Kennedy Comments on Canada-Ukraine Issues

By Olena Wawryshyn

TORONTO— Federal Liberal leadership hopeful Gerard Kennedy resigned his seat in the Ontario legislature on May 18. The former Ontario Education Minister, who is a Canadian of Ukrainian origin, made the announcement at a press conference in his Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park.

Speaking to the New Pathway shortly after the press conference, Kennedy stated that he would like to see a more continuing “special relationship” between Canada and Ukraine.

“For whatever reason, Foreign Affairs had resisted that over the years, but I think, whether it’s Ukraine or Vietnam, those are relationships that we should get into now for friendship reasons and we have the family connections, and they may turn into economic links in the future,” he said.

“Everybody talks about India and China, but everyone is there. I think we need to be in the countries where our people come from and use our advantages to help those countries to develop, and those will be good trading relationships in the future,” he added.

When asked about possible specific areas of co-operation between Canada and Ukraine, Kennedy said he would like to see “a direct investment in pathways for organizations to cooperation,” giving educational and charitable projects as possible areas of cooperation.

“There are some good projects that I was part of provincially, where we were just sharing information–not just one way– Ukraine has a number of innovations as well. I think those things should be amplified, so making larger the regular contacts that we have with Ukraine,” he said.

“There are a number of bumps on the road right now if you want to take part in Ukraine [in economic terms] but I think the Canadian government should be more aggressive in lifting those because it benefits both countries if that happens,” he added.

On the topic of immigration from Ukraine, Kennedy said that Canada should be looking for “affinity populations,” and that “we need to make changes here to help immigrants from Ukraine or other countries because it has not been part of something that we have done well in the last number of years.”

Commenting on the agreement-in-principle signed by the federal Liberal government on the Internment of Ukrainians during the First World War, Kennedy stated that “there’s a need to do what was in that agreement,” namely putting funding towards initiatives to educate the wider community about that era of Canadian history and to commemorate it.

Kennedy was born in The Pas a northern Manitoba community, to a family with Ukrainian and Scottish ancestry.  His Scottish side is from Quebec, Ontario, Cape Breton and Nova Scotia; his Ukrainian side is from Dauphin and the surrounding area.

Kennedy’s great-grandfather, Wasyl Shemanski, was one of the first Ukrainian pioneers to settle in the Ethelbert region near Dauphin, Manitoba, in 1897.

As a child, Kennedy took Ukrainian language and dancing classes at the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Dauphin. More recently, he has attended community events, such as the annual Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival in Toronto.

The 45-year-old politician stepped down from his post as Ontario’s Education Minister in April in order to focus on the federal Liberal leadership campaign.