Petro Lopata

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) launched their Project Roll Call campaign at a press conference November 5 in Ottawa. The project will see 37,000 postcards mailed to individuals across Canada with surnames similar to those of 8,000 mainly East European immigrants who were interned as enemy aliens during WWI.

Progressive Conservative (PC) leader Joe Clark and Inky Mark, PC MP for Dauphin-Swan River were the first to throw their postcards into a Canada Post mailbag.

Mark said the projects aim was two-fold. It asks that Canadians whose family members were or may have been interned to contact the UCCLA. Second, it urges all Canadians to support Private Members Bill C-331.

Earlier this year Mark introduced Bill-C331, which would have the federal government acknowledge and provide restitution to those whom the feds locked up dur³ng Canadas first national internment operations.

Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston and UCCLA’s Director of Research, noted that there would be no cost to the Canadian taxpayer.

We have determined that at the end of the internment operations there were several tens of thousands of dollars that were not returned to the internees, informed Luciuk. He said the money would be used for commemorative and educational projects.

Asked if the Ukrainian communitys restitution efforts could be looked at separately from similar attempts by other ethnic groups, Clark replied, I think that the moderate, restrained, but historically accurate approach that is being recommended here is a positive step forward in Canadians coming to understand the full weight of our country.

We talk with great pride of being a multicultural community. That involves recognizing that not at all times in our history have we treated different groups with the equality that we expect in the country. If we are going to be held true to our beliefs, we are going to have to reconcile ourselves with our own history, declared Clark.

Over the period 1914-1920, some 80,000 immigrants were forced to register with the government while another 5,000 laboured in 24 concentration camps scattered throughout the country. Many were Ukrainian, though Poles, Croats, Slovaks, Jews and other migrants from Central and Eastern Europe were affected.

As citizens of an enemy state the Austro-Hungarian Empire Canada considered the aliens a security threat. In September 1917, liberal newspaper the Daily British Whig described the Canadian governments actions a national humiliation that would sooner or later have to be atoned for.

Many believe that time has now come. However, as Mark noted, Prime Minister Chretien appears to be waiting for some other occasion. He pointed out that Chretien, while leader of the Official Opposition in 1993 promised to the deal with the issue when he became Prime Minister.

"We have been waiting for almost ten years," said Mark.