Cipywnyk ends tenure as president of Canadian Ethnocultural Council (06/09/96)

Cipywnyk ends tenure as president of Canadian Ethnocultural Council

by Andrij Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk formally concluded his two-term tenure as the Canadian Ethonocultural Council's president as of the coalition's general assembly meeting held at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in downtown Toronto on May 25-26.

Dr. Cipywnyk had decided not to stand for another term in order to concentrate on his duties as president of the Ukrainian World Congress. The former Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) leader retains a position on the CEC executive as past-president.

The CEC, a coalition of 39 national ethnocultural organizations, including the UCC, was established in 1980. Dr. Cipywnyk was its first Ukrainian Canadian president.

In his parting message delivered on May 25, Dr. Cipywnyk recounted the successes of the ethnocultural lobby in Canada since the adoption of policies of integration rather than assimilation under Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and then full-fledged multiculturalism under his successor, Pierre Trudeau.

Dr. Cipywnyk hailed the entrenchment of the policy in Section 27 of the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms (describing Canada as a multicultural society within a bilingual framework), and the passage of the 1988 Multiculturalism Act.

But the outgoing president warned of backsliding toward a bilingual and bicultural (English and French) orientation, particularly in the country's bureaucracy, "while the governing politicians sing praises of Canada's multiculturalism policy at home and abroad."

The most tangible threat was being presented in the form of ostensibly value-neutral budget reductions, he said, as the Canadian government grapples with its sizable debt.

During the CEC's meetings, members got a tangible example of the thinking that is taking hold in the country's civil service. Among the speakers invited to address the assembly was Susan Scotti of the Heritage Department.

The May 25 session with the senior bureaucrat was closed to the media, but the substance of her remarks were relayed to this writer by concerned CEC delegates. As if to counter a recent CEC brief highlighting the 42 percent non-English/non-French ethnic composition of the country, Ms. Scotti alleged that 70 percent of this segment of the society would be "intermarried and diluted" by the year 2006, thus making a multiculturalism policy "unnecessary."

And yet, the CEC was given a resounding vote of confidence by the attendance at the May 25 sessions of Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Dr. Hedy Fry, who delivered her vision statement on multiculturalism.

Minister Fry said "multiculturalism is the reality of Canada, the world's genuinely global nation." She opined that criticism of the policy is "proof of its success, proof that it is mainstream."

She vigorously denounced those who considered the policy divisive (such as former Liberal MP John Nunziata) and referred to those who would "move minorities to the back of the shop" (such as Reform Party member Robert Ringma) as "racists" who are out of touch with Canadian reality.

Dr. Fry sought to allay fears that the government's review of the multiculturalism policy was a move towards revisiting or rescinding it. She quoted from the CEC's brief in supporting the idea that multicultural issues need to be accorded attention horizontally across government departments, and not simply compartmentalized.

She also said discussions with Mr. Bois-Claire, her counterpart in Quebec's provincial government, led to a consensus about issues concerning ethnic diversity across Canada, and said she would be active in allaying the perception that ethnocultural groups are hostile to the interests of French Quebecers.

On May 26, Paul DeVillers, Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary to the federal government's newly appointed pointman in the unity debate, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, arrived to speak in his superior's stead.

Mr. DeVillers took part in the CEC's Canadian Unity and Identity Roundtable, and addressed issues of concern emerging from the results of Quebec's October 1995 referendum on separation and recent years of constitutional wrangling in the country. Mr. DeVillers explained that while the rest of Canada rejected the Meech Lake accord in 1992 as a flawed document, this was perceived in Quebec as a refusal to recognize its special identity within the country.

He also spoke of Canada as a land of freedom and fair play, a prosperous, tolerant, caring and sharing society highly regarded by the United Nations.

Asked by CEC Unity Committee member (and UCC President) Oleh Romaniw what role the CEC and ethnocultural community should play in the country's unity debate, Mr. DeVillers responded that those outside Quebec should soften their attitudes concerning the province's demands for recognition as a distinct society.

It appeared the parliamentary secretary was surprised to hear CEC members were quite prepared to offer this recognition, and was quite taken aback by the fervor of their demands that the trend in limiting the scope of Canada's multiculturalism policy be stopped.

George Manios of the Hellenic Canadian Congress asserted that both politicians and bureaucrats "need to move away from the English-French dichotomy," which was causing many of the confrontations in the country.

This was echoed in a presentation by the CEC's legal counsel, Prof. Emilio Bena-vince (who, as it turned out, once taught Mr. DeVillers), who said "the ethnocultural community does not carry the blame for the difficulties facing the country."

Prof. Benavince said English resistance to learning French and vice-versa were "just not to ethnocultural groups," for whom "another language means one more dollar in your pocket."

As Mr. DeVillers had mentioned that "aboriginal Canadians had the most to complain about," in his address, Prof. Benavince rejoined that ethnocultural groups had been blocked from participation in the drafting of the 1992 Charlottetown Accord, and were granted observer status only as part of the Native Council of Canada delegation.

As part of the "Unity and Identity" roundtable, Tony Mangliaviti, a representative of the Italian Canadian Congress, spoke about the activities of the Coalition of Hellenic, Italian and Jewish communities in Quebec. Mr. Mangliaviti described efforts to minimize the polarization engendered by Anglo-French confrontations, underscored the coalition's recognition of Quebec as a distinct society, and its ongoing efforts across Canada to assist in national reconciliation.

As the meetings drew to a close, Bora Dragasevic of the Serbian National Shield Society of Canada said he was encouraged by the members' sharp reactions to Ms. Scotti's presentations and that he had waited for the CEC to become less passive as an organization. "Finally, we are becoming a political organization," he said. "Finally we will make our presence felt in Canada's political arena."

Dr. Cipywnyk noted that several CEC members appeared ready to make politicians take note of the disparity between the pro-multiculturalism stance they were taking in Canada and abroad, and the sounds emerging from the country's civil service.

However, the new president-elect, Emmanuel Dick of the National Council of Trinidad and Tobago Organizations and a CEC veteran, was more circumspect.

Asked about the disparity between the messages brought by Ms. Scotti and Minister Fry, Mr. Dick said, "The minister is a politician. She has a responsibility to speak in a particular way. A bureaucrat has a responsibility to speak in a more sobering way.

"We have to learn whether we are simply being appeased... But to try to set the bureaucrats against the politicians would not serve our purpose, because we need friends in all places. We need to find the differences and see how they can be narrowed."

"From the fervor with which people expressed themselves here, it is quite clear that they want the organization to become much more public in its posture," Mr. Dick said, "but we need to take a sober moment and formulate a strategy."

"The word political has been used, but in some of our deliberations it also came out that some communities are represented in Parliament by individuals who turn their backs on them," the new CEC president pointed out, adding that "to speak about political action and not having the people from our communities behind us doesn't make much sense."

Nevertheless, as members of the general assembly dispersed, Mr. Dick and Dr. Cipywnyk sat down with the CEC's new executive to, among other matters, thrash out directives for its newly mandated Political Action Committee.

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