1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Canada's community: at a crossroads (12/29/96)

1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Canada's community: at a crossroads

For the second year in a row, Canada had been rated the most desirable country to live in by the United Nations, but this was cold comfort to a polity threatened by surging separatism in one of its larger provinces, Québéc, and by the impact of the international virus of cutbacks, which had spread from the business world to government social programs and cultural institutions.

The Ukrainian Professional and Business Federation did its part in grappling with the situation, sponsoring a series of talks and panels titled "Canada in Crisis." The first, held on February 24 in Toronto, dealt with the nature and character of the sovereignty movement in Québéc. The featured speaker was a hard-line federalist Prof. Yarema Kelebay of McGill University's faculty of education in Montreal.

The second Toronto-based event involved a square-off between one of Canada's best-known champions of multiculturalism, Dr. Manoly Lupul, and former Liberal Member of Parliament John Nunziata, an outspoken critic of the policy.

On March 29, the debate took place, in a fashion and a setting that was most closely in accordance with the series' purpose, as envisioned by UCPBF Ukrainian Canadian Congress liaison Michael Wawryshyn. At the outset of the series, Mr. Wawryshyn said he hoped to provide a forum for discussion and contact, and to attract the participation of Canada's other ethnic communities in the project. Attended by members of both the Italian and Ukrainian communities, it also featured a feisty debate.

Dr. Lupul, the founding director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, presented an impassioned defense of multiculturalism as a policy that is part and parcel of an activist government agenda. Mr. Nunziata gave an equally forceful presentation of the hard-headed "anti-affirmative action" approach to the question, with a candor rarely matched by members of the Liberal government.

A similar evening, at which speakers addressed the questions "What Kind of Unity? What Kind of Separatism?", was organized by the National Council of Ethnic Canadian Business and Professional Associations and held on March 26 at Ottawa City Hall.

Prof. Seymour Wilson of Carleton University moderated a panel that included five federal politicians: Maria Minna of the Liberal Party (substituting for Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Dr. Hedy Fry), Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois, Jim Abbott of the Reform Party, Simon de Jong of the New Democratic Party and Progressive Conservative Sen. Consiglio de Nino.

Secretary of State Fry did attend the Canadian Ethnocultural Council's general meeting of May 25-26 in Toronto and delivered a stirring speech reaffirming her government's commitment to multiculturalism.

The May meeting also marked the end of Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk's tenure as the Canadian Ethnocultural Council president, who was stepping down at the end of his second term in order to devote more time to his duties as president of the Ukrainian World Congress.

In his parting speech, Dr. Cipywnyk welcomed the sentiments expressed by Dr. Fry, but 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."

Such fears were amplified by comments made during the meetings by Susan Scotti, a senior civil servant of the Heritage Department, who suggested that the need for a multiculturalism policy would diminish.

The UCC at a juncture

Nationally, the Winnipeg-based Ukrainian Canadian Congress seemed to be at a crossroads in 1996. While its Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba provincial councils continued to show vitality and leadership, and although its Shevchenko Foundation continued to play an important and much-needed role in supporting individual and group endeavors in the community, there were signs of malaise.

At its triennial congress in October 1995, the UCC had gamely faced the reality of the elimination of federal and provincial operating grants, but either the community did not hear the UCC's call to compensate for the shortfall, or it wasn't set out clearly enough.

In late May, the UCC moved its Ottawa Office to lower-rent premises. Then, in an August 1 shocker, both Ottawa Office Director Andrij Hluchowecky (who had established the UCC's Ottawa Information Bureau nine years ago) and National Public Relations Director Ihor Shawarsky were let go in a cost-cutting measure. Administrator Lydia Migus was asked to act as a part-time acting director, but departed for greener, and somewhat more secure, pastures soon after, and the office closed.

The Canada-Ukraine Foundation, created by a UCC steering committee in 1995, held its inaugural meeting on the weekend of March 23-24 in Winnipeg, and elected noted local heart surgeon Dr. Jaroslaw Barwinsky as its president.

However, CUF again failed to secure the endorsement and participation of the Ukrainian Professional and Business Federation and the influential Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (CUCC).

The UCC also took steps to establish a Canada-Ukraine Advisory Council with the participation of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and even held meetings in March with Minister Lloyd Axworthy in anticipation of his October trade mission to Ukraine. Perhaps due to the UCC's difficulties mentioned above, the council's participation in the mission became increasingly marginalized, with the CUCC becoming the main player in the effort, and the mandate of the council itself has come into question.

Rubbing salt in the wounds, the UCPBF, which has increasingly taken a leading role in confronting issues facing Ukrainian Canadians, took direct aim at the UCC at its Eastern Canada Conference held in Ottawa on July 12-14.

In a report to the federation, Mr. Wawryshyn, the UCPBF's representative to the UCC, criticized the congress for not devoting "enough attention to getting its message across to our community in any language (Ukrainian/English/French). As far as the mainstream media is concerned, we are virtually non-existent."

Mr. Wawryshyn also recommended the UCC's headquarters be moved out of Winnipeg, claiming that the umbrella body had become regarded as the "Winnipeg UCC, and not the Canadian UCC."

As mentioned above, the UCC Alberta Provincial Council showed little of the drift that seemed to plague its national counterpart. On October 5, the Edmonton-based council held the "Building a Future '96" conference jointly with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, drawing participants from across the country to discuss everything from bilingual Ukrainian-English education, to technical assistance to Ukraine, with issues of immigration, travel, investment in Ukraine's energy industry, Canadian unity, heritage and multiculturalism in between.

All sessions were heavily attended, as conference organizers coped with the crush of about 300 scholars, educators, business leaders, legal and medical professionals and community activists with happy bewilderment.

SUSK has a pulse

The Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union (SUSK) showed signs of returning to life by holding a congress in Montreal on February 23-25. Attended by 36 delegates representing nine Ukrainian student organizations from across the country the congress elected its executive, with Volodymyr Boychuk (Edmonton), president, and Jon Tomas (Montreal), vice-president.

The topics discussed, appropriately enough, included student apathy and the role of Ukrainian student organizations; and defining a Ukrainian ethnicity within a Canadian framework heading into the 21st century.

During the week of September 14-21, SUSK held a Chornobyl Commemoration Blood Drive in Edmonton.

Internment issue

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association effort to commemorate those interned as "enemy aliens" by the Canadian government during World War I met with success in Alberta.

On June 1, the association unveiled three trilingual historical panels at the Cave and Basin site in Banff National Park. The panels, which feature text and archival photographs, and which explain how, when, why and where Ukrainians were interned in Canada's first national park, were paid for by Parks Canada. So far, that contribution remains the only one by the federal government.

Alberta's Ukrainian community counted another feather in its cap after ceremonies on October 12 unveiling a monument in Jasper National Park.

Unfortunately, the UCCLA was stymied in its effort to get the Canadian government to set up a memorial at a site near Spirit Lake, Québéc, despite cooperation secured from farmers who own the land where the camp was situated.

On a positive note, there were a number of evenings held across the country, devoted to the publication of a children's book on this topic, namely Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's "Silver Threads," released by Penguin Books of Canada (in English) and the University of Alberta's Ukrainian Language Education Center (in Ukrainian).

Konowal honored

Ironically, while many of his compatriots were being held in internment camps, Sgt. Filip Konowal was busy on the frontlines of the "Great War," earning the first Victoria Cross bestowed on a Canadian.

On July 15, Canada's Defense and Veterans' Affairs Minister David Collenette unveiled a trilingual plaque in his honor at the Governor General's Foot Guards' Cartier Square Drill Hall in Ottawa.

The commemoration occurred thanks to the efforts and funding provided by the UCCLA, Montreal's Royal Canadian Legion Branch 183 (Mazepa Branch) and Toronto's Branch 360 (Konowal Branch), the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association of Ottawa and the Governor General's Foot Guards.

A biographical booklet on Sgt. Konowal written by the UCCLA's Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk and Ron Sorobey - an amateur historian from Ottawa who spent years researching the Ukrainian Canadian war hero's career - was also released on July 15.

Community honors activists

On February 4, Media Watch Ukraine lauded three high-profile activists for "accomplishment in the media and a contribution to the public's awareness and understanding of Ukrainian issues." The honorees, dubbed "Ukrainian Media Leaders," included film-maker Yurij Luhovy, the UCCLA's Dr. Luciuk, and renowned investigative journalist Victor Malarek.

In a July 28 "Canada Courier" item, Weekly columnist Chris Guly honored the efforts of UCCLA's "task-oriented" Chairman John Gregorovich, ranging from his work concerning the Deschenes Commission, to recent efforts to have the federal government formally recognize the wrongful internment of Ukrainian Canadians at 26 camps across Canada in 1914-1920.

On November 30, the Ukrainian community "roasted" one of the fixtures of the Toronto scene, William Kereliuk, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The veteran activist is well known to those familiar with the workings of the Ukrainian World Congress and particularly its former incarnation, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians; the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the St. Vladimir Institute in Toronto. Mr. Kereliuk was feted at a gala evening by a number of distinguished speakers who fondly, but harshly, expressed their appreciation for his contributions to the life of the community.

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