1995: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: The redress issue: still no resolution (12/31/95)

1995: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

The redress issue: still no resolution

Despite sending out a Ukrainian Christmas card that carried the festive wish, "May this be the year!," the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) failed in its attempt to secure redress from the Canadian government over the World War I internment of Ukrainian Canadians.

Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Sheila Finestone, who turned down the Ukrainian Canadian redress request in December 1994, became naughty, not nice, for many Ukrainian Canadians in 1995.

Still, the community continued to keep the historical episode alive.

In January, the UCCLA announced a fund-raising campaign to erect historical markers at some of the 24 internment camp sites across Canada. A booklet detailing Canada's discriminatory wartime practices against almost 6,000 Ukrainian Canadians was later distributed.

But in February, the Ukrainian Canadian redress putsch suffered a blow when the chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) Redress Committee, Ihor Bardyn, resigned from his position - citing his own and his wife's health problems. Mr. Bardyn had served as chair for five years and had been pushing Ottawa for financial compensation on behalf of the UCC.

A month later, on February 24, a New Democratic Party (NDP) member of Parliament, Svend Robinson, tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling on the Canadian government to "acknowledge the unwarranted and unjust wrongs committed" against several ethnic communities, including Ukrainians.

Two days earlier, Mr. Robinson's colleague, Saskatchewan MP John Solomon, also tabled a private members' motion calling on Prime Minister Jean Chretien's government to "formally apologize to Canadians of Ukrainian heritage for violating their civil liberties in their unjust internment and designation as 'enemy aliens.'"

Between 1914 and 1920, 80,000 Ukrainian Canadians were stripped of their right to vote and had to register with the federal government as "enemy aliens."

The NDP motions went nowhere.

On February 25, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) cable television news channel finally acceded to air Montreal filmmaker Yurij Luhovy's documentary on Ukrainian Canadian internment titled "Freedom Had a Price."

Spring 1995 saw the screening of Mr. Luhovy's program at the 15th Global Visions Film Festival in Edmonton and the awarding of a Bronze Apple Award to "Freedom Had a Price" at the 1995 National Educational Media Network Competition in the category of "Victims of Wars."

Meantime, UCC President Oleh Romaniw pledged to seek "restitution" in early summer from the Canadian government for money seized from internees totaling up to $15 million (about $11 million U.S.) in 1995 dollars. As chairperson of the UCC Redress Committee, Mr. Romaniw said the congress planned to establish a fund that would assist educational and public awareness campaigns on various issues.

Ms. Finestone later told The Weekly her government had resolved the redress issue and planned to proceed with establishing a Canadian Race Relations Foundation in Toronto.

But the UCC was not alone in having its share of redress-related headaches. On April 8, the UCCLA announced plans to erect three historical panels, designed by the Department of Canadian Heritage's Parks Canada sector, at the Cave and Basin Internment Camp site in Banff National Park in Alberta. This would be coupled with a statue designed by an Ontario artist.

But, almost at the same time, Ottawa announced plans to construct a theater, restaurant and souvenir shop at the site. UCCLA spokesperson Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk was outraged, telling Parks Canada officials that "selling cupcakes and Coca-Cola on the site of a Canadian concentration camp is utterly unacceptable."

Six hundred male internees, mostly of Ukrainian descent, worked at Cave and Basin's rock quarries during the winters from 1915 to 1917.

In late July, the UCCLA faced another obstacle when Parks Canada considered delaying the August 12 unveiling of the panels at Cave and Basin over a problem of wording. The UCCLA faced a similar roadblock with another memorial planned for the Castle Mountain site at the same park - where Ukrainian Canadian internees spent summers working in a hard labor camp.

In both cases, government officials expressed concern over the use of the words "Ukrainian Canadians" and "unjust." With the former, Ottawa seemed to prefer using "immigrants"; with the latter, a Parks Canada official told The Weekly that Canada's internment operations "would have met all the requirements" to justify the forced incarceration of thousands of Ukrainians.

Despite expressing outrage over the federal decision, the UCCLA amended the wording on the trilingual (Ukrainian, English and French) markers at Castle Mountain to recall "thousands of immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the majority of Ukrainian origin, [who] were interned as 'enemy aliens' in camps from 1914 to 1920."

A statue designed by Ontario artist John Boxtel, accompanied the Castle Mountain memorial.

Both events eventually went ahead as scheduled.

In September, an exhibit called "The Barbed Wire Solution - Ukrainian Canadians and Canada's First Internment Operations" was launched at Metro Hall in downtown Toronto. It was commissioned by the Toronto-based Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center and funded by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation.

Meantime, in October, the UCCLA dedicated its fourth memorial to Ukrainian Canadian internees in the northern Ontario mining town of Kapuskasing. In addition to the two at Banff, the association also has a historical marker at Fort Henry, near Kingston, Ontario.

The Kapuskasing site operated from 1914 to 1920. A year later, the present community was incorporated into a town - which now has a population of 10,000.

The UCCLA also revealed its intentions to erect two more memorials in Vernon, British Columbia, and at Spirit Lake, Quebec - the latter being the camp site where two of the only known survivors, Mary Manko Haskette and Stephania Mielniczuk Pawliw - were held.

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