Canada Settles on Internment Redress

Toronto May 9, 2008 - The Honourable Jason Kenney, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity), announced that the Government will provide a grant of $10 million to the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko to establish an endowment fund to support initiatives related to the First World War internment experience that predominantly affected the Ukrainian and other East European ethnic communities in Canada.

The funding agreement was signed by Andrew Hladyshevsky, Q.C., President of the Taras Shevchenko Foundation and Secretary of State Kenney at Stanley Barracks on the grounds of Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition, near the marked location of a former holding camp for internees in transit to their work camp destination.

“I believe this approach will allow all communities affected by internment during the First World War to undertake meaningful commemorative and educational activities to ensure that the internment experience is shared and understood by Canadians, and that a sense of closure can be achieved,” said Secretary of State Kenney. “The Government believes that it is important for all Canadians to understand our history, including the more difficult periods.”

“The Ukrainian Canadian community is grateful to all those Parliamentarians who supported the establishment of a meaningful endowment as symbolic restitution for the economic losses of the internees,” said Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, who as a representative of the community, lead the negotiations.

Taras Shevchenko Foundation Vice President Dr. Oleh Gerus stated “After more than two decades of community pressure and a string of broken political promises, the troubling issue of Ukrainian internment during WWI has finally been resolved,” reported by Tamara King in The Canadian Press. Speaking to the Ukrainian Canadian Community in Winnipeg on May 9, Treasury Board President Vic Toews stated “Canada’s past includes actions which are inconsistent with values Canadians hold dear today … Our government believes it is important to ensure that Canadians have opportunities to learn about our history, including and perhaps especially, the difficult periods that are part of our past.” The Winnipeg-based Shevchenko Foundation will manage the funds and other ethnic communities affected by internment in WWI will be able to apply for project funding.

This funding is being provided under the Community Historical Recognition Program, which was first announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in June 2006. The Program will fund community-based projects that will allow communities affected by Canadian wartime measures and immigration restrictions to have their experiences acknowledged in a way that is meaningful to them. Eligible projects could include monuments, commemorative plaques, educational material, and exhibits.

The National Historical Recognition Program will fund federal initiatives that educate Canadians about internment history and the contributions of affected communities to the building of Canada.

Taking a lead position on the redress issue over 20 years ago and part of current negotiations, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association is pleased that significant progress has been made on a “Recognition, Restitution and Reconciliation Accord” between the federal government and Canada’s organized Ukrainian community, thanks in part to the office of Mr. Kenney.

“This is, finally, a tangible, positive accomplishment, one that we hope will bring us a step nearer to closing a dark chapter in Canada’s wartime history,” said Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, UCCLA President.

“While we have, over the last 12 months, lost both Mary Manko and Mary Hancharuk – the last two known survivors of the internment operations, may they both rest in peace – we nevertheless hope that thousands of their descendants and all Canadians who have immigrated from other lands can bear witness to a reconciliation” added Luciuk. Members of UCCLA attending the signing event included short story author and novelist Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch who has written on the internment experience and whose work was part of an attractive publications display organized by UCCLA for the event. 

About the internment operations

More than 80,000 Ukrainians were branded “enemy aliens” during Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914 to 1920. In addition, almost 5,000 Ukrainians, including men, women and children, were interned as forced labourers in 24 Canadian concentration camps during and after the First World War. More than 8,000 people were interned in total. People were interned not because of anything they had done, but only because of where they had come from, who they were. There was no evidence then, nor has any been found since, of divided loyalties on the part of the victims of these internment measures. The present day value of the economic losses suffered by the internees is approximately $50 million.