Harper Government has a Unique Opportunity and Obligation to Resolve Ukrainian Claims

By Lubomyr Luciuk

He made me do it. It was 1984, and he catered to a bunch of bleaters whose allegations – dismissed, eventually, as “gross exaggerations” by a federal commission of inquiry – precipitated years of inter-ethnic community strife, as yet unstilled. The controversy he created dragged me back into the Ukrainian Canadian community, in defence of its good name, including my own. It was a decision that cost me, personally and professionally, and probably will yet again. So be it. A man can’t walk away from a fight if the cause is right. Ours was, and still is.

My creed does oblige me to admit, however, that he did some good. For example, he treated my fellow citizens of Japanese heritage honourably, acknowledging how wrongs done during the Second World War must be redressed. In 1988, his government did just that, setting a welcome precedent. I remember thinking that if an apology was given to Japanese Canadians then Ottawa must likewise acknowledge how unjust it was to herd thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans into Canadian concentration camps during this country’s first national internment operations of 1914-1920. Men, women and children, branded “enemy aliens,” had their wealth confiscated and were forced to do heavy labour for the profit of their gaolers. And they suffered other state-sanctioned indignities, including disenfranchisement, all because of where they came from, who they were. So I expected my government to do the right thing. Admittedly, I was nave. That was then.

Two decades have since passed and I have heard it all. In 1987, a Tory multiculturalism minister indulged in internment denial, insisting it never happened. Soon after a Liberal leader promised that, if elected, he and his Party would resolve our community’s claims. He forgot as soon as he got the top job. As for the man who made me what I am today, the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, he, at least, afforded us faint hope. Speaking in 1992 to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, then Prime Minister Mulroney said he would sort out our claim after he won the upcoming election. Then he didn’t. We got the other guy, followed by 13 years of being fuddle-duddled, apparently a Liberal Party tradition dating to the last guy to deploy The War Measures Act.

Things did improve, in 2005. The little garзon from wherever was pastured and, facing an election, the Right Honourable Paul Martin, a more decent guy, invited us to Regina. There we signed an Agreement in Principle, a credible foundation for redress negotiations. Alas, nothing came of it.  Fortunately, however, we still had a champion in Inky Mark, the Conservative MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette. He pushed his private member’s Bill C-331 and, to some folks’ surprise, the Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act received Royal Assent, November 25, 2005. It’s now a law. It obliges Ottawa to negotiate. They even admit it.

A few weeks ago we gathered at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier Hotel to witness Ukraine honouring Mr. Mulroney with the Order of King Yaroslav the Wise, in grateful recognition of how Canada, under his leadership, was the first Western country to affirm Ukraine’s independence in 1991. The audience was also reminded that Mr. Mulroney was the first Prime Minister to promise to right historical injustices done to Canada’s Ukrainians in the First World War.

Later that evening I spoke with Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity. He has carriage of the redress file so we have met before, more formally. Jason is smart, and a charger, as determined as Prime Minister Harper is to craft a timely settlement while the last known survivor, Mary Manko, now 98 and ill, remains alive. I did not particularly want to talk politics but I did refer to a welcome Conservative tradition, stretching from John Diefenbaker’s advocacy of Ukrainian independence, to Mr. Mulroney following through as the Soviet empire imploded, to Prime Minister Harper’s own recent pledge not to abandon Ukraine as that country faces pressures from neo-imperialists in Moscow. I mentioned how I’ve spent 20 years dealing with issues of this sort and asked Jason what he was doing back when I began. He replied: “I was in High School.” We both laughed. It can take a very long time to get anything done in Ottawa. But when I left the next day I went away feeling we have tapped into a decent lot of politicians who appreciate that their Party did the right thing for Japanese Canadians on Mr. Mulroney’s watch and dealt fairly with the Chinese Canadian Head Tax issue on Mr. Harper’s. The Harper government now has a unique opportunity, and an obligation, to resolve our claim, Reconciliation would appear imminent, unless, of course, the un-elected bureaucrats who have mucked things up before are allowed free reign again. If that happens, then Jason will probably be my age before justice is finally done. But it will happen. We don’t quit. That’s not in our tradition.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk is Director of Research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (www.uccla.ca)