July 1

By Volodymyr Kish

I have been celebrating Canada Day for as long as I can remember.  Perhaps my earliest memory was of watching my father marching in a Canada Day parade when I was nothing more than a toddler.  As a Canadian Army veteran, he would don his Royal Canadian Legion blazer, put on his medals and beret, and march with his former military colleagues down the main street of Rouyn-Noranda where we lived.  He was inordinately proud of his wartime service and justifiably so.  Although he was exceedingly reluctant to his dying day to speak much of the undoubtedly difficult experiences he had during the Second World War, he never regretted having taken part in the most demanding struggle of his age.

It was not until many decades later that I fully understood the meaning of Canada Day and what it represented. The process was significantly complicated by the fact that I was Ukrainian and brought up for most of my early years in a very Ukrainian environment, with the obvious knowledge that both of my parents were immigrants.  For the longest time, even though I participated and enjoyed all the fanfare and hoopla surrounding Canada Day, there was that lingering thought at the back of my mind that perhaps, as an ethnic, I was not really a true Canadian, that I was still some kind of an outsider.

It was only much later in my life, after having done much research into the history of Ukrainians in Canada that I realized that I and all of my Ukrainian brethren in this country had every right to consider ourselves not only citizens, but also principal builders and developers of this great country of ours.  Most contemporary Canadian histories now acknowledge that the success our Prairie provinces have achieved as the richest and most productive agricultural lands in the world, would not have been possible without the incredible efforts and dedication of the hundreds of thousands of First Wave Ukrainian immigrants that came to Canada over a century ago. The Second and Third Waves of Ukrainian immigrants similarly played a significant role in the development of the resource sectors of Northern Ontario and Quebec, as well as, the manufacturing industries of Southern Ontario.

Just as important, when global political events endangered world peace, Ukrainian Canadians did more than their share in protecting Canada and those parts of the world threatened by conquest and subjugation.  Despite the xenophobic persecution by the Canadian government that led to the infamous internment operations during the First World War, Ukrainians enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces in disproportionately higher numbers than would have been expected for their population share.  One, Filip Konowal, even went on to win the highest medal for bravery awarded by the Commonwealth, the Victoria Cross in 1917. Similarly, during the Second World War, Ukrainians enlisted in the armed forces of Canada in large numbers and served with distinction in all the major theatres of the War.

For over one hundred and twenty years, Ukrainians have distinguished themselves in all aspects and spheres of Canadian life.  The very existence of the multicultural policy that is a fundamental cornerstone of Canadian society today is due in great part to the tireless efforts of Senator Paul Yuzyk, one of many prominent Canadian politicians of Ukrainian origins.

It is for all these reasons that I consider July 1, Canada Day, to be also one of the major “Ukrainian” holidays on the Canadian calendar.  With due respect to the original First Nations, as well as the fundamental roles played by the French and English explorers and pioneers of this country, Ukrainians can justifiably claim their fair share of the credit for helping build and safeguard this country in the most fundamental of ways.  We are firmly enmeshed in the fabric that forms one of the truly great free nations on this planet and our forefathers helped lay the foundation stones here for what we know as our Canada.