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Castle Mountain in the Morning |
For Immediate Release: Kingston - 30 July 1995
A statue and historical marker, commemorating Canada's first national internment operations and the unjust imprisonment of thousands of UkrainianCanadians as "enemy aliens" between 1914-1920, will be unveiled near CASTLE MOUNTAIN, in BANFF NATIONAL PARK, on Saturday, 12 August 1995 at 10:00 am.
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Castle Mountain Internment Camp Monument Unveiling |
Commissioned by the UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION, working in co-operation with the Ukrainian Canadian communities of Banff and Calgary, the statue entitled "Why?" and depicting a First World War period internee, was created by JOHN BOXTEL. It will be officially unveiled at a commemorative service to be held near the site of the CASTLE MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP. Over 600 Ukrainian Canadians were interned there and at the CAVE & BASIN camp near Banff from July 1915-July 1917. Forced to labour under difficult conditions, they were often mistreated, had their properties and valuables confiscated and were disenfranchised in an episode from Canadian history which is still relatively unknown.
The Ukrainian Canadian community has been pressing Ottawa to acknowledge this injustice, amend The Emergencies Act (1988) to ensure that no other Canadian ethnic, religious or racial minority is ever similarly mistreated, place historical markers at all 24 internment camp sites and offer some form of "symbolic redress" or restitution for the wrongs done. Over ten years have passed since the community first began pressing for an acknowledgement and redress. To date only one other historical marker has been installed, at FORT HENRY, near KINGSTON, Ontario, placed at the site of Canada's first permanent internment camp in August 1994, on the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War and of the internment operations.
The placing of the statue and plaques at Castle Mountain and at Fort Henry were undertaken entirely with funds raised from within the Ukrainian Canadian community, with no federal assistance.
The UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION, formed in 1984 is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and research group mandated by the Ukrainian Canadian community to negotiate a Ukrainian Canadian Redress Settlement agreement with the Government of Canada.
Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD, UCCLA Director of Research
Mr Borys Sydoruk, UCCLA-Calgary
E-mail: internment@infoukes.com
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Document URL: http://www.infoukes.com/history/internment/press/press001/index.html
Copyright © 1995 Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Photographs Copyright © 1995 Roman Fedoriw
Page layout, design, integration, and maintenance by G.W. Kokodyniak and V. Pawlowsky
Copyright © 1995-1997 InfoUkes Inc.
E-mail: internment@infoukes.com
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Originally Composed: Sunday December 16th 1995.
Date last modified: Friday October 31st 1997.