Letter to Editor

Re: ‘Righting the Wrong’ by Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, Issue 5, February 3, 2011
 
In her recent opinion piece, Mrs. Bashuk Hepburn uses a character she calls vujko (uncle) to criticize the Ukrainian Canadian Congress for what she claims is mismanagement of the Canadian Museum For Human Rights (CMHR) affair.  Despite UCC leading over 85 representations during the CMHR’s consultations across Canada over the last year, and it being on the forefront of spearheading a nationwide campaign to correct a flawed report and design as soon as we learned of the situation late last year, vujko calls the UCC “naïve khlopchyky!”. 

Ironically, and likely unintentionally, Mrs. Bashuk Hepburn actually personified vujko as the protagonist for the challenges our community has and will continue to face.  Rather than becoming involved and/or donating his time and money, vujko is the first to condemn and ridicule.  It is no wonder that with all these “vujkos”, we continue to struggle to attract more volunteers, engage youth and raise larger dollars to support a professional staff.  Instead, our hardworking and capable volunteers are criticized and demoralized by such uninformed armchair critics. 

I am extremely proud of UCC’s track record over the past 3+ years… starting to reverse the trend by attracting involvement and support from the best and the brightest in our community.  We are actively engaging Canadian decision makers and … lead our community on every major national issue, including: immigration, resettlement, citizenship; education & commemoration of Holodomor, Internment, 120th Anniversary of Ukrainian Settlement in Canada; and [for] democracy in Ukraine…

Vujku! It’s time you became part of the solution and not the problem!

Pavlo Grod,

President (volunteer and major donor)

Ukrainian Canadian Congress