I did it

By Lubomyr Luciuk

Admittedly, that was my first thought, countered by reminding myself that this victory was not mine alone, not by a long shot.

It has taken over 20 years but the Government of Canada has just recognized that branding thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans as “enemy aliens,” herding them into concentration camps, forcing them to labour for the profit of their gaolers, confiscating what little wealth they had, disenfranchising them, and subjecting them to other repressive state-sanctioned measures during this country’s first national internment operations, was unwarranted and unjust. It’s about time.

Sadly, no survivors remain - the last we knew of were Mary Bayrak and Mary Manko. They did not live long enough to witness a timely and honourable settlement. I will always regret that. I should have worked harder.

The internees wanted only an acknowledgement of what had been done to them. Their claim was about memory, not money. Yet their experiences were denied for decades.

I have no full answer for those who today ask me a simple question – why did it take so long for this episode in Canadian history to be recalled? Perhaps the victims were afraid to speak up. Or it may have been because most records of the Office of Internment Operations were destroyed. Certainly, Canadian society prefers to believe that racist xenophobia is reserved only for those who look different than the rest of us. Since Canadians of Ukrainian heritage aren’t members of a “visible minority”, they couldn't have been discriminated against. Right? Wrong!

I can’t begin to list all of the good women and men who helped this campaign. A few were Ukrainian Canadian veterans, like Bohdan Panchuk and Stephan Pawluk. The former said his gospel was “Do Something!” During and after the Second World War, Panchuk saved thousands of political refugees because he dared to act, instead of wallowing about listing reasons why he shouldn’t. Pawluk, who served with the Merchant Marine, was an amateur historian and a founder of Branch #360 of The Royal Canadian Legion. He provided me with a copy of General Otter’s final report on the Internment Operations, documentary evidence proving what had occurred. Until then, I wondered why I had never been taught about any of this story, not at high school, nor at university.

Purely by chance, in the late 1970s, while studying at Queen’s University, I met an internee, Mykola Sakaliuk. I wanted to find out who were the first Ukrainians in Kingston, Ontario. He explained that he got here in the fall of 1914. But he had not come to work … Instead they marched him up Fort Henry hill, a prisoner in Canada’s first permanent internment camp. In a very real way, the Ukrainian Canadian community’s campaign began from that day.

The community’s campaign for recognition did not take off, however, until the mid-1980s, after I earned my PhD and became involved with the Civil Liberties Commission. John Gregorovich, a Toronto lawyer, headed that Ukrainian Canadian group. Sensing the importance of righting an historical injustice, John unleashed me, and what became the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, launched a crusade that is only now reaching its goal.

Over time, many joined us. Kingston’s own Peter Milliken was the first MP to rise in the House of Commons to call for redress. Other MPs, like Toronto’s Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Winnipeg’s Joy Smith helped, as did Senator Raynell Andreychuk. But it was not until Inky Mark’s Bill C- 331 – The Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act received Royal Assent, November 25, 2005, that Ottawa was legally obliged to negotiate a settlement, a process vigorously pursued by Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and Andrew Hladyshevsky, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko.

Despite the deniers, and in no small measure thanks to a well-informed Jason Kenney, MP, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, an agreement all of us are proud of was ratified, May 9, 2008. It establishes a $10 million endowment within the Shevchenko Foundation. Interest earned will be disbursed annually for commemorative, cultural and educational projects recalling the desultory impact of these wartime measures on all of the affected ethno-cultural communities. Another $2.5 million, allocated to Parks Canada, over the next four years, will fund exhibits at national historic sites where internees were once held and forced to do heavy labour like Banff and Jasper National Parks and Fort Henry.

I agree that it is unfair to burden the taxpayers of 2008 for injustices perpetrated between 1914 and 1920. So did all the internees I ever met who only petitioned for a return of what was taken from them, under duress, and used to ensure that what happened would not be forgotten. They believed doing so might prevent some other Canadian ethnic, religious or racial minority from suffering as they had in a crisis. So, this endowment was set up by the internees. No one should begrudge that legacy.

When I was asked if I would agree to serve on the advisory council responsible for ensuring that the internees’ gift to Canada is well managed, I felt humbled. I am conscious of what the Good Book says about how a “good and faithful servant” should act (Matthew 25:14-30). And I accepted because I do believe in the simple gospel: “Do Something!”

Professor Lubomyr Luciuk volunteers as chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association