BRAMA, November 12, 2002, 10:00 am ET

Press Conference to kick off Project Roll Call - Searching for the Survivors of Canada's First National Internment Operations and their Descendants

© Michelle Kittleberg, House of Commons Photographer In the photo (l-r): Otto Boyko (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, retired), Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk (UCCLA), Olexandra Pruchnicky, Inky Mark, MP (Dauphin-Swan River) and the Right Honourable Joe Clark (Leader, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada). Contact the Prime Minister

Inky Mark, MP: Well ladies and gentleman, thank you for being here this morning. First what I will do is welcome everyone, and say that I will just make some brief comments and turn the mic over to the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Mr. Clark. And then Dr. Luciuk will make some comments as well as talk about the project. For almost two decades, the Canadians of Ukrainian descent, there is almost a million of them in this country, have been looking for justice from this Liberal government and I just want to remind Canadians at home that in 1993 Mr. Chretien wrote a letter as leader of the Official Opposition saying that he would deal with the redress issue when he became Prime Minister. Well we have been waiting for almost ten years…that has not happened. Today’s project is a continuation of the fight to get justice for all the internees Canadians that were put into twenty-four prison camps across this country between 1914 and 1920. In support of my Private Member’s Bill C-331, the Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, which will be re-tabled in the House of Commons, once I get the new bill back from the clerk. What I would like to do is turn this over to Mr. Joe Clark.

Rt. Hon. Joe Clark, MP: Thank you very much Inky. I find it significant and perhaps ironic that this is a day that attention is being paid to private member’s rights, and it is an appropriate time, therefore, for us to draw attention to this bill that has been introduced by a private Member of Parliament. It is supported by Members of Parliament from a various parties—some of whom are in this room today. It urges the government to act on an undertaking that the Prime Minister made in 1993. The principle of redress has been established in our law. I was honoured to be part of a government that established that principle in other circumstances years ago.

Pour quelqu'un qui vient de l’Ouest canadien, qui a eu, pendant ma vie, une expйrience de travail avec les Canadiens d’origine ukrainienne et qui comprend quelque chose de cette population, ici, pendant les pйriodes difficiles, je crois que c’est juste et important qu’il y ait un effort par le Parlement canadien d’agir dans un tel cas.

882-887 (FR)

I am honoured to have the chance to be here with Mr. Mark and with others, Senator Andreychuk from the Senate, and other members of other parties, to dry and draw attention to this very important recognition of a piece of Canadian history that can no longer be ignored.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk: Good morning ladies and gentleman. I am Lubomyr Luciuk, I am the Director of Research for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It is a privilege to be here on a platform with the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark and Mr. Inky Mark who is a very good friend of the Ukrainian Canadian community, to introduce Project Roll Call to you.

Project Roll Call is a search for survivor’s of Canada’s first national internment operations in 1914 to 1920. It is not only for survivor’s, actual internees, but for their descendants. To say a few words on how we began this project. Several years ago, working with the few remaining government documents that refer to the internment operations, volunteers right across Canada pulled together a list of some five thousand civilian internees in the First World War period. Over the last year, working with volunteers across Canada, we have expanded the list by locating people with identical or similar family surnames to the internees. And we put together a list, a master list, of just over 37 000 Canadian families who may be in some way or another, related to a person who was interned during the First World War.

Today, through the good offices of Inky Mark, we are going to begin distributing these cards. We have some here. The blow-up of the card face beside me on the right.

What are we hoping to achieve? First of all we want to raise consciousness about Canada’s first national internment operations. Thousands of innocent Ukrainians, Croats, Slovakians, Serbs, Hungarians, Jews, Polish, Bulgarians, and other Europeans were unjustly interned in Canadian concentration camps during the First World War period. Not because of anything they had done, but only because of where they had come from. They had been lured to Canada with promises of freedom and free land, and yet suddenly overnight found themselves branded as enemy aliens, herded into 24 Canadian concentration camps, forced to do heavy labour, their valuables and property confiscated and not all of it returned I might add. They were disenfranchised and subjected to a various other state sanction censures. This affected some five thousand civilians and another 80 000 were forced to register as enemy aliens. All of this taking place against the back-drop of international and domestic crisis. Very much like the period that we are living in now. War time hysteria, prejudice, xenophobia all combined to result in this tragic episode in Canadian history when Ukrainians and other Europeans were defined as not being white as not being part of society. And were then subjected to these various measures.

Ironically this happened against the background of some 10 000 Ukrainian Canadians volunteering to serve with Canadian Expeditionary Forces overseas, one of whom as you may know, Philip Kanavolow (sp?) won the Victoria Cross. So we are hoping today, by beginning Project Roll Call, that this initiative may remind many Canadians, tens of thousands of Canadians across the country of an unfortunate period in Canadian history. And so help ensure that no other Canadian ethnic or religious or racial minority, is every subjected to the same kind of pain and suffering that the Ukrainians endured.

What is it that we are seeking? We are seeking recognition and through that recognition, reconciliation. We are not — and I emphasize this — asking for an apology. We are not seeking compensation for the very few survivor’s that may still be alive or for their family members. We are asking the government to determine the contemporary value of the internees' confiscated wealth, that portion of it that was not returned and remains to the Bank of Canada to this day. And the value of the internees' labour. And to apply the contemporary value of that amount to various commemorative and educational projects that will be a benefit for all Canadians. A museum about the internment operations in Banff National Park. Plaques at the internment camp sites. School materials for students across Canada.

This will not cost the Canadian taxpayer a single red cent. How do we want to achieve those goals? Through passage of Bill C-331, the Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, tabled by Inky Mark supported by many Members from the House of Commons from many parties, including Gene Augustine the current Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism. The Restitution Act, Bill C-331, is supported by both the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, so there is a strong sense of community support right across the country for this act. We would like to recall today, as Inky Mark already has, that Jean Chretien when leader of the Opposition in June of 1993, wrote us a letter promising his personal support and that of the Liberal Party of Canada for redress to the Ukrainian Canadian community. Today Mr. Chretien, as many of us know, is searching for a positive legacy. We believe that one of the things that he could do that would be a part of such a positive legacy would be to resolve the Ukrainian Canadian’s request in a timely and honourable manner. That is all that we are seeking. We are seeking a reconciliation based upon his own pledge. There are still some survivor’s of Canada’s first national internment operations alive — and we would like to resolve this matter within their lifetimes. That is all that we want. The Daily British Whig, a liberal newspaper in 1917, in September of 1917, described what was being done to Canadian’s of Ukrainian and other Eastern European origins as a national humiliation that “…would sooner or later have to be atoned for.” We believe that time has come … and we ask you — fellow Canadians and members of the media — to help us achieve that goal.

Thank you. Merci.

Mr. Clark, Mr. Mark, as well as others from the Ukrainian community and other political parties were asked to drop the first post cards of Operation Roll Call into a Canada Post bag.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk: Thank you very much ladies and gentleman. If you have any questions I would be happy to entertain them.

Question: (inaudible) How can there be no cost to Canadians?

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk: I have said that there would be no cost to the Canadian taxpayer because we have determined that the end of the internment operations there were several tens of thousands of dollars left in the custodian of enemy alien property accounts that were not returned to the internees. Depending on how one calculates the contemporary worth of that money, that confiscated wealth that was taken or looted from the internees, it could be several millions of dollars. We are quite happy allow the federal government, through its own accounting procedures, to determine the contemporary value and to apply that money that was taken from the internees and remains in the government’s hands to this day, to be used for commemorative and educational projects.

Question: Mr. Clark, do you think the government could achieve reconciliation int his case without dealing perhaps dealing with Italian internment or other past injustices redress for past injustices?

Mr. Clark: The practice began, as you know…the initiative was taken by a Progressive Conservative government, with respect to Canadians with Japanese origin. This is an extension of that principle. It is done in a very sensitive way, understanding that there would be concerns about cost and understanding the politics of memory are very difficult. I think that the moderate restrained, but historically accurate approach that is being recommended here is a positive step forward in Canadians coming to understand the full weight of our country. We talk with great pride of being a multicultural community, that involves recognizing that not at all times in our history have we treated different groups with the equality that we expect in the country. If we are going to be held true to our beliefs, we are going to have to reconcile ourselves with our own history.

Question: Why do we have to right this wrong?

Mr. Mark: Well, we should learn from our history. I think the first thing we need to do is recognize the history that exists. As you know most Candians do not understand—don’t know about our past history. We do have bleak moments in our history like the internment. The head tax issue. WE need to deal with these before we can move forward. Especially when this country promotes a multicultural theme—inviting everyone around the world to come here. I do not think it is really a big deal, I think the government of the day needs to deal with it. The people they are dealing with are rational people. I think it is an easy [thing to] do.

Thanks.

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