The CBC in Ottawa has tapped me to help look for traditional Ukrainian Christmas dishes to be shared on the radio next week in preparation for Christmas. Not being in Ottawa myself, I thought I’d extend the search out to any Ottawan who can make a mean СвÑта Вечерa dish for the show hosts, share their recipe and explain their food and the background of our Christmas. If you’re willing, give me a shout either via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter and we’ll get you set up!
Monthly Archives: December 2012
Malanka Guide 2012/2013
Planning on ringing in the Ukrainian new year: Malanka? Learn all about it, and check out this Malanka guide to find an event near you:
Ukrainian dance at Toronto Christmas Market this Saturday
I went to the Christmas market last year and loved it, and am definitely going again this year! The annual Christmas Market in Toronto’s Distillery district will feature performances by Arkan Ukrainian Dance Company this Saturday:
Inspired by the Old World and influenced by the New, this free annual event captures all of the tradition, heritage and charm of a European Christmas Market, while showcasing hundreds of unique and local handcrafted products. Family friendly entertainment includes musicians, carolers and children’s choirs, holiday themed stage presentations, Rudolph’s Reindeer Zoo and of course … Santa and his roaming elves! There is great shopping, specialty beer and mulled wine gardens, sweets and treats, and all the great restaurants of The Distillery Historic District. Come and experience the fun and magic of Toronto’s first and only Christmas Market!
The market is open from 10am to 9pm, and here are the times of the performances:
3:00pm & 5:30pm – Arkan Ukrainian Dance Company – enjoy high energy performances of Ukrainian Dance by this exciting Dance Company. Presented in association with the Community Folk Arts Council of Toronto
Leave a comment if you are thinking of attending.. see you there!
The government is keeping an eye on our programming
If you watched our Ukrainian programming recently– mainly Kontakt and ForumTV (formerly Svitohliad), you saw so many government officials and events featured you’d think they were the ones watching the programs. Well it turns out they do!
The Privy Council Office, the bureaucracy that supports the prime minister, spent $463,300 last January on a two-year contract with the same ethnic media monitoring company that Citizenship has paid almost $750,000 over the past three years.
Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney being interviewed by Kontakt in August
"We monitor cultural news media to assess the effectiveness of government of Canada communications," Rivet told The Canadian Press.
The reports are shared across the government, he added.
That’s a lot of money to spend just to pay people to monitor newspapers – especially in a time of self-professed ‘austerity’ (if it really even exists) that takes away much needed funding from important areas like science and the environment.
There may be "editorial and opinion that perhaps isn’t always expressed in traditional media," Ziniak said. "If they’re paying attention to that, that’s good.
"If they’re using it towards political means — and no one’s naive enough to think not — then obviously that’s another issue altogether."
Peter MacKay being interviewed on ForumTV in October
The media monitoring firms are given a list of keywords to scour in ethnic media and the results often go beyond news items directly related to the federal government.
…
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s office says the monitoring is done at the discretion of the department.
So the message seems pretty clear: The government is watching you, Ukrainian media. Those press releases better make their rounds and those interviews better be coming… or else?