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"Enemy Alien", Police Photo, Calgary Police Department (Photo courtesy of the Glenbow Museum) |
Dear Editor:
Several serious factual errors in Chris Guly's account of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress's (UCC) attempt to disband the Civil Liberties Commission (CLC) may leave readers confused as to what happened and why.
John Gregorovich, a lawyer, the CLC's chairman, and now chair of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA), has stated how, under the Corporation Act of Canada, the UCC's national executive cannot disband the CLC. Dr. Hryniuk is not a lawyer. Her views on the law are incorrect, even if she is partially right in assuming the UCC decision to disband the CLC represents a "vendetta." Unfortunately, despite a recent CLC attempt to effect a reconciliation through a face to face meeting, the UCC's executive proved entirely disinterested in reconsidering its unconstitutional decision. Now what? The CLC will still exist but has been made moribund. Perhaps this is not surprising given how most bodies connected to the congress seem to go stiff, usually just after birth.
Fortunately, UCCLA has taken over much of the work formerly done by the CLC. This association does not attempt to represent itself as a national body, preferring not to make specious claims of the sort so often heard out of Winnipeg. UCCLA is a small group of dedicated, hardworking Ukrainian-Canadian professionals committed to dealing with issues involving the human rights and civil liberties of our community. Our executive is now working to secure redress for the injustices done to Ukrainian Canadians during this country's first world war internment operations, monitoring the war crimes issue and lobbying and interacting with the federal government, other ethnocultural communities, the media and the public, as required. No other Ukrainian-Canadian organization seems to be doing this necessary work.
In remarking on the general quality of the UCC executive, past and present, I explained how one might measure its relevance by comparing its executive director and other members to those of far more effective organizations, like B'Nai Brith Canada and the Canadian Jewish Congress. Any reading of the Canadian press over the past several years will reveal how often officers of those organizations have made comments deemed to be of national importance and so worthy of media coverage. In comparison, the UCC's record is meagre. With few exceptions, the Ukrainian-Canadian community has found itself with a voice in the media only when the CLC spoke. Yet it seems hard for "the Winnipeg Mafia" to admit that the CLC was probably the most effective body working for Ukrainian-Canadian interests over the past seven years, a record of achievement some now hope the community will forget. Incidentally, I don't fault the UCC's current president, Oleh Romaniw, for not remembering. After all, he was "nowhere to be seen" during the difficult years when the CLC worked to counter the miasma being generated around the Deschênes Commission.
It is, however, unfortunate that the memory of the UCC's past president, Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk, has failed. I hope he liked the photographs I took of him at the World Ukrainian Forum in Kyyiv last August. I sent copies out to him in Saskatoon. That was also when he got his copy of the CLC booklet, "War Crimes: A Submission", which some in the UCC crowd seem exercised about.
Likewise, I am distressed over Ihor Bardyn's loss of memory. Appointed to head the CLC's Redress Committee in April 1990, by Mr. Gregorovich, and on my recommendation, he has apparently forgotten what I readily admit may now be rather inconvenient to remember. If he would just return Mr. Guly's calls and agree to go back over his own CLC records, however, I am sure he will be reminded how the UCC's executive told the Prime Minister's Office that Brian Mulroney need not speak about the redress question at the 17th UCC congress. I actually learned about the UCC's idiotic decision, apparently made on September 9, 1992, from Mr. Bardyn. The latter sent a Canada-wide message, dated September 16, 1992, asking supporters of the redress effort to protest the UCC executive's decision. I did so on September 22, 1992, and faxed a copy of my letter to Mr. Bardyn on the very same date.
Later, I sent another letter to the prime minister and letters to every Member of Parliament and many senators, strongly urging the prime minister to make a redress settlement announcement at the congress. Mr. Mulroney ended up making a passing reference to it, far from what many had hoped for. But don't blame the Prime Minister's Office for that. Blame our "leaders" in Winnipeg.
I have never argued for individual compensation for Ukrainian-Canadian survivors. In my article, published in The Ukrainian Weekly (November 15, 1992), the point was made that Ottawa must deal with each individual community's case for redress, rather than trying to lump Ukrainian, Chinese, Italian and other Canadian communities together and then offering them some form of omnibus apology. Mr. Guly misread my article. Mr. Bardyn must know that, for he remains chairman of the National Redress Alliance, which brought together the Japanese, Italian, Chinese and Ukrainian-Canadian communities to agree on just this point. It was then communicated to Ottawa. I should know. I wrote the draft NRA memorandum. That was in April 1990, during the same meeting where Mr. Bardyn was appointed chairman of the CLC's Redress Committee. Mr. Bardyn has, until recently, continued to use CLC Redress Committee letterhead rather than UCC stationery. Yet now I read about the UCC Redress Committee. That must be a new group. It certainly didn't exist back in the mid-1980s when the redress effort began in earnest. And it wasn't anywhere to be seen in the spring of 1990, when Mr. Bardyn joined the CLC's team. But don't believe me. Look at the paper trail.
Yes, our prime minister has promised to "apologize" to the Ukrainian-Canadian community, oddly enough, given that we never asked him to do that, our position being that an acknowledgement of wrongdoing would suffice. But this point is academic just now, for Mr. Mulroney most certainly has not made any apology, despite what one of Ottawa's spin doctors might claim.
The official CLC-UCC memorandum requesting an acknowledgement that the internment measures were "unwarranted and unjust," asking for the erection of historical markers, amendments to the Emergencies Act and symbolic redress, was submitted on December 7, 1987, to a Toronto hearing of the Standing Committee on Multiculturalism of the House of Commons and not "only last spring" as Nancy White, press secretary to Minister of Multiculturalism Gerry Weiner, claims. She should check her sources. So should Mr. Guly.
As for who represents the Ukrainian-Canadian community, I think we should all remember that actions speak louder than words. It was the CLC that articulated our community's position on the war crimes issue and saw that controversial issue through to an acceptable conclusion. The CLC booklet, "War Crimes: A Submission," which seems to have irritated people who despite years of claims about how they were working to liberate Ukraine now seem profoundly ignorant of contemporary Ukrainian realities, is nothing more or less than a continuation of the CLC's efforts to ensure that all war criminals are brought to justice, Soviets and Nazis alike. The UCC objects to that?
It should also be remembered how, for years, the UCC executive was indifferent or even hostile to any attempt being made to secure redress for our community, a campaign based on the moral and legal precedent set by our friends in the Japanese Canadian community. Only after Japanese Canadian survivors and their community received nearly $750 million in redress did the UCC's national executive begin coming out in support of the CLC redress effort. They seem to have become ever more anxious about ensuring that the national executive controls any redress monies only once it became clear the CLC would probably successfully conclude the redress campaign, I wonder why.
Anyone who believes that the Ukrainian Canadian Congress executive deserves credit for the acknowledgement and redress campaign is ignoring the facts, deliberately or otherwise. Anyone who would let them manage any redress monies is, to put it mildly, not a chartered accountant. Even Mr. Bardyn doesn't want to see the UCC executive manage the money or disburse it. I wonder why.
Mr. Guly has quoted me accurately as saying, "I'm a Canadian, I can speak on any bloody issue I want." But why did I say that? Simply because, in a letter dated December 2, 1992, Mr. Romaniw informed me, on behalf of the Congress, that I would have legal action taken against me if I continued to speak out publicly on issues of importance to the Ukrainian-Canadian community. Ask yourself why Mr. Romaniw and his congress-mates are trying to muzzle free speech in our community and in Canada. As for my response it was a simple one: "Sue."
Lubomyr Luciuk
The writer is director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
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Copyright © 1994 Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Copyright © 1994 Lubomyr Luciuk
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Originally Composed: Tuesday December 3rd 1996.
Date last modified: Thursday October 30th 1997.