Ukrainians in Canada

The Ukrainian Youth Association (UYA) held the second, in-person part of its triennial Canadian National Conference in Calgary on May 13-15, 2022. A virtual component took place earlier on March 26 March. Delegates and guests represented branches in Winnipeg, Hamilton, Edmonton, Etobicoke, Calgary, Mississauga, Montreal, St. Catharines and Toronto. Breakout sessions at the Conference focused on three main subjects: educational challenges with a focus on how best to help integrate Ukrainian families and children fleeing the war in Ukraine; organizational issues, especially how to retain and engage the membership and integrate newcomers to Canada, the key challenge being to engage youth with developmentally-oriented programming, and find ways to bridge the gap between Canada and Ukraine; CYM Canada’s 75th jubilee celebrations in 2023 with a focus on the future of the organization “where we would like to see the...

Canadian writer Maria Reva is the winner of the 2022 KOBZARTM Book Award for her book Good Citizens Need Not Fear published by Knopf Canada. The announcement was made during a virtual ceremony on April 28, 2022, presented by award sponsor Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko (Shevchenko Foundation). Good Citizens Need Not Fear is a clever and heartfelt work of fiction that weaves stories from the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. Inspired by her own family’s experiences, Maria explores the real-life circumstances that influenced the character, determination, and perseverance of so many Ukrainians living in Canada today. A writer of fiction and opera libretti, Maria’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, and The Best American Short Stories. She won a National Magazine Award in 2019 and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada 2020 Fiction Prize. The ceremony, hosted by Emmy award-winning journalist Terry MacLeod from...

The war in Ukraine is certainly on everyone’s mind as we watch coverage of the daily horrors taking place on the streets in real time. While we’re all disturbed watching these atrocities, those with Ukrainian roots are especially affected, and many grassroots fundraising efforts have begun by those in the Ukrainian-Canadian community. Richard Halenda of Halenda’s Meats has been particularly motivated to find ways to help the war effort. “My wife’s family and my father were from Ukraine. Many of our staff here at Halenda’s have Ukrainian heritage. And we serve thousands of Ukrainian families because of the ethnic roots of what we make,” Halenda explains. When the fighting started, Halenda and his team felt strongly compelled to help...

The Toronto Star published an op-ed by UCC National President Alexandra Chyczij I am the child of Ukrainian refugees who came to Canada after the Second World War. For the past five weeks, the vivid and horrific imagery of the brutal and criminal Russian attack on Ukraine plays out on our television screens, every hour of every day. For the Ukrainian people it is a nightmare from which they cannot wake. For me, it is déjà vu. My parents and grandparents escaped the Nazi German and Soviet occupations of Ukraine. They fled west to Austria, where as a forced labourer my 14-year-old mother worked in a German munitions factory. She buried her 3-year-old brother and her beloved grandfather in Austrian soil. My family was fortunate to be sponsored to come to Canada and were grateful Canadians for the rest of their lives...

People, mainly women and children, make their way through Medyka border crossing after journeying from war-torn Ukraine on Wednesday in Medyka, Poland. The Polish government has said it may spend 24 billion Euros this year hosting refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, and is seeking more support from the European Union. With more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees, Poland is now the country...

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan stated: “A genocide begins with the killing of one man--not for what he has done, but because of who he is”. This concept reflects the tragic truth of all genocides and the Holodomor is no exception. The Edmonton branch of the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women (LUCW) established a Holodomor Essay contest in 2020 to help young adults develop a deeper understanding of the HOLODOMOR. The contest encourages junior and senior high school students in the Ukrainian-English Bilingual Programs in the Edmonton area and the Ivan Franko School of Ukrainian Studies to learn more about the HOLODOMOR and why it is important to remember the HOLODOMOR in 2020 and to honour the victims. The Edmonton Branch of the LUCW is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Holodomor Essay Contest. Students earning a first place were awarded $250.00. Second place was awarded $200, third place was awarded $150.00 and fourth place received $100.00 In the junior high school category, all the...

Board members are leaders from the nonprofit and/or for-profit sector who are dedicated to the Shevchenko Foundation’s mission, act in a position of trust for the community, promote excellence, and commit to responsible effective governance. Board members are active advocates and ambassadors for the Foundation and are fully engaged in identifying and securing the financial resources and partnerships necessary to advance our mission. They apply their legal, financial, cultural, business, governance, and entrepreneurial skills and experience to help guide the Foundation in achieving its mission. This is an opportunity for you to use your broad knowledge of the national Ukrainian Canadian community and play a...

For me, Christmas always begins after St. Nicholas Day. As soon as there is tangerine smell in the house, rustle of a package with candies under a pillow, it means that soon we will start to spruce up the house, put-up the Christmas tree, make kutia and prepare for the Holy Supper. Every family has their own Christmas traditions, and ours are not an exception. At our house we put-up the Christmas tree before the New Year. Usually we decorate it with candies, nuts, tinsel and several big glass ornaments, which always remind me of my grandma. Sometime right after New Year I definitely pay a visit the Cathedral – pray, look at a crib with baby Jesus and listen to the organ. This is my personal tradition in commemorating my grandma, with whom we always visited the holy place. As a small girl, I remember the graceful nods of the...

Kutia is always served as the first of the twelve traditional meatless dishes during Christmas Eve. It is typically made with wheatberries that are sweetened with honey and augmented with poppy seeds, dried fruits and nuts. It is eaten from a common dish to symbolize unity and, in some families, a spoonful of kutia is thrown up to the ceiling. If it sticks, a plentiful honey harvest can be expected. One Ukrainian-Canadian is taking Ukrainian dishes to a new level, by sharing recipes of classics like borscht, khrusky, pampushky and perizhky on a free cooking and baking blog www.claudiascookbook.com. Jamie, the website's initiator and main contributor, was inspired by her mother Claudia. Prior to Christmas...

The Cold War in Val-d’Or, A History of the Ukrainian Community in Val-d’Or, Quebec is a mini-history of an ethnocultural community in northwestern Quebec. The story has many similarities to the evolution of immigrant and ethnocultural groups in many one-industry towns in northern Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. This study should be of special interest to the many former residents of Val-d’Or who lived in an isolated resource town in a predominantly francophone milieu. The earliest mention of Ukrainians in Abitibi is their internment in the Spirit Lake Internment Camp during the First World War established near Amos, Quebec. The Sheptytsky Colony established in the late 1920s continued to be farmed by Ukrainians until the 1970s. The mining economy and the local cultural environment shaped this community but also the left-right political rivalry during the Cold War years documented in the surveillance reports prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and found in Library and Archives Canada...