EDMONTON, Alberta – On Saturday, October 1, Jars Balan, coordinator, Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Center; Bohdan Klid, assistant director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies; Volodymyr Kravchenko, CIUS director; and Alla Nedashkivska, director of the Ukrainian Language Education Center; spoke at a session titled “40th Anniversary of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies: Past Present and Future,” before an audience of delegates and guests of the 25th Congress of Ukrainian Canadians, held in Regina, Saskatchewan.
The session was chaired by Dr. Roman Yereniuk from the University of Manitoba. Dr. Kravchenko spoke on the founding of CIUS, the challenges it faces and vision for the future; Mr. Balan on his early years at CIUS and some of its early publications, focusing on Ukrainians in Canada; Dr. Nedashkivska on the work of the Ukrainian Language Education Center in support of Ukrainian language education (including the bilingual program), as well as on research in this area; Dr. Klid on some of the lesser known activities of CIUS in support of the development of Ukrainian scholarship, both in Canada and in Ukraine.
The conclave of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress was attended by four ministers of the Canadian government – Chrystia Freeland (International Trade), Stéphane Dion (Foreign Affairs), Ralph Goodale (Public Safety) and MaryAnn Mihychuk (Employment, Workforce Development and Labor), who all spoke before the assembled delegates and guests. Of particular interest was the reference of Ministers Freeland and Dion to multiculturalism, and of the key role played by Ukrainian Canadians in the adoption of the policy of multiculturalism by the late Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. The principle of a multicultural Canada was later entrenched in its Constitution.
The input of Ukrainian Canadians in helping define Canadian identity was thus acknowledged. CIUS noted its pride that its founding director, Dr. Manoly Lupul, played a leading role in the politics of multiculturalism, especially in its incorporation into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.