Ukrainian Canadian

The travelling exhibit, The Barbed Wire Solution: Ukrainians and Canada’s First Internment Operations, 1914-1920 is now on display in Fort St. John, BC through October 31st:

During the First World War, over 8000 men, women, and children, mostly Ukrainians, were interned. This exhibit explores the economic, political, and social circumstances that led to Canada’s first use of the War Measures Act.

Learn about Ukrainian immigration and farming, daily life and conditions in internment camps, and life following internment.

This exhibit was developed by the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre.

 

June through October 2011 at the

Fort St. John North Peace Museum

9323 – 100^th Street, Fort St. John

Mon. – Sat. 9 am to 5 pm

 

For more information please contact

250-787-0430.

• Ukrainian Internment Exhibit – Fort St. John North Peace Museum

And it has been recently featured on the local news:

There are two secrets the upcoming Canadian Museum for Human Rights doesn’t want you to know: First, it’s not Canadian – that is, it’s not a federal institution but rather owned by the Asper family (who runs CanWest Global – Global TV, the right-wing NationalPost, Astral Media, etc.) and wants operating funding from the government too! Second, it’s not even a museum – it will not contain any artifacts or other objects of importance but rather only two permanent exhibitions which has upset the Ukrainian community and others in the Winnipeg area:

The committee calls for only two permanent galleries in the museum: one for the Holocaust and the other for Canada’s indigenous people.

The (Ukrainian Canadian) Congress wrote to several Cabinet ministers to complain that the genocide-famine in Soviet Ukraine and the national internment of Canadians during the First and Second World wars aren’t getting permanent exhibits.

…

The Congress is urging people to write to their MPs and federal Heritage Minister James Moore and demand a change in the makeup of the museum’s governance and advisory committees.

"We’ll only get one chance to make sure it’s done right," said Mr. Zalusky.

…

The national umbrella group that represents 1.2-million Ukrainian-Canadians said it supported the new museum politically and its members have donated to it. But when the final content advisory committee report was made public this fall, members of the congress were disappointed.

"It makes only one minor, passing reference to Canada’s first national internment operations,” the Congress report said. The Congress also says there is only one reference to the Holodomor.

Survivors of the Holodomor shared some horrific recollections of the genocide with the museum committee as it elicited input across Canada, said Mr. Zalusky.

"There were some absolutely stomach-churning issues and events that took place," said Mr. Zalusky. None of the witnesses’ information and input was included in the content advisory committee report, though, he said.

"We don’t believe their report is balanced," said Mr. Zalusky. "Nor does it reflect a Canadian approach to human rights issues," he said.

…

the Ukrainian Canadian Congress says the museum’s board and committees are "dominated by friends and supporters of the Asper Foundation" and lack objectivity.

You can read the UCC’s full report on this issue

From the Mark News:

Between 1914 and 1920, thousands of Canadians of Ukrainian and Eastern European descent were imprisoned in internment camps across Canada, simply on the basis of their origins. For decades, their stories were buried under fear and shame. The Canadian government has finally recognized the internment operations, and yet it remains an unknown chapter in our nation’s history.

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From the Globe and Mail:

To be built on the site of a First World War-era internment camp, the Hotel in the Garden project will raise a few eyebrows – not just for its guests, but also for a public unfamiliar with Canada’s early attempts at mass civilian internments.

Below the dreary parking lot where the Hotel in the Garden will eventually stand are limestone foundations from a 19th-century military fort. Those walls once penned in civilians from Eastern Europe deemed enemy aliens. The internees were waiting to be shipped to remote work camps.

…

“This was a black spot on Canadian history,” explains Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston and chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

After some prodding from the Ukrainian community, the city is making sure the developer showcases the history of the site as a prominent part of the luxury hotel.

“It took me 25 years to convince the government what happened,” says Mr. Luciuk, “but now we are going to hallow the memory of innocents who were held and dispersed through this site.”

…

Close to 9,000 civilians were forcibly held at 24 camps across Canada, and New Fort was Toronto’s collecting ground for detainees who were shipped to wilderness camps with electrified fences, where they would build roads and railways for no pay.

Descendents of internees have had a difficult time getting their story told – author Peter Melnycky contends that in the 1950s and 1960s, Archives Canada intentionally destroyed records of the internments. But in 2008, the federal government established a $10-million First World War Internment Recognition Fund to educate the country about this dark period.

…

“There is nothing negative about history,” says the owner of HK, a company with four boutique hotels in New York. “Bad things happen, but they are part of life. What is important is that you recognize it. The plan now is to erect a plaque, but we are more than happy to do more. The more communities involved, the better. We’d like to make Toronto’s diversity very much a part of this project. Finally we are going to create life at this site.”

Read the rest of the article

[Globe & Mail]

From the Arrow Lakes News:

Ukrainian Canadians wrongfully interned during the First World War are being honoured this coming Saturday at a plaque laying in Edgewood at 11 a.m., where one of the 24 internment camps once found across Canada was set up by the federal government under the authority of the now-notorious War Measures Act.

“The first commemorative plaque we unveiled was at Fort Henry in Kingston, in 1994, fittingly given that was where Canada’s first permanent internment camp was established in the First World War,” said Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk

…

“Our twenty first plaque will be installed at Edgewood, then we hope to place the 22nd at Montreal, the 23rd in Lethbridge and finally the last one, our 24th, at The Citadel, in Halifax. We’re symbolically ending our campaign for recognition in a major port city where many immigrants arriving in this country first set foot.”

Dr. Luciuk will be in attendance at the plaque unveiling as will the Conservative MP for the Dauphin-Swan Lake-Marquette riding of Manitoba, Inky Mark, who drafted and helped ensure that Bills C-331(Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act) and Bill C-333 dealing with Chinese Canadian Head Tax issue, were addressed by Parliament. Members of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund’s endowment council will also be in attendance, as will Kootenay West MLA Katrine Conroy. “I’m looking forward to being in Edgewood on Oct. 14 and attending this unveiling. [I] am very happy to join with the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Ukrainian Community of B.C. and the community of Edgewood in honour of this historical event,” says Conroy. “The presentation of this plaque will ensure that the contributions of the Ukrainian Canadians and other Europeans interned in such an unacceptable way are remembered.”

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