Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization. Formerly numerically strong organizations like the League of Ukrainians in Canada and the Ukrainian National Federation or the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation barely reach 1,000 each.

In addition to the dramatic loss of members, the Ukrainian community has been losing its numerical position as a percentage of Canadians.

Following World War II it was the fifth largest ethnic group in Canada after the Anglo-Celtic, French, German and Poles (many of the latter were in fact ethnic Ukrainians from western Ukraine under Poland’s domain since 1919). Now, Ukrainians lag far behind significant immigrations from India, Asia and elsewhere.

Canada’s immigration policies do not support more Ukrainians for Canada. The preferred immigrants are those with $500,000 capital or those who have knowledge of either official language. Most Ukrainians wishing to enter Canada neither have such funds nor meet the English/French language requirement.

This may be a discriminatory practice, according to the Canadian Charter of Human Rights. It needs to be challenged in the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Indeed, the entire matter of Ukrainians as a founding people of Western Canada needs a solid study and far-reaching recommendations to the government of Canada. Our community deserves such forward thinking. Without a new government policy acknowledging our rights – enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Human Rights – the community will stagnate. This is a huge leadership challenge.

So is the need to increase membership. To date, there is little evidence that this is being addressed successfully by any member organization – church or secular.

Another challenge is the commonly expressed view that “nobody wants to lead.”

Paul Grod has served as UCC president since 2007. Knowledgeable individuals in the UCC say he will stand for office again during the fall congress in Regina. As good as one individual might be, the lack of new blood in an organization is not always healthy. No change means that the same leader and his/her team occupy positions of power to the exclusion of others. Allowing the sitting president yet another term signals a trend towards exclusivity by the insider group, leaving others out of the decision-making and leadership process. At the same time, the argument that there is no one available to replace the incumbent hardly speaks to the vibrancy of the community. A declared vacancy allows good people to come forward. When it was thought that theater with a Ukrainian theme was a non-starter for Canadian and other audiences, the remarkable “Counting Sheep” stormed on stage. A similar “storm” is needed to re-energize the Ukrainian community in Canada with new people and new ideas to mark the 125th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement here.

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