House of Commons Debates: Holodomor Statement

The following is a statement delivered by MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj in the House of Commons on November 16, 2005.  It has been published in Hansard, Volume 140, Number 151.

Mr. Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, November marks one of the greatest tragedies in human history, when 7 to 10 million members of farm families which had just brought in record harvests, were deliberately starved to death in the breadbasket of Europe by the Soviet regime in 1932-33.

The Stalinist regime perpetrated the Great Famine/Holodomor by making food illegal in Ukraine’s countryside. Red Brigades under the direction of Lazar Kaganovich seized grain, prevented the starving population from leaving the countryside and then sent the food to the West for export. This was done to eliminate resistance to the forced collectivization of agriculture and to destroy Ukraine’s national identity.

    On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Holodomor, the UN declared a week of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Great Famine in Ukraine.

I join all members of the House in calling upon the Government of Canada to recognize the Holodomor of 1932-33 in Ukraine and to condemn this genocidal act of inhuman brutality by Stalin and his henchmen.