Ukrainian Canadian

From the Ukrainian Canadian Congress:

Winnipeg, March 26, 2009 – The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) calls upon CBC Radio Canada International (RCI) to overturn their decision to permanently shutdown the Ukrainian Section of RCI effective this week after 57 years of service to Canada.

“We understand that the Ukrainian Section of RCI is the only foreign language department to be terminated,” stated Paul Grod, UCC National President. “Such a decision is unconscionable and is out of line with the Government of Canada’s commitment to Ukraine as one of its top strategic bilateral partner countries.”

Canadians should write to:

Hubert T. Lacroix
President and CEO
CBC/Radio-Canada
1400 René-Lévesque Boulevard East
P.O. Box 6000
Montréal, QC H3C 3A8
EMAIL: ht.lacroix@cbc.ca

encouraging him to reconsider the decision to permanently shutdown the Ukrainian Section of RCI and find ways to increase its resources due to its strategic importance to Canada.

We encourage you to sign the online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ucc/.

Read more…

TIME Magazine has posted their 100 Most Influential people, and tech-saavy Russophiles have been upvoting Vladimir Putin to the top. As of this writing he’s at #3, where do you think he belongs? Vote!

His bio is just plain ridiculous, who writes this stuff:

PRO: His steely-eyed fondness for Cold War–era diplomacy led to the invasion of Georgia and a showdown with the Ukraine over Russian-controlled gas lines.

CON: Anti-Putin protests are mounting, thanks in part to the country’s economic mess. And, as if you needed further proof that he’s the world’s most powerful ’70s nostalgist, Putin recently hired an ABBA tribute band to play a private gig.

Fellow blogger Steve Janke gets his opinion in the National Post:

Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj’s demotion to the backbenches is proving to be a big deal in the Ukrainian-Canadian community.

A lot of Ukrainian-Canadians are wondering just what Michael Ignatieff really thinks of them.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s strongman prime minister, has not made it a secret that he thinks the Ukraine is part of Russia

Ignatieff has written at length about his Russian heritage, and ran into trouble over passages in one of his books that were criticized as dismissive of the Ukraine’s claim to statehood. A University of Calgary thesis on Ignatieff’s writings noted:

You don’t have to be paranoid to think that Ignatieff, the scion of Russian nobility, is depriving Ukrainians of a soapbox to criticize Russia. You just have to be Ukrainian, because that is exactly what a lot of Ukrainians are thinking.

I’ve been told, anecdotally, that Wrzesnewskyj’s banishment to the backbenches is a big deal in the Ukrainian community, much more so than it would normally be because of Ignatieff’s family background (which he can’t help) and the statements he’s made that seem to provide comfort to Russian neo-imperialists (which are entirely his fault).

The Liberal leader can claim to have revised his thinking.  Again.  Like he did on Israel (twice) and the coalition and Iraq and torture and, well, you get the idea.  I suppose another revision can’t hurt at this point.

Read the article

It’s a great article with lots of references that makes his case very solid.  Unfortunately Steve’s getting hammered in the comments with a lot of petty name calling.  You know what to do.

I spent my Remembrance Day checking out the Holodomor Exhibit at the North York Civic Centre.  Here are some photos:

Last Thursday, the Alberta Legislative Assembly met for one bill only, Mr. Zwozdesky’s Bill 37 the “Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act”.  In that one sitting the bill went through all three readings and the Committee as a Whole with no debate.  The last step is the Royal Assent – which officially declares it law.