Although they were not born in Ukraine, the nation is a part of them in many ways: Through philanthropy and promotion, on the pages of books, and in songs that are sung around the table on Christmas.
For the last 130 years, Canada’s 1.5-million-strong Ukrainian community — the largest Ukrainian diaspora outside of Europe — has had a strong voice both in Canada and their ancestral homeland. They helped gain formal recognition of the Holodomor as an act of genocide, raised money for projects acknowledging Canada’s internment of Ukrainians during World War I, and have sent hundreds of election observers and military instructors to Ukraine.
This community, built over four waves of immigration, began on the prairies and has spread throughout Canada’s other provinces.
These are just a few of the many prominent Ukrainian-Canadians:
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks during a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (off frame) at the National Arts Center, on August 22, 2019, in Ottawa. (Photo by Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP)
Chrystia Freeland
Deputy prime minister, minister of finance of Canada
If there is one minister in Canada’s federal government who stands above all others in terms of commitment to Ukraine, it is Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. She is the first female finance minister and the first Ukrainian-Canadian to serve in that role. She is the most influential member of Cabinet after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Holding on to her roots and family traditions is something Freeland has never lost sight of.
“The traditions of Ukrainian Christmas and Easter are very important to my family and me. Every year, we gather with family and friends around the table,” Freeland said in written comments to the Kyiv Post.
After the third Ukraine Reform Conference that took place in Toronto on July 2, 2019, bringing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to his first official trip to Canada, local journalists wrote that Canadian-born, Harvard and Oxford educated Freeland spoke the language of Ukraine better than the country’s president, whose first language is Russian. The explanation stems from family traditions.
“My mother was Ukrainian-Canadian and I speak Ukrainian, including at home with my children,” Freeland says. “It is very important to me that they are also able to speak Ukrainian, so I have made each one attend Ukrainian school on the weekends. It was hard at first, but all three of them are now proud to speak Ukrainian.”
Freeland is also among the Canadian politicians who have deep insights on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. She is considered internationally as a key point person on Ukraine.
“We have been at the vanguard of defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression,” she says.
She reiterates Canada’s principal message to Ukraine: “Our government is committed to the international rules-based order. Canada is a steadfast partner of Ukraine and will always stand up for its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Freeland cheers for independent Ukraine because she personally experienced what it was like under the Soviet regime.
“I was in Ukraine, as a student, between 1988 and 1989. It was the Soviet era and I am very grateful to have had that experience, to have lived that part of history. It gave me a very personal understanding of life in the Soviet Union, a communist and authoritarian regime,” she says. “What struck me, very powerfully, and which I have never forgotten, was how quickly a political system can collapse. An important life lesson — that I carry with me today — is the possibility of dramatic, discontinuous change.”
Courtesy
Alexandra Chyczij
President of Ukrainian Canadian Congress
Alexandra Chyczij knows the importance of community: As the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), she is committed to representing the interests of one of Canada’s largest ethnic and cultural communities. She believes “we are all part of something bigger than ourselves,” and that a hromada (Ukrainian for community) is more than the sum of its parts.
It comes naturally from her upbringing. Chyczij’s parents and grandparents were refugees who emigrated to Canada after World War II. They raised her and her sisters with a love for Ukraine, its culture, language and traditions, and instilled in them the importance of preserving and protecting their heritage at a time when Ukraine was under Soviet occupation.
“As a family and as part of the Ukrainian community in Toronto, we celebrated the beautiful Ukrainian traditions — Christmas, Easter — and we have passed down the importance of keeping our identity with our children, as our parents did for us,” Chyczij says.
Her parents’ generation started the first Ukrainian day school in Canada — St. Josaphat’s in Toronto — which is now part of a Canada-wide network of bilingual schools that teach Ukrainian language and preserve Ukrainian heritage.
“My family instilled in us the importance of education, learning and achievement. Having been a plastunka (member of Plast, a Ukrainian scouting organization) in a displaced-persons’ camps in Germany, my mother sent us to Plast. This scouting organization had a profound influence on my sisters and me as it taught us voluntarism, patriotism, and community service,” she recalls.
Now as the president of UCC, Chyczij feels an obligation to carry on the work of those who came before them.
“My generation inherited a strong and united community with thriving institutions and we have a responsibility, both to those who came before us and built it, and to those who will come after us and will continue to reinforce and consolidate the efforts of our predecessors, who struggled in much more trying circumstances than those we face today,” she says.
A lawyer by profession, Chyczij says she was struck by how far the legal profession in Ukraine has come and the vital role that women are now playing in reforming Ukraine’s legal system. In 2019, she was invited to speak at a conference of JurFem, a women’s legal organization that was supported by one of Canada’s development projects through Global Affairs Canada and the Canadian Bureau of International Education.
“This is a sea change from the early days of independence and just one example of the many profound changes in Ukrainian society that Canada has been able to support,” she says.
But more changes are still on the horizon.
“We often hear about the need for reforms to move quickly, that Ukraine isn’t doing enough quickly enough,” she says. “We have to remember that a nation can’t emerge from centuries of foreign domination without addressing and working through the damage and trauma that was wrought by genocide and oppression.”
There will be steps backward, reversals and frustrations, she adds, but it is worth remembering that where Ukraine was 30 years ago and where it is today are worlds apart.
“This should fill us with hope for the future.
Victor Hetmanczuk, ex-president, CEO of Canada-Ukraine Foundation
Victor Hetmanczuk
Ex-president, CEO of Canada-Ukraine Foundation
Ukrainians may not know Victor Hetmanczuk by name, but they know his work.
For six years he served as president and CEO of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF) before retiring in 2020. During that time, CUF was able to annually deliver a craniofacial surgery training program at Ukrainian military hospitals by bringing over teams of surgeons and their support staff for a week at a time.
“The competition to get chosen (for surgery) was fierce,” Hetmanczuk explains. “Because of COVID‑19, we have gone to a video format that has allowed us to expand to the civilian hospital system as well. Over 300 patients have received life-changing surgeries. Less visible (since 2014), has been our psychosocial trauma therapy programs for male and female veterans as they struggle with issues around PTSD or reintegration into civilian society.”
Hetmanczuk first visited Ukraine in 1968 after his university graduation and did not have a chance to return until the early 1990s.
“As I was leaving, the question was posed: When will Ukraine become a European style democracy? I answered: In 45 to 50 years, or in two generations of citizens that have not lived under Soviet rule.”
Thirty years down the road, he says his forecast has now been reduced to 25 years.
Among the obstacles he lists combating corruption, further reforms in the security sector, promoting the rule of law, decentralization reform as well as promoting an inclusive political process.
Hetmanczuk’s family immigrated to Canada from Britain in 1955 after seven years of trying to establish roots there. They came straight to Toronto and his religious and social life revolved around the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral.
“After church, we would all meet as a family and partake of our Ukrainian culinary traditions,” he says. “These special family meal get-togethers are still going on with my grandchildren who cannot wait to get to Baba and Dido’s house to see what new dish we have added to the menu to reflect our heritage.”
Hetmanczuk believes that growing up and attending school with a second language and cultural paradigm helped him better prepare for university and the working world after.
“Never in my dreams did I see myself talking in person to Ukrainian presidents in our native language about current issues in Ukraine — yet it happened,” he says. “My frequent visits in recent years have expanded my knowledge of the different regions of the country and the people that live there. Canada is proud of its multiculturalism — and Ukraine has started on that same path.”
Lubomyr Luciuk
Academic, author
When Lubomyr Luciuk was seven years old, he and his mother were yelled at in a bus in his native Kingston, Ontario for speaking “a foreign language” — Ukrainian. The Ukrainian community in Kingston was very small at the time.
The incident was shocking, but it also boosted Luciuk’s desire to tell the world about Ukraine. Now he can say he has fulfilled his childhood promise.
Luciuk, a professor of political geography in the department of political science and economics at the Royal Military College in Kingston, has devoted his academic life to globally promoting the Ukrainian cause and raising awareness about the country’s fight for freedom and independence through dozens of books, newspaper articles and public appearances.
Love for books stems from his childhood — every week his mother would take him to the library and let him pick any book he wanted with one condition — he had to read it within a week. Luciuk wanted to learn more about his ancestral land, but was disappointed to find no books in English about Ukraine at the library.
“I thought: I will make sure that books in English about Ukraine are on the shelves of libraries around the world,” he says.
His parents also raised him with the sense that people can achieve more by working together for a common cause.
“I’ll work with any Ukrainian or other person who is ready to devote their time for Ukraine,” he says.
Luciuk has organized dozens of projects across Canada and overseas, focused on the political geography of Ukraine in the 20th and 21st centuries. He is behind projects such as securing funding in 2017 for a memorial walk at Loos-en-Gohelle, France, remembering Cpl. Filip Konowal, a Ukrainian-Canadian soldier of the WWI whose valor at the Battle of Hill 70 earned him the Victoria Cross.
In 2019, Ukraine recognized Luciuk’s work, giving him the Cross of Ivan Mazepa, a presidential award that marks a person’s significant contributions to the revival of Ukrainian national interests.
With his colleagues in the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Luciuk also spearheaded the campaign to secure official acknowledgment and symbolic redress for Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914 to 1920, leading to the creation of the $10 million Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, supporting dozens of educational, cultural and commemorative projects across Canada.
“My parents always said: Make a difference, do something — and I love that,” Luciuk says.
Paul Grod, a Ukrainian-Canadian who is the president of the Ukrainian World Congress, is shown in a file photo during his visit to Kyiv on Nov. 28, 2018. The organization, with members in dozens of nations, represents 20 million Ukrainians living outside the nation. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Paul Grod
President of Ukrainian World Congress
The Ukrainian World Congress coordinates a network of organizations and communities in more than 60 countries, supporting efforts to preserve Ukrainian national identity. Behind its powerful voice representing over 20 million ethnic Ukrainians living abroad, is its president, Paul Grod.
Lately, the UWC has been hosting a series of meetings and public discussions with government officials and prominent experts on a NATO vision for Ukraine.
“Ukraine’s NATO membership is the surest and fastest path to peace and security in Ukraine. It will bring an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine and stop Russia’s ongoing provocations in Eastern Europe,” Grod says. “Continued appeasement of Russia will continue to deliver oppression in Belarus, bloodshed in Ukraine and global aggression by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and his henchmen.”
Grod knows what totalitarian regimes are: As teenagers, his parents were taken with their families from western Ukraine to Germany as slave laborers.
His parents were fortunate to immigrate to Canada. They reunited in Toronto, got married in the Ukrainian Catholic Church and had three sons.
“They always wanted to make sure their children remained conscientious Ukrainians who would continue to fight for Ukraine’s independence,” Grod explains.
And Grod does exactly that: A lawyer and business leader, he served as the UWC’s vice president for 10 years prior to his election as president in November 2018. He has chaired several projects including election observation missions to Ukraine and UWC’s Council in Support of Ukraine, among others. He believes that Ukrainians abroad must build strong self-help institutions and stay engaged in the nations where they are living and with Ukraine.
