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Announcing the Fund
(12 September 2009, The Globe & Mail)
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Establishment of a $10 million endowment
(9 May 2008, Stanley Barracks, Toronto)
On 9 May 2008 the Ukrainian Canadian community, as represented by Dr Lubomyr Luciuk (Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association), Mr Andrew Hladyshevsky (Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko) and Mr Paul Grod (Ukrainian Canadian Congress) signed a document providing for the establishment of a $10 million endowment within the Shevchenko Foundation, to be used for commemorative and educational initiatives recalling Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920.
Left to right: Andrew Griffith (Canadian Heritage), Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, Jason Kenney, MP, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, Andrew Hladyshevsky and Paul Grod, 9 May 2008, Stanley Barracks, Toronto
The Ukrainian Canadian negotiating team,
9 May 2008 (Stanley Barracks, Toronto): Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, Andrew Hladyshevsky and Paul Grod
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UCCLA- Internment Survivor Found
Born in Captivity: Survivor of Canadian Internment Operations Found
For Immediate Release
(Ottawa, Thursday, 29 November 2007)
On Monday, 26 November 2007, the CBC Radio One program The Current aired a major segment on the Ukrainian Canadian community's ongoing calls for official recognition of what happened and for the restitution of the internee's
confiscated wealth.
In response Jerry Bayrak, of Edmonton, Alberta, contacted the CBC and through them the chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA), Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, to reveal that his mother, Mary Hancharuk, was born at the Spirit Lake internment camp, 16 December 1915, and will soon be celebrating her 92nd birthday.
Commenting, Dr. Luciuk said: " We were both astonished and delighted to learn that a survivor of Canada's first national internment operations remains with us. We can confirm that Mary's father, Nikolaj, was arrested and that he and his family were subsequently held at the Spirit Lake camp. That an actual survivor will join us for the signing of a Ukrainian Canadian redress and reconciliation settlement is an unexpected Christmas gift, for when Mary Manko died we mourned not only her passing but that the government would not have an actual internee present to witness this closure. Now that will happen because of a Canadian-born child, Mary Hancharuk, whose first years were spent in a Canadian concentration camp."
Negotiations toward securing a Ukrainian Canadian redress settlement began in Ottawa on 26 November 2007, thanks to MP Inky Mark's Bill C 331 – The
Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act, which obliges the government to reach an agreement with designated organizations representing the Ukrainian Canadian community.
During Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920 thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were unjustly imprisoned as "enemy aliens" and forced to do heavy labour for the profit of their jailers, not because of anything they had done but only because of where they had come from.
Some women and children were held at Vernon, British Columbia, and Spirit Lake, Quebec (now La Ferme). The Montreal-born Mary Manko Haskett was six when she was transported into Quebec's Abitibi region with her family and interned at Spirit Lake. She died 14 July 2007, thought to be the last survivor
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Ukrainian Canadian Community Honours YMCA For Aiding Internees
For Immediate Release
(Ottawa, 10 September 2007)
The eighth annual conclave of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association will be held this year in Montreal, Quebec, from Thursday, 27 September to 30 October.
Whereas the conclave deliberations are private, the public is invited to the unveiling of a trilingual bronze plaque recalling the help offered to Ukrainian and other European internees by the YMCA's Military Service Department, under the direction of Mr FS Shepard. During Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920 YMCA educational and recreational services were provided to internees at the Fort Henry, Petawawa & Kapuskasing camps in Ontario, at the Spirit Lake in Quebec, at the Morrissey and Vernon camps in British Columbia and the camp in Amherst, Nova Scotia. It is likely that other camps were also visited by the YMCA's Internment Camp Work committee.
The plaque is being unveiled in North America's first YMCA, 1440 Stanley Street, Montreal, on Saturday, 29 September 2007, at 11 am. The public is cordially invited to attend this event which will be followed by a reception and the launch of Marsha Skrypuch's most recent book, Prisoners in the Promised Land The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk (Scholastic
Canada, 2007). -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
UCCLA Media Release - Internee descendant becomes honourary chair of National
Redress Council
For Immediate Release
(Ottawa, 4 September 2007)
Following the recent death of the last known survivor of Canada's first national internment operations, Mary Manko Haskett, 98, who was only six years old when she and the rest of the Manko family were confined at the Spirit Lake concentration camp, in Quebec's Abitibi region, her daughter, Ms. Fran Haskett, has agreed to take on her mother's role as honourary chair of the National Redress Council of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Commenting on Ms Haskett's willingness to take on this responsibility, UCCLA's chairman, John B. Gregorovich, said:
" We have always been conscious of how important it is to take into consideration the sentiments of the descendants of those unfortunates who were
interned without just cause during Canada's first national internment operations. They were forced to do heavy labour for the profit of their jailers and suffered other state-sanctioned indignities, including the confiscation of their wealth and disenfranchisement. For several years two survivors of that unfortunate episode in Canadian history were the co-chairs of UCCLA's National Redress Council. Now that the last known survivor has passed away, without a timely and honourable settlement having been reached, we are very pleased that Mary's daughter, Fran, has stepped up to assume this role. Fran has been a consistent supporter of UCCLA's campaign for recognition, restitution and reconciliation and so we welcome her involvement in this role. We hope this government will soon meet its legal obligation to negotiate a settlement with our community's designated representatives, as they are required to do under the terms of Bill C 331 - The Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act, which received Royal Assent in November 2005."
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