1997: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Canada-Ukraine: good news and bad (12/28/97)

1997: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Canada-Ukraine: good news and bad

Canada's relationship with Ukraine this year began on a sour note, after Canada's Foreign Affairs Ministry sent Ukraine's vice-consul in Toronto, Oleksander Yushko, home on December 24, 1996.

The 32-year-old diplomat was declared persona non grata after he was charged with impaired driving, possession of stolen property, offering a bribe to a police officer, and allegedly trying to lure two teenage girls into his car with the intent of administering a noxious substance (a handkerchief soaked with the anaesthetic solvent, xylene). Compounding Mr. Yushko's troubles was the fact he had no official diplomatic identification when Metropolitan Toronto Police arrested him.

On a brighter note, a group of Ukrainian Canadian bands from Toronto released a CD titled "I Am Alive" in mid-January, with proceeds from the disc's sale going to the Help Us Help the Children fund.

Fortunately, things appeared rosier on the aid front, when Canada's International Cooperation Minister Don Boudria told The Weekly in mid-February that Ukraine could benefit from more Canadian financial assistance in the future. That would depend on the European Union's admission of Hungary and the Czech Republic, both of which would have to relinquish their claim to Canadian foreign aid. But the reassurance didn't stop some Canadian groups working in Ukraine from wondering how that would be possible, given statements made by Mr. Boudria's boss, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, who said that Canada would re-focus its attention from developing countries to international security issues.

Around the same time, Mr. Boudria announced a new Canadian project to support notarial reform in Ukraine. The Canadian International Development Agency, which he headed, gave the Order of Notaries in Quebec $1.2 million ($870,000 U.S.) to develop the two-and-a-half-year program with Ukraine's Justice Ministry.

In the meantime, Mr. Axworthy's Ukrainian counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Hennadii Udovenko, paid his second official visit to Canada, arriving in Ottawa on March 4 and meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Mr. Axworthy the following day.

Mr. Udovenko also met with Governor General Roméo LeBlanc before visiting Winnipeg on March 6, where he met with Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon and addressed a joint meeting of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce.

Spring found officials from the Canadian Department of Justice setting up court in the Ukrainian coal-mining town, Selydove, where they spent the period from May 26 to June 2 gathering testimony about Vasily Bogutin, an 88-year-old retired Canadian construction worker. Mr. Bogutin is accused of being a member of the Selydove auxiliary police, and the Canadian government wants to strip him of his Canadian citizenship and deport him on the grounds that he lied about his Nazi connection when he applied to enter Canada in 1951.

In June now-former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko arrived in Canada, where he spent five days touring the country with 150 business and government leaders from Ukraine.

During his visit, Mr. Lazarenko attended the Canada-Ukraine Business Initiative '97 Conference in Calgary, where several bilateral agreements were signed and where the ex-PM met with premiers Ralph Klein (Alberta), Roy Romanow (Saskatchewan) and Filmon of Manitoba. Mr. Lazarenko also stopped in Ottawa, where he huddled with Prime Minister Chrétien, just days before Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma sacked him. If his first official trip to Canada proved to be his last, Mr. Lazarenko managed to find some family here, including Winnipeg City Councillor Harry Lazarenko.

Tragedy befell Ukraine's diplomatic community on August 6 when Borys Poliachenko, first secretary for science and technology at the Embassy in Ottawa, fell to his death from a 19th-story balcony. Ottawa-Carleton police considered the incident a suicide. Mr. Poliachenko was scheduled to return to Ukraine three days later as part of a normal rotation.

The community mood was more buoyant later in the month when Ukrainian Canadians celebrated independent Ukraine's sixth birthday. A new festival to mark Ukraine's independence, the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival, was launched on August 23 with a crowd of 3,000 watching a colorful parade. Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk was also in the area, addressing another group of about that size at the St. Volodymr Cultural Center in Oakville, Ontario, about 30 miles from Toronto. Recalling December 1, 1991, the happiest day of his life - and not because he was elected president - Mr. Kravchuk said he and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were wrong in guessing the outcome of Ukraine's sovereignty referendum.

"Mikhail said we would not even get 50 percent, while I said the yes side would poll about 75 percent. The result was over 90 percent supporting independence," said Mr. Kravchuk.

Anniversary celebrations were more somber in Ottawa where Canada's former consul general to Ukraine, Nestor Gayowsky, gave Ukraine a failing grade in its reforms.

Accusing Ukraine's decision-makers of doing little to change the country's image as a "backwater" to Russia, Mr. Gayowsky admitted part of the reason behind Ukraine's sluggish economic performance had to do with the aftereffects of Chornobyl, pollution, energy inefficiency, as well as an "ineffective police force and weak judiciary."

There was good news for Radio Canada International, which has had its share of financial woes. On August 18, Foreign Affairs Minister Axworthy and Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps announced that the country's foreign radio service would receive annual funding beginning in 1998. RCI, which broadcasts programming in Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic, operates on a $16 million ($12 million U.S.) annual budget. Previously, Ottawa had guaranteed money for RCI only until March 31, 1998.

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