UCCLA Media Release (Ottawa - 27 January 2011) The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) issued the following statement to mark the United Nations’ annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust: “As we commemorate the solemn anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, we remember the millions of Jews, Roma, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Christians, homosexuals, disabled persons and others enslaved or murdered by the Nazis,” said the UCCLA’s chairman, R. W. Zakaluzny. “Let us not forget that the Holocaust was not only a crime against specific communities but was also a crime against all of humanity. The UCCLA reaffirms our commitment to ensuring that all genocides, including the Shoah, are commemorated equally in the taxpayer-funded Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in Winnipeg.”

UCCLA, For immediate release (Ottawa) – 23 March 2011 According to a recent national NANOS survey Canadians overwhelmingly want the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) to cover all episodes of genocide inclusively. 📷 Asked whether they preferred a thematic gallery dealing with genocide or wanted a particular example of genocide to be permanently highlighted in its own gallery, a majority of just over 60 per cent of Canadians opted for the former, preferring a thematic genocide gallery that treats all such crimes against humanity in an inclusive manner. “A majority of voters from all age groups, of both genders, in every province and region, and representing every major Canadian political party, agreed with our view that no community’s suffering should be elevated above all others in a national museum funded by all Canadian taxpayers,” said Mr. R.W. Zakaluzny, chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA). “Preferential, prominent and permanent recognition for one or two groups in a national museum funded from the public purse is unacceptable to Canadians. It’s time for the CMHR’s board of trustees to take note – the people of Canada don’t want their tax dollars funding partiality.” “On the eve of a possible federal election we call on the Government of Canada, and in particular on the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage, to replace members of the CMHR’s existing board of trustees with citizens more representative of Canadian society and to have the proposed contents of the CMHR carefully reconsidered with a view to ensuring that all 12 of its 12 galleries are thematic, comparative and inclusive. That’s what Canadians want.” NANOS random telephone survey of 1,216 Canadians conducted from 12 March to 15 March 2011. An aggregate total of 60.3% wanted “one exhibit which covers all genocides equally.” The margin of accuracy for a sample of 1,216 Canadians is plus/minus 2.8%, 19 times out of 20. “Our next question is about the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, a national museum funded by Canadian taxpayers. Would you prefer that there be one gallery that covers all genocides equally or that there be one gallery that highlights a particular genocide permanently while all the others are grouped together in a separate exhibit?” An aggregate of 15.3% were unsure while 24.4% wanted one gallery that highlighted a particular genocide. Full results available at http://goo.gl/Yu7EP

For Immediate Release: Ottawa (4 October 2011) Representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) and officials from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) spoke during UCCLA's annual conclave, held this year in Saskatoon. "We were very pleased that Stuart Murray, CEO of the national museum, arranged for our teleconference with museum content experts Dr. Rhonda Hinther and Dr. Clint Curle," said R.W. Zakaluzny, chair of the UCCLA. "Both they and Communications director Angela Cassie assured us that the CMHR remains dedicated to reaching out and consulting with all Canadians. In response, the UCCLA confirmed that we remain dedicated to ensuring all 12 galleries in this publicly funded museum are inclusive, comparative and thematic in their treatment of the many episodes of crimes against humanity and genocide that occurred before, during and after the Second World War. We will continue to insist upon that, even after the museum opens next year." The UCCLA executive began their three days of meetings with a public lecture at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada by Professor Lubomyr Luciuk, the UCCLA's Director of Research, who gave a fulsome speech on Canada's first national internment operations, and how those operations related to the human rights museum. The UCCLA met with Slawko Kindrachuk, president of the Saskatchewan provincial council of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and Catherine Schabel, chair of its Holodomor awareness committee. Both groups shared information and vowed to work together on several projects of mutual interest.

June 1, 2013 During Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914-1920 thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were branded as “enemy aliens,” forced to work for the profit of their jailers, disenfranchised, and subjected to other state-sanctioned censures, not because of anything they had done but only because of who they were, where they had come from. For over 20 years the volunteers of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association campaigned to have this still-little known episode in Canadian history recognized. Following passage of Bill – C331, Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act (2005), UCCLA participated in negotiations with the Government of Canada that created the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund and secured additional resources for a permanent exhibit at the Cave & Basin camp site in Banff National Park. The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (l’Association ukrainienne-canadienne des droits civils) is a non-partisan, voluntary, non-profit research and educational organization committed to the articulation and promotion of the Ukrainian Canadian community’s interests and to the defence of the civil liberties and human rights of Ukrainians in Canada and elsewhere. For more information please go to w.uccla.ca or follow us onTwitter at www.twitter.com/uccla. Enemy Aliens, Prisoners Of War: Canada’s First World War Internment Operations, 1914-1920 Cave & Basin National Historic Site, Banff National Park, Alberta Remembering Canada’s Forgotten Internment Operations Visit the new exhibit opening officially 20 June 2013 Au cours des premières opérations d’internement nationaux du Canada de 1914 à 1920, des milliers d’Ukrainiens et d’autres Européens ont été stigmatisés comme «étrangers ennemis», obligés de travailler pour le bénéfice de leurs geôliers, privés de leurs droits et soumis à d’autres censures sanctionnées par l’État, et ce, non à cause de tout ce qu’ils avaient fait, mais à cause de leur origine. Depuis plus de 20 ans, les bénévoles de l’Association ukrainienne-canadienne des droits civils (UCCLA) font campagne pour que cette épisode méconnue de l’histoire canadienne soit reconnue. À la suite de l’adoption du projet deloi –C331, Loi portant reconnaissance de l’internement de personnes d’origine ukrainienne (2005), UCCLA a participé aux négociations ayant mené à la création, par le gouvernement du Canada, du Fonds canadien de reconnaissance de l’internement durant la Première Guerre mondiale et à l’allocation de ressources additionnelles pour une exposition permanente au site historique national Cave and Basin, situé au Parc national Banff.

UCCLA, For Immediate Release (Toronto, 21 April 2006) The Dopomoha Ukraini (Aid Ukraine) Foundation has helped underwrite the publication of a booklet entitled, Without Just Cause, dealing with Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920. Written by UCCLA's director of research, Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, this booklet provides basic historical information about a relatively unknown episode in Canadian history, while appending important new documentation, including the 24 August 2005 Agreement in Principle between the Government of Canada and the community, and the final version of Bill C331 - the Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, which secured Royal Assent, 25 November 2005. Commenting Dr Luciuk said: " The financial assistance provided by Dopomoha Ukraini, the charitable foundation set up by the family of Borys Wrzesnewskyj, MP (Etobicoke Centre), in part to honour the memory of  his uncle and aunt, Mychailo and Jaroslawa Szafraniuk, will help make it possible for us to provide critical information to our community and others about the Ukrainian Canadian community's ongoing requests for recognition, restitution and reconciliation. Mr Wrzesnewskyj has played a pivotal role in helping move this issue forward in the House of Commons and, with this donation, he has aided significantly in our efforts to make all Canadians better aware of the harm done to Ukrainians and other Europeans during Canada's first national internment operations. This is an educational initiative of considerable importance, for complementary copies of this publication will soon be distributed free of charge to MPs, selected public and university libraries across Canada and to international repository libraries around the world. That would not have been possible with Mr  Wrzesnewskyj's generous assistance, for which we are all most grateful. Safeguarding the civil liberties and human rights of ethnic, religious and racial minorities in times of domestic and international crisis is particularly important and so being better informed about historic injustices of the sort described in this book is a crucial step in ensuring that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past."

For Immediate Release – Ottawa, Thursday, 29 November 2007 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 6 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. 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

For immediate release - Ottawa (22 January, 2009) The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association is ramping up its campaign to get all NKVD, KGB and other Communist secret police veterans out of Canada. UCCLA's "No KGB In Canada!" involves thousands of its supporters mailing in pre-printed postcards to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Honourable Jason Kenney (Minister of Immigration and Citizenship) and the Honourable Peter Van Loan (Minister of Public Safety). The cards share a common message: "Veterans of Soviet secret police formations like the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB should not be allowed to enter Canada nor to remain here. No exceptions. Denaturalize and Deport them all, immediately." UCCLA's chairman, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, explained: "For years we have alerted the Government of Canada, the RCMP and others to the illegal presence in our country of veterans of the Soviet secret police. We don't know how many there are but some openly boasted about their participation in torture and mass murder. "While we have always championed the principle that any person found in Canada alleged to be a war criminal should be tried in a criminal court, politics is the art of the possible. Since the federal government insists upon using denaturalization and deportation for dealing with persons who should not be in Canada, we call upon Ottawa to apply its preferred standard in every case, without exceptions. There should be no KGB men in Canada, not now, not ever. Indeed Canada should not be a haven for anyone who admits that they were involved in war crimes, regardless of their ethnic, racial or religious heritage, their ideological convictions, or the period or place where they committed or enabled such crimes against humanity. Justice cannot be selective."

For Immediate Release (Ottawa, 24 April 2013) Responding to recent reports about the contents of the taxpayer-funded Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in Winnipeg, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association has begun a national educational campaign raising concerns over the CMHR's failure to include any significant exhibit dealing with Canada's first national internment operations. Thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were needlessly imprisoned, forced to do heavy labour, disenfranchised and subjected to other state-sanctioned indignities between 1914-1920, branded as "enemy aliens" not because of anything they had done wrong, but only because of where they had come from, who they were. UCCLA's new postcard has a cover quotation from the late Mary Manko Haskett, a Montreal-born child interned with her siblings and parents in the Spirit Lake camp, in Quebec. The card also underscores how what happened to Mary, and thousands of others, is a Canadian story that must be told in a Canadian museum, particularly one dedicated to human rights. UCCLA is calling upon MPs, Senators and the general public to question why the story of Canada's first national internment operations is being forgotten in a national museum supposedly dedicated to telling human rights stories.

For Immediate Release (Ottawa, 01 August 2013) Canada’s Ukrainian community is denouncing plans by the Republic of Georgia to re-erect a statue to Josef Stalin. “This is an ill-conceived, stupid, and harmful decision by pro-communist elements in the Georgian government,” said Roman Zakaluzny, chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, paraphrasing Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvilli, who also opposes this plan. “Imagine how outraged the world would be if Austria were to build a statue to its native son, Adolf Hitler.” Stalin and his circle were responsible for the death and enslavement of many millions of people in the former USSR, including Georgians. “Stalin was not a good Georgian, nor a good man, by anyone’s account,” Zakaluzny said. UCCLA has sent a letter of protest to the Embassy of the Republic of Georgia, and has asked Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada to raise this issue with his counterpart. “Ukraine lost millions of its citizens to Stalinism, particularly during the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-1933, known as the Holodomor. To think that a modern European state would even contemplate placing a monument to honour the villain responsible for this unparalleled crime against humanity beggars the imagination.”

For Immediate Release (Lethbridge, Calgary, Ottawa, 15 October 2013) On the 99th anniversary of the start of the First World War and Canada’s first national internment operations, a permanent memorial to the civilian internees of the Lethbridge internment camp will be officially unveiled at the southwest Alberta city’s Exhibition Grounds on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 1:30 p.m. (MT). UCCLA and city officials will unveil a trilingual (English, French, Ukrainian) plaque on the site where, between Sept. 30, 1914 and Nov. 7, 1916, hundreds of civilian internees cycled through following arrest and detention. Lethbridge was one of 24 such sites in Canada. The camp operations in total housed more than 8,000 men, women and children during the First World War and for two years following, simply for being born or for having parents who were born in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “UCCLA is steadfast in its commitment to mark each of the two dozen ‘concentration camps’ that dotted this land between 1914 and 1920,” said UCCLA’s chairperson R.W. Zakaluzny. “Thanks to the City of Lethbridge, Exhibition Park, the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation, the placement of this memorial plaque in Lethbridge means our work in permanently memorializing every site is nearly completed.”

Responding to a recent media release by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), Roman Zakaluzny, chair of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a non-partisan and independent organization dedicated to the articulation and defence of the organized Canadian Ukrainian community's interests, said: "We have consistently stated that we want all galleries in the taxpayer-funded Canadian Museum for Human Rights to be thematic, inclusive, and comparative in content. "Most Canadians oppose elevating the suffering of any community above all others with a privileged or permanent space in this national museum. We do not agree with the UCC's request for a separate Holodomor gallery, any more than we endorse having an entire hall set aside for the Holocaust. Instead a "genocide gallery" would be more educationally useful, allowing for a treatment of how that concept came into being, when and where it has been applied, and why, complemented by rotating exhibits providing visitors with a more complete understanding of the many different examples of genocide that have befouled human history. While we share the UCC's wish to see Canada's first national internment operations covered at the CMHR, an inclusive 'War Measures Act' gallery would be more useful, covering not only what happened to Ukrainians and other Europeans in the First World War but the similar internal security measures taken against Japanese, German, Italian and Jewish Canadians in the Second World War, and some Quebecois in 1970. A hall dedicated to explaining why citizens must remain vigilant in defence of civil liberties and human rights, particularly in times of domestic and international tension, would have genuine pedagogical value. "It is imperative that the CMHR's board of directors and curators revise their existing plans if they wish to avoid turning this already over-budget, behind-schedule, and very contentious project into an even-more divisive and fiscally untenable one, especially given the straightened financial circumstances facing Canadians."

Continuing its campaign to rid Canada of any and all veterans of the Soviet secret police - the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB - the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) is contacting MPs, Senators, and other Canadians, reminding them of the presence in Canada of veterans of the Communist political police, responsible for the murder, torture, and enslavement of millions of east Europeans, many of whom subsequently found asylum in Canada. "We are calling upon the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Justice, and other Canadian officials, asking them to remove any veterans of the Soviet secret police found in this country. In particular we are drawing attention, again, to the continued presence in Canada of an (ex) KGB captain whose deportation was ordered by a Federal Court judge over three years ago. The fact that he remains here calls into question the integrity, fairness, and public confidence in Canada's system of immigration control," said UCCLA's chair, Roman Zakaluzny. **************************** View the postcards online here: FRONT: https://www.facebook.com/TheUCCLA/photos/a.678249532205340.1073741827.160615690635396/508576715839290/?type=3&theater BACK: https://www.facebook.com/TheUCCLA/photos/a.678249532205340.1073741827.160615690635396/509279885768973/?type=3&theater The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (L'Association ukrainienne-canadienne des droits civils) is a non-partisan, voluntary, non-profit research and educational organization committed to the articulation and promotion of the Ukrainian Canadian community's interests and to the defence of the civil liberties and human rights of Ukrainians in Canada and elsewhere.