People Who Matter: Ihor Bardyn

In our new feature, People Who Matter, New Pathway will be profiling individuals who make a difference in the Ukrainian-Canadian community. This month, we feature lawyer Ihor Bardyn and focus on his decades-long community involvement; the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program, which he founded; and his thoughts on the community’s past, present and future.

“One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade,” says a Chinese proverb. Over the years, Ihor Bardyn has planted many trees.

“If it benefits others, it’s worth doing,” says the Toronto-based lawyer and community activist Bardyn. His forte is initiating major projects with lasting value, which address and respond to current needs and create permanent legacies that will benefit generations to come.

One of the most notable such projects is the Canada-Ukrainian Parliamentary Program (CUPP), which gives students from Ukraine the opportunity to get first-hand knowledge of the Canadian political system by serving as interns for Members of Parliament. “They return to Ukraine and become much better observers and critics of their Parliament and their process,” says Bardyn.

This year, CUPP celebrated its 15th anniversary. “In the original five-year period, the students tended to be more timid and less inquisitive,” he says.  Now, “they are eager not just to learn but to question, to discuss, debate.  The openness to some degree in their society, in their country is demonstrated by their openness and their interest in questioning Canadian society and values and the Canadian political system.”

Bardyn came up with the idea for CUPP in 1990 when he was serving as the Vice President of the Centennial Commission, which promoted projects celebrating the Centennial of Canadians in Canada. “I was convinced that that it [CUPP] would be of much better benefit than concerts or picnics,” says Bardyn.  When the Commission rejected the idea, he turned to the Chair of Ukrainian Studies Foundation, of which he was the president at the time.

Its Board agreed to support the initiative, and Bardyn then approached the Speaker of the House of Commons for consent. Then, “all three [main political] Parties agreed that it was a good idea, and that’s how it got started,” he says. 

In 1991, three students came to Canada for the first program. In recent years, close to 30 have taken part in each session, in the spring sitting of Parliament.  In election years, there is an additional session. All the students undergo a rigorous selection process. Most are fluent in several languages, including Ukrainian and English.

The federal government supports CUPP by accommodating its work. The Canadian embassy in Kyiv has been “very, supportive,” says Bardyn. “We have our selection meetings, our reunions there. We’ve had meetings with former Governator General Hnatyshyn there, past ambassadors, a number of Ukrainian politicians – and this makes it very easy and convenient for us to do our business in Ukraine.” The biggest help, he adds, comes from the Members of Parliament who take on the students as interns.

Funding comes mainly from the Ukrainian community, though CUPP received a major donation from the East/West Foundation in New York for two years. With the generous donations collected early on, an endowment fund was established. Interest rates were high, so the fund “brought in a generous return that more or less covered the cost of the program,” says Bardyn. However, in recent years, lower interest rates have brought on financial difficulties. 

As a result, Bardyn has had to fundraise on an ongoing annual basis. “We’ve had to reduce the program, and this year…instead of it being a 9-10-week program, it was 5 weeks,” he says.  Next year, it will also be five weeks, and the number of students will be reduced to 15.

Bardyn, who has three grown children, takes a real personal interest in the students, often keeping in touch with them and offering them guidance and advice, long after they finish the program. He readily lists off accomplishments of CUPP alumni.

Many go on to participate in other internship programs. For instance, Lesia Rakunova interned in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and in Brussels with the European Commission. A large proportion go on to complete graduate degrees at prestigious universities in Europe and North America, such as Oxford and Harvard, and many land influential positions in Ukraine.

A number are active in politics in Ukraine. “One is currently a  mayor in the city called Berdansk on the Sea of Azov,” says Bardyn.  Another alumnus, Mykhailo Danylk, went on to serve on the municipal council of Lviv.  Yet another, Ihor Markuts, has been active in the Yushchenko wing or group of parties and has been a campaign manager for a number of the successful politicians.

However, quite a few CUPP alumni, like many of their compatriots, have left Ukraine to work for large international corporations in foreign countries.

No doubt the CUPP experience looks impressive on resumes, helping students get ahead in their academic and professional careers, and enables them to develop a useful networking system. 

But Bardyn also stresses the broader, long-term benefits.  “The goodwill that we have built up through this program in future leaders in Ukraine will play a significant role in the future. It will be of value to Canada and to Ukraine, of course. The students are benefiting today. The Canadian and Ukrainian communities hopefully will benefit hopefully in the future when these people arrive in positions of infuence in their own country,” he says.

Many of the projects Bardyn has been involved in have a strong educational element. Bardyn was a key player in the establishment of the Chair of Ukrainan Studies Foundation at the University of Toronto. In its initial years, the Foundation was headed by Bardyn, and it founded numerous scholarships.

When Bardyn served as the President of the Ukrainian Professional Business Federation in Toronto in the 70s, he proved to be a very effective leader who extended the outward reach of the club. “We opened up the meetings to speakers from outside of the Ukranian community—from politicians to church leaders. “It brought out a good number of new members as well as old members.. and made the club financially sound so that we could afford to award a few scholarships in those years,” he adds.

For many years, Bardyn was also very active politically in the Liberal Party. He headed a Liberal Caucus delegation in the 1970s that had a landmark meeting Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s residence.  Bardyn says it was a “very warm meeting” with “frank exchanges”  that opened the lines of communication between the Ukrainian community and the governing party.

He also ran as a Liberal candidate twice in Bellwoods riding in downtown Toronto, now called the Fort York riding. In hindsight says he is glad that he was never elected. “I’m probably happier simply standing on thes sidelines and understanding the process maybe a little bit better than the average,” he says.

He advises any individual considering entering politics to understand that they probably would lose much of their private life and family anonymity and that “politics, not just in Canada, but in most western countries has become a question of catering to the various interest groups and less catering to the silent majority.”

Bardyn finds it particularly distasteful that “politicians make promises, especially on the spur of the moment, knowing that the promise they’ve just made is partially or completely unrealistic.”

“The days of John Yaremko years, the Diefenbaker years, the Robert Stanfield years are over. Those are people who had a commitment to serve. Not just the community, to serve Canda, to serve in the best radition of that Enligh or British service,  giving back to the community,” he adds.

Bardyn has spent time analysing not only the political system, but also the Ukrainian-Canadian community. He believes that in time it will become more assimilated and the Ukrainian language will be used even less. “There isn’t the same, drive, commitment by the people in the organizations when compared to 10-15 years ago,” he says.

When asked what the community’s major challenges are, he replies: “to find a happy medium between living as a Canadian in Canada and participating in a constructive way to changing the direction and mindset of Ukraine and Ukrainians.”

His reply illustrates the two defining characterics, setting the ground for future improvement and educating, of not only his past and current projects, but those he still aims to accomplish.  Bardyn has recently been elected to the new Preofessional and Business Federation Board and is championing two high-profile projects: the estabilishment of a children’s hospital in Ukraine and a Western-style university in Ukraine in which the languages of instruction would be English and Ukrainian, the latter idea being one that came to him directly from his experience with the CUPP program.

Bardyn has carried out his community work while all-along maintaining a full-time career as a lawyer.  The law firm, Bardyn, Zalucky and Mitchell currently has 12 lawyers working for it.  Although he is commitment to the field of law, Bardyn clearly enjoys the work he does outside of his profession.

“It gives you goals and it benefits,” he says. His motto: If it’s of benefit to others, it’s worth doing.” Bardyn not only talks the talk, he walks it too; he is a doer.