Between Here and There

By Walter Kish

This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of being the Moderator of an interesting panel discussion that focused on whether the Ukrainian community in Canada should continue to devote significant amounts of time, effort and money in supporting our homeland Ukraine.  The fact that this is even worthy of discussion is testimony to the growing disillusionment that most Ukrainian Canadians have with the sorry state of events in the “batkivshchyna”.  After close to twenty years of independence, the country’s economy is in shambles, corruption is running rampant and there is little sign that the immediate future holds much hope for improvement.

What surprised me more than anything else about the event was the turnout.  I would have been pleased to see twenty or thirty people out on a rainy Sunday afternoon for a political discussion that I thought would be of limited interest to the general Ukrainian population here.  In the event, some one hundred people showed up for what turned out to be a very spirited and engaging dialogue.

Prof. Lubomyr Luciuk led off the discussion with some key observations.  First off, he emphasized that Ukrainians here are quite different from Ukrainians there in Ukraine, and we should not make the mistake of assuming that we either think alike or are alike in most ways.  Secondly, we should realize that though Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, it did not necessarily gain its freedom.  Ukraine is still a long way from being a true democracy and having effective political and economic freedom. For decades, Ukrainian organizations fought for the cause of Ukraine’s independence.  That cause has now been realized and we should now think long and hard as to whether we should now take on the cause of moving Ukraine further down the path towards what we consider a Western-style democracy.  When asked how long he thought it would be before we see real change and reform in Ukraine, Prof. Luciuk suggested that we look at the biblical example of Moses leading the Israelites out of bondage from Egypt to The Promised Land.  It took them forty years of wandering in the desert.  Most of Ukraine’s population was raised and indoctrinated under the Soviet totalitarian system and frankly, do not know how to create a free and democratic country.  Realistically, we must wait for the younger generation of Ukrainians to achieve that final objective.  In the meantime, we should strive more to ensure that the needs of the Ukrainian community here in Canada are better looked after.

Dr. Richard Hareychuk in his remarks, spoke passionately of his experience over the past several decades with trying to help reform and improve the medical and health system in Ukraine.  In the end, he was stifled by corruption and incompetence and has come to the conclusion that, until the Ukrainians there clean out their ineffective government and its associated bureaucracies, direct financial help is essentially a waste.  He noted that the combined wealth of the dozen top oligarchs in Ukraine significantly exceeds the government’s annual budget by several times.

Myroslava Oleksiuk, editor of the internet Ukrainian newsletter ePoshta, also made a strong case for Canadian Ukrainian organizations to focus their energies and efforts more on strengthening their base here in Canada and becoming more of an influential force within Canadian society and the Canadian government. We have limited resources and finances as a community here, and rather than deploying these directly in support of Ukraine, it would be far more effective if we used them as leverage to influence our government’s aid and support towards Ukraine.  We should be doing all we can to become influential players in the political and other power structures within Canada. 

Victor Hetmanczuk, Director of the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services, took a somewhat different tack and highlighted the fact that one of the biggest issues Ukraine is facing is the high level of poverty, particularly within rural areas.  Ukrainian farmers since the break-up of the collective farms have inadequate resources, knowledge and support to make a go of it.  Canada as a world leading agricultural producer could play a major role in resuscitating Ukrainian agriculture and thereby have a major impact on the economic well-being of Ukraine.

Following the panel discussion, Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, commented on how pleased he was to see the level of interest and wealth of ideas and discussion on this vital topic, and will be sharing this with the Congress at future meetings.

All in all, it was a most interesting afternoon and kudos goes to Dr. Richard Hareychuk whose vision it was to organize the event.