Ukrainian Canadian

Two weeks ago NDP MLA for Surrey-Whalley Bruce Ralston introduced Bill M 207 for Holodomor memorial day, similar legislation which has already passed elsewhere. The Victoria Times Colonist has confirmed that the bill is officially dead – along with every other NDP bill put in front of the majority Liberals:

the Liberals had good reason to cheer on election night. By defeating the NDP at the polls on May 12, Campbell had steered his party into a third straight government majority.

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If the NDP doesn’t do a better job of getting some scandals to stick to government, they’ll continue to be ineffective and government will continue to roll out an unopposed agenda, Pilon said.

“I think it speaks to the arrogance of this government, and they are incredibly confident,” he said. “It seems like the Teflon premier rides again.”

BILLS THAT FAILED

The NDP Opposition tabled its own bills, but none received Liberal support, so none passed. Their proposals included:

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- Memorial: Designating the fourth Saturday in November as Holodomor Memorial Day, to recognize the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians during Soviet occupation.

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It’s quite sad that politics has got in the way of paying tribute to this crime, but this is the same government who’s helping keep KGB spies in Canada. If you were wondering, yes Lennikov is still hiding in a Lutheran church and continues to receive sympathetic press – but don’t be fooled by the propaganda.

[ Victoria Times Colonist]

It’s easy for those who have never been on the receiving end to downplay or dismiss rampant discrimination against the Ukrainian language. But those who have can tell you that it’s very real and has been going on a long time.

From the vantage point of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada, it has been fascinating (if distressing) to watch it happening in Ukraine. Still. Even 18 years after independence, there remains the possibility (if slightly less probability) that the Ukrainian language could well end up like aboriginal languages in Canada have.

As time goes by, it’s getting harder to justify opposition to Ukrainian being the official language of Ukraine. Nonetheless, as  this article illustrates, some people still insist on trying their best to turn back the clock and hinder progress.

The Odessa court of appeals has upheld the decision of the Nikolayev City Council [which] on May 26 adopted a resolution granting Russian the status of a regional language…

Similar litigations are underway in Odessa, Donbass and the Crimea.

The councils of different levels in the south and east of Ukraine have been providing funding in order to protect and support the Russian language spoken by a large portion of the population.

As a presidential election slated for January 17, 2010 nears, the preservation of the Russian language and its status as a second official language become increasingly relevant for leading centrist and left-wing parties and organisations in Ukraine.

Now it just so happens that the city of Nikolayev, whose proper Ukrainian name is Mykolaiv, is a major ship-building centre of Ukraine … as it was during the former Soviet Union and tsarist Russian empires. Not that a minor detail like that would have anything at all to do with the chauvinistic attitudes of Ukrainian citizens in that part of Ukraine towards the Ukrainian language. I’m just sayin’.

Fortunately, as another article  shows, some people are a lot more sensible, enlightened, and progressive.

Yevgeny Kisiliev, the television anchor who was the face of the Yeltsin revolution … [and] who had been Russia’s most influential TV journalist, [is] commuting to his new job as an anchor in Ukraine. … He speaks Russian and his guests speak whichever language they prefer. When they opt for Ukrainian, he understands “90 to 95 per cent”; “I practise Ukrainian every day,” he said.

Would that the good people of Mikolaiv, Odessa, and elsewhere in Crimea, as well as the Donbass, etc. would follow his example. Perhaps they’ll watch his program and eventually start to understand and practice Ukrainian as well.

 To my mind, those who actually do view and treat the Ukrainian language with the respect it deserves are cut from the same cloth as English-speaking Canadians who enroll their kids in French language immersion classes (and vice-versa).

Such smart and visionary folk instinctively know what scientists recently revealed in a study. There is clear evidence that knowing how to communicate in more than one language is good for you… and your brain!

I will be going away on vacation, so don’t expect many posts for the next week and a half. For all interested in keeping up, I would suggest my blogroll on the right hand side I’ll return the week of Monday July 20th

For a man who spent a career with the KGB and enforcing its rules, Mikhail Lennikov has a lot of trouble following them from a Canadian judge: Get out of Canada – no spies allowed! If your knowledge of the KGB only comes from movies, it was the Soviet Union’s secret police – out living Nazi’s Gestapo police by 60 years and killed and enslaved more innocent people than Hitler by an order of magnitude!

The facts speak for themselves:

• Lennikov, a former leader of the Communist Youth League, was recruited into the KGB in 1982 after leaving university and worked first as a translator than as a spy for Japanese businesses.
• He left the KGB in 1988, and left Russia in 1995 for Japan.
• He came to Canada in 1997 on a student visa without disclosing his KGB past (otherwise he would have never been admitted).
• Applying for permanent residency in the Fall of 2008, Lennikov’s background as a KGB officer was disclosed and their application was denied under Section 34 (1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, deemed a security risk and his family ordered to be deported:
  

  34. (1) A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on security grounds for
  (a) engaging in an act of espionage or an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process as they are understood in Canada;
  (b) engaging in or instigating the subversion by force of any government;
  (c) engaging in terrorism;
  (d) being a danger to the security of Canada;
  (e) engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada; or
  (f) being a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c).

• March 2009 -  Lennikov’s wife and son were granted permanent residency in March on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
• June 1 2009 – A judge denied the appeal of Lennikov, disputing the man’s claim his life would be at risk in Russia as he would be considered a traitor.
• June 3 2009 – Lennikov was ordered to board a flight for Vladivostok, Russia, but has taken sanctuary with his family at First Lutheran Church by Rev. Richard Hergesheimer.
• Since then there hasn’t been many updates, besides some opportune political photo-ops.

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