ICSU CONTINUES TO ADDRESS POLICY ISSUES OF CONCERN TO UKRAINIAN DIASPORA
TORONTO - ICSU President and former Canadian Member of Parliament, Yuri Shymko, is continuing to raise a number of hot-topic issues which are of concern to the Ukrainian community, both in Canada and worldwide, during recent public forums, media appearances, and meetings with prominent Canadian politicians.
The issues raised by the ICSU have focused on matters impacting both Canadian domestic policies and foreign affairs. The key concerns being raised by the ICSU, and its member organizations, include
• the continued violation of Canadian broadcasting standards by RT, Russia's state-funded propaganda channel, known as "Russia Today" and the need to remove it from routine inclusion in Canadian, US, and European cable and satellite tv packages;
• Russia's role as a state-sponsor of terror in eastern Ukraine, complicit in the downing of the civilian Malaysian aircraft and murder of 298 innocent lives;
• the need to provide Ukraine with the military expertise and lethal weaponry necessary to protect itself against Russia's intensifying military intervention and terror campaign.
These issues have been addressed in 13 ICSU press releases, in television appearances on CTV News Channel, and frequent interviews on Montreal's CJAD radio station, and on Chicago community radio.
ICSU President Yuri Shymko has also held constructive meetings with Toronto mayoralty candidate, John Tory, and Canadian Members of Parliament, Ted Opitz (Etobicoke Centre), Chair of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group, and James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.
The ICSU likewise acknowledges the outstanding public awareness campaigns being carried out by its member NGO's in Canada, the US, Europe, South America, and Australia. Plans for town hall meetings and internet forums dealing with Russia's propaganda war have already been launched in several cities, including Kyiv, Toronto, Hamilton, Edmonton, and Chicago.
