Project Roll Call is launched; Ukrainian Canadians continue to seek redress (11/17/02)

Project Roll Call is launched

Ukrainian Canadians continue to seek redress

OTTAWA - The National Press Gallery in Ottawa was the venue on November 5 of the launch of Project Roll Call, described by Member of Parliament Inky Mark as "a continuation of the fight to get justice for all the internee Canadians that were put into 24 prison camps across this country between 1914 and 1920."

The gathering also aimed to drum up support for a bill to recognize the injustice inflicted decades ago upon persons of Ukrainian descent and other Europeans - including Croats, Serbs, Poles, Turks, Slovenians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans and Austrians - 8,570 people who were interned at the time of World War I as "enemy aliens." Another 80,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, were compelled to register as enemy aliens and report to local authorities on a regular basis.

The joint press conference by Mr. Mark and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) announced the beginning of the Roll Call program that will mail more than 37,000 postcards to Canadian households that have been identified as having the same or similar surnames to those of the World War I internees. Among other political leaders present were Sen. Raynell Andreychuk and MP Joe Clark.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, director of research for the UCCLA, stated: "Project Roll Call is a search for survivors of Canada's first national internment operations in 1914 to 1920. It is not only for survivors, actual internees, but for their descendants."

He explained how the UCCLA began this project: "Several years ago, working with the few remaining government documents that refer to the internment operations, volunteers right across Canada pulled together a list of some 5,000 civilian internees in the first world war period. Over the last year, working with volunteers across Canada, we have ... put together a master list, of just over 37,000 Canadian families who may be in some way or another related to a person who was interned during the First World War."

"The postcard has two objectives," explained Mr. Mark. "First, it asks that Canadians whose family members were or may have been interned to contact the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Second, it urges all Canadians to support Private Member's Bill C-331 that I introduced in the last session of Parliament and will be re-introducing shortly."

Mr. Mark, who represents the Manitoba riding of Dauphin-Swan River, reminded his listeners that: "For almost two decades, Canadians of Ukrainian descent, and there are almost a million of them in this country, have been looking for justice from this Liberal government and I just want to remind Canadians that in 1993 Mr. [Jean] Chrétien wrote a letter as leader of the Official Opposition saying that he would deal with the redress issue when he became prime minister. Well, we have been waiting for almost 10 years."

Mr. Mark's fellow Progressive Conservative, Mr. Clark, speaking in English and French, noted that Bill C-331 "urges the government to act on an undertaking that the prime minister made in 1993." He noted that "the principle of redress has been established in our law," referring to the redress sought and gained by Japanese Canadians for mistreatment during World War II.

MPs Clark and Mark, as well as members of the Ukrainian community and other political leaders, dropped the first postcards of Project Roll Call into a Canada Post bag.

Dr. Luciuk of the UCCLA, which has been in the lead of the redress and restitution issue, said the internment operations are a dark chapter in Canadian history that needs to be addressed. He said Ukrainians are not looking for an apology or compensation, but recognition through commemoratives and memorials, as well as the return of assets seized from the those interned in the work camps. Any funds coming from the federal government for restitution will be used to create a foundation that promotes education and tolerance.

"Thousands ... were unjustly interned in Canadian concentration camps during the first world war period, not because of anything they had done but only because of where they had come from," Dr. Luciuk explained. "They had been lured to Canada with promises of freedom and free land, and yet suddenly found themselves branded as enemy aliens, herded into 24 Canadian concentration camps, forced to do heavy labor, their valuables and property confiscated."

"Ironically, this happened against the background of some 10,000 Ukrainian Canadians volunteering to serve with Canadian Expeditionary Forces overseas, one of whom as you may know, Philip Konowal, won the Victoria Cross," Dr. Luciuk added.

The UCCLA and other Ukrainian Canadian organizations, including the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko - which is a co-sponsor with the UCCLA of Project Roll Call - are trying to pressure Prime Minister Chrétien to offer official Canadian government redress for the internment operations before he leaves office in early 2004.

Mr. Mark said he had met recently with Mr. Chrétien and urged him to honor his decade-old promise before he retires.

"In 1993, Jean Chrétien, then the leader of the Opposition, supported redress for those unjustly interned in Canadian internment camps. Since being elected as prime minister he has ignored every opportunity to follow through on his promise. A legacy of broken promises should not be the legacy of a prime minister," Mr. Mark concluded.

Dr. Luciuk emphasized that "there are still some survivors of Canada's first national internment operations alive, and we would like to resolve this matter within their lifetimes. That is all that we want."

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