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Background to Zuzak GRC Reports


The origin of the Zuzak GRC Reports goes back to when I (William Zuzak) was on the board of directors and executive of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress - Alberta Provincial Council (UCC-APC) from 2001 through 2004. As the provincial component of UCC-National (located in Winnipeg/Ottawa), UCC-APC (located in Edmonton) represents some 300,000 Albertans of Ukrainian origin to the provincial government. Its board of directors is composed of representatives of several Ukrainian Canadian organizations based in Alberta, from which the executive is chosen.

In 2001, the late Dave Sereda was president and Ludmila Sereditch was the paid executive director. The late Eugene Harasymiw (1941.02.14 - 2004.10.02), President of the Ukrainian Self-Reliance Association (USRA or TYC in its Ukrainian acronym), was very active in denouncing the denaturalization and deportation (d&d or d/d) policy, which was victimizing aging Ukrainian Canadian refugees from WW2. This policy fraudulently equates alleged immigration infractions with war criminality. At that time, Wasyl Odynsky and later Josef Furman (from Edmonton) were being targetted with denaturalization and deportation. A Government Relations Committee, composed of Eugene Harasymiw, Marco Levytsky and William Zuzak, was set up to report on the latest developments at monthly UCC-APC meetings. The issues were discussed and proposed actions formulated.

These reports, written in Microsoft Word 97 format, were originally archived as UCCreport20020206.doc to UCCreport20041103.doc, but became zuzak20050119GRC.doc in January 2005 and thereafter, when I had left UCC-APC. The emphasis changed from UCC-APC affairs to a Canada-wide and international perspective as gleaned from articles available on the Internet. The format of the Reports also changed circa May 2008, when I started listing the actual links to the articles in each category. (Prior to that, I referred the reader to the source file such as holodomor.html, 2001.html, etc. for each category.) Consequently, after converting these .doc files to .html files that now appear in grc.html, it was necessary to add links to the various articles referred to in each Report.

The GRC Reports, that now appear in grc.html, provide a chronological overview of the issues that have been of concern to the Ukrainian Canadian community since 2002. The comments on the right-hand-side of grc.html highlight particularly important events and dates in the various categories, such as John Demjanjuk, Wasyl Odynsky and UKAR. Hopefully, readers and researchers will find these Reports useful.

Will Zuzak; 2012.08.19