Ukrainian News | 25Jul2007 | Editorial
Page 06

Oda, Kenney have unique opportunity for an honourable settlement

July 30, 2007 representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian Community will meet with heritage Minister Bev Oda and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney to continue negotiations on the matter of redress for the Ukrainian Canadian internment of 1914-1920.

Recently Oda got the approval of Treasury Board for a Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP), which sets aside $24 million to be administered by Canadian Heritage bureaucrats. Any community that experienced wartime internment or prejudicial immigration restrictions can apply for a grant. It appears that the government may try to fit the Ukrainian Canadian redress within the framework of this program. If that is the case then it will be rejected by the Ukrainian community which has already made its opposition to CHRP very clear (see Ukrainian News, June 27 - July 24, 2007).

The problem with CHRP is that it does not recognize the uniqueness of the Ukrainian Canadian experience. Instead it forces our community to go, cap in hand, to ask, on a case-by-case basis, for project funding, a time consuming, wasteful and complicated process. Since we know that the Ukrainian Canadian community is quite able to manage funds in an accountable, efficient and credible manner we wonder why we are being treated in this way. We have the Shevchenko Foundation, itself established by an Act of Parliament, in 1963, which annually provides grants to a variety of Ukrainian Canadian groups, always accounts for those disbursements, and invests and manages its endowment funds carefully and profitably.

We have made it clear -- to Prime Minister Harper, to Oda, to Kenney and to many other MPs and Senators -- that we want the Shevchenko Foundation to act as the custodian of the Ukrainian Canadian redress endowment, not government bureaucrats.

Secondly CHRP only allocates the 2.5 million initial payment agreed upon in the Agreement in Principle with the previous government in August 2005, plus whatever surplus funds may become available both from it and the $10 million National Historic Recognition Program (NHRP). Conservative government representatives have been adamant that there is no record of any additional $10 million having been allocated specifically to the Ukrainian community under the previous government's Acknowledgement, Commemoration and Education (ACE) Program.

At this point in time it is irrelevant whether the Liberal government wrote down a record of the additional $10 million, or whether it merely promised that amount. The $12.5 million figure is the minimum amount the Ukrainian Canadian Community's representatives are willing to accept and the government is negotiating with the Ukrainian Canadian community - not with MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, nor former Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. Even at $12.5 million this figure amounts to a mere quarter of the modern-day value of that portion of the internees' confiscated wealth that was never returned, added to which is the present-day value of their forced labour. What's more, the government has a statutory obligation to reach an agreement acceptable to the Ukrainian Canadian community by virtue of The Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act, which received Royal Assent on Nov. 25, 2005, and which was introduced by Conservative MP Inky Mark. Although this bill received unanimous concurrence, the only leader who actually stood up and spoke to it was none other than current Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Therefore if the Conservatives do not want to agree to any Liberal figure, let them propose a Conservative one. Considering Foreign Minister Peter MacKay has just announced $16 million for Ukraine, an equal amount for Canada's Ukrainian community would be in order.

The Conservatives have a unique opportunity to reach a redress agreement with the Ukrainian community after 13 years of Liberal failure. But the community will not be herded into accepting a paternalistic program. Instead we call upon the government to work with us to craft an honourable and timely settlement.