Ukrainian-Canadian talks of her passion for politics and her love for the Motherland
“I don’t mind strong messages. I like strong messages and that’s why we’re talking,” Oksana Bashuk Hepburn unequivocally proclaimed over coffee drinks and fruit danishes at Repriza. Drawing on a wealth of experience working for the Canadian government, and as a committed member of Ukraine’s Diaspora, Oksana frequently visits Ukraine to offer, among other things, her expertise as a spirited political pundit.
On her most recent sojourn here, Oksana traveled to Lviv and Kyiv, conversing with Ukrainians from all walks of life, government officials and foreigners about politics, and visited her son and his family, who are currently living in Kyiv.
“I feel that the Western experience may be of help to Ukraine and I offer up my experience of what we did in Canada or how we do it in Canada as something that the Ukrainians may wish to take,” Oksana explains. “I have been speaking with political forces here and they seem to feel that my commentary is of value, and so I will continue doing that to the extent that I can,” she adds.
Lately, speaking with members of Ukraine’s general population, Oksana has been pleased to find that people have been very open with her in offering up their perspectives on what needs to change in Ukraine. She feels that the Orange Revolution bodes well for the people of Ukraine.
“I hear people saying that they’re disappointed. That justice was not done to those that undermined the election,” she explains. She considers the fact that people are talking openly about politics as a very good sign.
“I hear them saying that there are not enough jobs in Ukraine. They would like to see more Ukrainian products because that would mean jobs,” she says. “Instead what they are seeing is an excessive amount of foreign goods at exorbitant prices, which is very good for the highest levels of Ukrainian society but totally inaccessible to people that are earning $40/week,” she adds.
Oksana believes part of Ukraine’s economic shortcomings result from its lack of name recognition in the world of quality consumer goods.
“I come to Ukraine and I [buy] myself a Ukrainian coat, because it’s wonderful quality, it’s good material, it’s very well sewn,” Oksana begins, to illustrate her point. “That coat, I am told, is destined for North American markets, and I know that, because I see that coat [there]. I am absolutely astounded that it doesn’t say ‘Made in Ukraine,’ but it will say ‘Made in Italy’ or ‘Made (Somewhere Else)’,” she says.
Over the years, Oksana has traveled back and forth to Ukraine for a variety of reasons. She has worked for several years as an election observer with OSCE and came to witness the Orange Revolution and speak with those in the “tent city” on Independence Square while it was unfurling. She has written about her experiences for Canadian newspapers, as well as the Kyiv Post. After resigning from her position working for the Canadian government, Oksana started her consulting firm U*CAN, Ukraine Canada Relations Inc., which specializes geographically in Ukraine, and counsels interested parties in government issues and telecommunications, among other topics.
Oksana’s first visit to Ukraine was in the winter of 1992 on a government mission to visit shipyards in the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Mykolayiv in the South. She came with about 10 fellow Canadians involved in various marine businesses hosted by Canada’s Department of Industry and Trade. “Because Canada has three oceans and a northern climate, we were looking to purchase an icebreaker,” she says.
In Kherson, her team dropped in to see where the biggest aircraft carrier in the world was being built. “The size was overwhelming,” she remembers, adding that the Varya aircraft carrier “was ultimately bought by China.”
The Canadian side declined to make any purchases in Ukraine. “The problem with doing business between Canada and Ukraine at that time was that it was an unknown entity and there was always a perception that the Soviet products were not up to the kind of standard that the West [demanded],” Oksana explains.
These instances of thwarted business deals are prime examples of why “entering the World Trade Organization is very important to Ukraine—because that indicates to the world market that Ukraine is now at a standard that is global,” reasons Oksana.
However, while the business end was a bust, the voyage wasn’t completely unfruitful. “In consequence, the Kherson shipyard came to Canada with a three member team, and participated in a national marine show,” Oksana adds.
Oksana also has deep personal links to the country she so enthusiastically supports professionally. She herself was born here and immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada as a young girl with her parents. During the Second World War, She and her mother, who was working during the war as a courier for UPA, the Ukrainian Nationalist Army, escaped Ukraine to safety in Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, her father had been arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz for 18 months, for his attempts to establish a Ukrainian independent state. He was not able to join them until nearly two years later.
She even published her mother’s memoirs of the trying time in Kyiv and is looking into publishing them in Canada as well. “It’s a story of a 26-year-old girl with a child who hasn’t seen her husband in two years and all of the wonderings of the heart and mind about how all of this will work out,” she describes.
“Well it worked out in such a way that my little granddaughter, that’s fifth generation Canadian, was born in Kyiv, that’s how it worked out,” she beams. “But who would know that in 1946, with shootings and burnings and police chasing you down the mountain slopes.”
Oksana’s current literary pursuit is a book she is writing about three generations of Ukrainian women and the experiences of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Canada after World War Two. She dubs it a “docu-novel,” because it includes a lot of documentary analysis. “It is a story of three women, of three generations, and the usual conflicts that ensue between mothers and daughters and the coming together on certain things,” she describes. She is currently looking for a publisher in Canada and wants to have the book translated into Ukrainian.Oksana relishes her visits here and thoroughly enjoys her time outside of work, whether it is spent marveling at Kyiv and Lviv’s architecture, chatting with interesting people, or playing tennis, her favorite extracurricular activity. “I love looking at the people and saying, my goodness, these are like the Ukrainian Canadians in Canada, the facial features are the same,” she remarks. “I love meeting Ukrainians and having very good discussion. In Canada there’s a kind of a reserve, you don’t talk about sex, politics, or religion. Well I like talking politics more than anything else in the world,” she laughs, adding “I love this place.”
