Letter to Prime Minister of Canada

February 26, 2007

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

 House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

Several days ago I attended, in Toronto, a presentation by Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk on the current status of negotiations (or non-negotiations) between the Government of Canada and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress et al., as mandated by the Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act (Bill C331). I was dismayed to learn that, after more than twenty years of knocking on official Ottawa doors in quest for redress of a historical wrong, the resolution of this issue remains elusive. This is particularly perplexing in light of your ringing endorsement of Bill C331, as Leader of the Opposition, on the floor of the House of Commons on March 24, 2005. What stands today in the way of a positive resolution of this interminable tussle?

I am writing to you, Sir, because I am morally obligated to do so on behalf of one person close to me who was interned for six years at Spirit Lake and MacPherson Station (Kapuskasing) camps. My uncle, Onufiry* Bilak, in response to Canada’s immigration recruitment campaign left the Province of Bukovyna, Ukraine (at that time a part of Austria-Hungary), and came to Canada in 1911. He left behind his wife with their infant son, believing that within a short while the family would be reunited in Canada to enjoy a brighter future together. It was not to be. After spending six years in Canadian internment camps as an “enemy alien”, a disheartened and disillusioned man, Onufry Bilak returned to his family in Bukovyna in 1921 (by now a part of Romania as mandated by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919). As fate would have it, in 1947, (Bukovyna now incorporated into the Soviet Union), Onufry’s son, Ivan, “the prospective Canadian” of 1911, was branded an “enemy of the people” and shipped off to the Soviet Gulag, where he spent twelve years of his life. Thus, one can surmise that a consequence of the wrong done in Canada to those innocent individuals from 1914 to 1920 was continued suffering by them and by their family members in a troubled world for years to come.

Mr. Prime Minister, I implore you in the name of moral justice, please use your authority to bring this tortuous and frustrating exercise to an honourable conclusion.

 Yours truly,

Jaroslaw Bilak

*In the Roll Call: Lest We Forget there is only Bilak J. listed as an inmate of Spirit Lake, but I know from conversations with my father, his sister Maria (who also came to Canada in 1911), as well as her son, that Onufry was at Spirit Lake.