Michael Luchkovich, the First Ukrainian-Canadian Member of Parliament, a "Lemko"

By Orysia Sopinka Chwaluk

The Canadian Lemko Association is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. For this special occasion, I have written a series of three articles about distinguished individuals who come from a Lemko background who have made major contributions to Canadian society. This first one is about Michael Luchkovich, the first Ukrainian (Lemko) Canadian parliamentarian.  A Lemko is a person who comes from Lemkivshchyna.  This territory, located on the Lower Beskid Mountains was once a part of Rus-Ukraina, but later was conquered by Poland, Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and finally divided between Poland and Slovakia.  According to the ethnographer Roman Reinfuss, the northern boundary of Lemkivshchyna goes as far north as the city of Riashiv, the eastern boundary is the valley of the Oslava River, the southern one, the Polish- Slovak border, and the western boundary is the Proprad River. The Lemkos got their name by using the word “lem” which means “only”.  Other Ukrainian neighbours gave them this name because it was unique to their dialect.  Ethnographers in the first half of the 19^th century had replaced the name Rusyn or Rusnak with Lemko in their writing.

Michael Luchkovich’s parents came from the Novij Sanch district, Lemkivshchyna in 1887. They arrived in a town called Shamokin, Pennsylvania where coal mining was the main industry.  Michael was born in 1893. He started off speaking English at home while his older sisters were fluent in Ukrainian.  All three ended up moving to Manitoba to teach school. By working together with a group of Ukrainian teachers, he slowly learned the language until he became perfectly fluent.  Continuing his studies in at the University of Alberta, he paid his way by teaching during the summer months and eventually received a permanent teaching position.  In 1917, he was elected as president of the first Ukrainian Teacher’s Convention in Alberta.  

However, Michael’s passion was politics and he liked to attend the farmer’s conventions to hear about their progress. In 1926, he was chosen to be the delegate to the United Farmers of Alberta Federal Constituency Political Convention.  His speech to the farmers was witty, eloquent and satirical.   In August 1926, he was the first Ukrainian Member of Parliament elected to the House of Commons, and from then on, his speeches had an everlasting effect on Canadian society.  His speech  on May 28, 1929 was exceptional. A protestant bishop was insulting Eastern Europeans by calling them dirty, ignorant and non-preferred immigrants as opposed to preferred British immigrants.  He was insinuating that more of the non-preferred were entering Canada at the time and that reunification with families should not take place.  His comments were published by national newspapers and were having a negative effect on all Canadians.  Luchkovich introduced an amendment to the criminal code stating that defamatory remarks, spoken or published would be an offence. His bill never passed the necessary three readings because he was defeated in the 1935 election.  However, today, Section 13.1 of the Human Rights Act forbids any speech that might cause an offence to people on the grounds of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The bishop had also fabricated stories about a deluge of signed petitions coming to Ottawa against a new immigration policy and about non-preferred immigrants electing their own members to parliament. Luchkovich researched the immigrant problem and proved to parliament that there were less immigrants coming from Eastern European countries than perceived, and that many skilled workers were leaving for America and needed to be replaced.  Another important debate he participated in was the Polish Pacification of Ukraine led by General Pidsuldsky.  Ukraine and Poland continued fighting after World War 1.  Poland won the war with the help of France and Ukraine’s independence did not last more than a year. According to the Treaty of Versailles, Ukraine-Galicia was suppose to have local autonomy for twenty-five years, having the right to its own language and teaching it in elementary schools.  Instead, the Polish army went around Galician villages terrorizing villagers, brutally beating them, burning crops and arresting anyone with an education. Luchkovich exposed the lies of the Polish government in parliament. It stated it was fighting Bolshevism and pacifying Ukrainians when what it really was doing was rebuilding its old empire.  He then proposed an investigation into the atrocities upon the Ukrainian minority in Poland.  Six petitions were sent to the League of Nations on behalf of Ukrainians in Poland.   In 1931, he represented Canada at the International Inter-Parliamentary Union Congress in Romania where he became aware of the impotence of the League of Nations and the difficulties in solving the minority problem in Poland. Luchkovich was also a huge proponent of multiculturalism and believed that immigrants should respect each other’s differences and live side by side, but at the same time, contribute to Canadian society

Having lost the election of 1935 by a very narrow vote, he became a grocery shop owner. When he wasn’t in his store, he was translating or writing books. He authored the following books: A Ukrainian Canadian in Parliament – Memoirs of Michael Luchkovich (1965); and edited an anthology of Ukrainian short stories - Their Land (1964).    In 1946, he prepared a brief for the Ukrainian Canadian Committee to present to the Senate advocating for more Ukrainian immigrants to come to Canada. He passed away in 1973. 

The University of Alberta offers the Michael Luchkovich Scholarship for Career Development three times a year. Also, in 1986 an award was created in his name for an Alberta parliamentarian who performs exemplary public service.