George Primak

We all know the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) is a relic of what it used to be. Once it had some influence in Ottawa. Now it has next to none. It is invisible in the national media. And it has only a lingering and dwindling ability to enthuse what's left of the organized community. In part that's because there hasn't been a UCC leader of consequence in decades. As for those who claim the UCC represents over one million Canadians of Ukrainian heritage we all know that's not true. So, by the way, do the folks in Ottawa. Our community has become an utterly rudderless, ineffectual and non-influential entity on the Canadian scene. Once upon a time things were different. There used to be over 150 UCC branches across the country. Today there are 25 left. I'd bet half exist only on paper. Sing along with me: "Where have all our Ivans gone?"

It is not the first time that Lubomyr Luciuk attacks UCC. He has done so previously on Ukrainian mailing lists. He makes all kinds of statements and arguments which, in my view, are incorrect and erroneous, and on that basis makes accusations such as expressed above.

UCC is not a relic of what it used to be. I was "Foreign Languages Secretary" of the Montreal Branch of UCC in the late 1950's and early 1960's and I had a lot of dealings within UCC at that time. I do not believe that UCC was either more influential or better organized then, than it is now. What we did then was mostly related to Ukraine. We commemorated the 1932-1933 famine, we made sure Ukrainian flag was flying on top of the City Hall on January 22, we organized schooling in Ukrainian language and helped publish books in Ukrainian because in Ukraine the Ukrainian language was under attack, we pointed out whenever we could that Ukraine was an enslaved nation that required help to free itself from the Russo-Soviet domination. The amount of work that UCC consecrated at that time to local Canadian-Ukrainian issues was rather small.

May I also mention that, for example, in 1941, the top eight heritage language groups in Canada were: (1) German, (2) Ukrainian, (3) Yiddish, (4) Polish, (5) Italian, (6) Norwegian, (7) Russian and (8) Swedish. In 1996 (the last census) they were: (1) Chinese, (2) Italian, (3) German, (4) Spanish, (5) Portuguese, (6) Polish, (7) Punjabi and (8) Ukrainian.
And, I am afraid that when the new 2001 census will come out, Ukrainians will be even further down the list. Our relative importance is decreasing and it is, therefore, normal that our influence with the Canadian government is not as great as it was before.

Whether Mr. Luciuk wants it or not, UCC is the only organization that can claim to represent Ukrainian-Canadians as a whole. No other organization can make such a claim.

By the way, now that Ukraine is independent, do we really need to be so pro-active?  Is UCC really worse than similar organizations of other heritage groups on that list of eight? I doubt it.

What to do? Reform the UCC! Bright idea, but I've been hearing talk like that for about a quarter century. It still hasn't happened. And I don't think it will. But if we let the UCC totter further, into what some might regard as its well-deserved senility, I believe we will only end up having to create a new national organization that is willing, able, and ready to articulate and defend our particular interests as Canadians of Ukrainian heritage. What principles should inform this Canadian Ukrainian Council, which I hear tell will be called into being in Toronto this October if the UCC doesn't evolve? Here are some ideas which the UCC would do well to embrace at its upcoming congress, sparing everyone the trouble of having to craft a new national body. This list of essential reforms is by no means exhaustive but, if adapted, just might save the UCC.

In the United States, they also originally had one umbrella organization, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA). In 1983, however, 27 organizations walked out of UCCA and formed the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council (UACC). This split produced a considerable weakening of the Ukrainian influence in the U.S. and now these two organizations are trying hard to reunite. Do we wish to repeat something like this in Canada?

1. One Person, One Vote: If you pay an annual membership fee you should have the right to vote, once. You should be able to vote by proxy if you can not attend an annual or triennial national assembly. Anyone who identifies with the community should be able to join. Inclusiveness and democracy shouldn't be novel ideas for Canada's Ukrainians in the 21st century. And as for the "Big Five" (or whatever number of these pretend organizations there still are out there) they should not have any influence beyond the number of their members who join and pay the same annual membership fee that you or I do. We don't need bogus claims about national stature. We need actors not make-believers.

What exactly Mr. Luciuk mean by "one person, one vote". UCC is not an organization of persons. It is an umbrella organization of other organisations. One person may be a member of several Ukrainian organizations belonging to UCC. To my knowledge there are no individual members in UCC and no one pays a membership fee to UCC directly.   So how does this "one person, one vote" fit?

2. Pro-Active and Project-Driven: There are issues that are of especial relevance to our community. These will change over time. At present, in my view, the two most important are the problems arising from the unjust Denaturalization and Deportation proceedings the government has deployed and securing redress for the internment operations of the First World War period. Both issues have a lot to do with the good name of our community. Not everyone will agree that these are the most important matters we need consider. Fair enough. For my part, I have no interest in multiculturalism, heritage language programs, or putting up statues celebrating perogies or kobassa. A free and open vote at a national congress could fix priorities and determine a realistic agenda. And, as I've said, issues will come and go, reflecting the commitments and passions of our members. Meanwhile, we have to avoid wasting limited resources trying to address national issues that each of us, as Canadian citizens, go our separate ways on, like, for example, whether there's any need for an elected Senate or recognizing Quebec's distinct society in the Constitution. Obviously, there's no unity on such matters within our ranks, nor is there any need for consensus. A national organization for Canadian Ukrainians should articulate our interests as a community and concentrates its attention and lobbying efforts only on those issues that affect us as Canadians of Ukrainian heritage.

I regret to say it, but "a free and open vote at a national congress" never fixes priorities or determines a realistic agenda. It is easy to vote at a national congress and then go home and forget about it. It is the members of the executive and of the various committees that do the work who actually fix priorities and the agenda. Unfortunately there are not many of them within the Ukrainian community in Canada. Also, now that Ukraine is independent, there is no special feeling that "we are the holders of the flame" so to say. There is much less belief that we need to be that pro-active.

3. Conflict of Interest Rules: Anyone who wants to lead our community should declare her or his Canadian party allegiance and, while in office, understand that they are precluded from advancing that party's agenda within the Ukrainian Canadian community. An elected president should represent our membership, not the Liberals, Canadian Alliance, Progressive Conservatives, New Democrats, or Bloc Quebecois. If someone wants to run for a Canadian political office let them. But our organization should not be a stepping stone for a patronage appointment nor should its senior officers be the handmaidens of the government, regardless of which party is in power. We must be independent. I have a sneaky suspicion that we haven't been, not for a long time.

I certainly don't recall any president or senior officer of UCC having received a patronage appointment from the government. If Mr. Luciuk has proof to the contrary, let him name names. Otherwise, he should not spread unsubstantiated rumors of this kind. In other words, put-up or shut-up.

4. Neutral is Neutered: We have issues that must be championed. We need to take stands, publicly, and if that pits us against municipal, provincial or federal governments, or other organizations or constituencies, so be it. Some of our "leaders" have hidden behind the word "neutral" far too long. By not being forthright on where we stand and why we have emasculated ourselves. Before every federal election we should make our views clear on any and all government policies that we support, or don't, and urge our members to vote accordingly. If we can muster enough voting power to unseat an MP, or even better, a Cabinet Minister, then believe me, we will be listened to thereafter. We should not be afraid to reward, or punish, members of any government, from any party, that does not respond to whatever reasonable requests we put before them. And why aren't we cultivating the "new boys on the block" in Canadian politics? We should be looking for allies wherever we can find them, not just sticking to our traditional corners. The mainstream parties have all but abandoned us. Those who dispute that should try inviting the Prime Minister to address the UCC congress this October, asking him to speak to that 1993 promise he made about helping us secure redress. He won't. We'll be lucky if the government sends the under-secretary to the third secretary for Fisheries to talk about "men in sheepskin coats." Some pretend that having some backbencher of an MP show up at a UCC congress to talk about nothing that has anything to do with us represents a great boon. Rubbish. Here's a novel idea. If the PM won't come, invite the leader of the Opposition. I bet he'd show up. And tell him that we want to hear his party's views on redress or Denaturalization & Deportation or, even better, on both. We'd certainly get media attention. They might even take note in Ottawa and start treating us with a little more respect.

I understand that Ukrainians have tried to unseat Anne McLellan during the last election, and failed. It is much better to help elect Ukrainian-Canadians to the government and hopefully to the cabinet, than try to unseat some MP or minister. We has influence with the government when we had ministers there, such as Michael Starr and Ray Hnatyshyn, and now we have no one. We should also stop constantly bitching against the government, and should also praise the government when appropriate. Canada has been a very good homeland to most Ukrainian-Canadians. Let us not forget it.

As to making its position clear on various issues, including redress and Denaturalization & Deportation, UCC had done it prior to the last federal election. By the way, it received a reply on behalf of the present leader of the opposition that his party was not interested in these issues.

5. Defined Roles: A leader should lead. Her staff, or his, should run HQ. If we have a president mandated to set strategy we should expect subordinates to be competent enough to arrange the day to day functioning of the office, trusted to develop and implement policies the leader sets, having been empowered to do so by a national congress. If a president wants to approve every letter that goes out, must vet each word that is uttered, has "just got to know" what everyone is doing, then nothing gets done, which is exactly what has happened in the UCC for many years now. We today have UCC committees that do nothing, or next to nothing, chairs of committees that won't act, react, or speak unless their president approves. How Soviet of us.

If this is so, then changes obviously should be made within the UCC structure. However, it would also be awkward if chairs of various committees came out with public statements that contradicted each other or were against the basic policy of the organization. So there must be obviously some balance here.

6. New Branches: One of the most critical roles of a leader is to enthuse his followers and attract new members. There are lots of people in our community, right across Canada, who do good work "for the cause" but don't belong to the UCC, or any other so-called "national group." Getting them to join and form or revive branches across the country should be a top priority. If we had dozens of active branches across Canada we could then claim, with some credibility, to be representative and influential, and that would generate its own momentum. Right now the UCC branches that still carry on are not attracting younger members, are uncoordinated in their efforts, repositories of some important accumulated wisdom and experience that is, alas, draining away. If we don't attract many new members and form a lot of new branches we can not claim that UCC is anything but a remnant of the past. Ask yourselves - when was the last UCC branch formed? None in my memory.

UCC is an umbrella organization, not one that goes directly after new members or new branches. It is the member organizations of UCC that should try to attract new members and be more pro-active.

7. National Assemblies: Only once in its history, in 1946, did the UCC ever hold its triennial congress outside of Winnipeg (that was in Toronto, in 1946). You don't build a national organization by staying in one place. National assemblies should be held in alternate cities every 3 years, in order to broaden public and community awareness of the organization, attract new members, give members a chance to see more of Canada, and meet other members in their home regions, all adding impetus to the emergence of a truly national body. In-between these national gatherings we need to develop a network through the Internet that allows members, no matter where they live, to keep informed on a regular basis about what they can or need to do on the issues we have collectively identified as critical. Perhaps it's also time to downgrade the Winnipeg HQ to the status of a provincial or regional office and base the UCC in the political, economic, and media capital of Canada, which is Toronto, like it or not.

This a matter of logistics and convenience. Most Ukrainian-Canadians live in the western provinces and in Ontario. Winnipeg is more or less in the middle geographically. Probably a congress in Toronto would also make sense. However, if meetings are too far from the centre of Canada, the transportation cost becomes an issue and fewer people will attend.

8. English vs. Ukrainian: That the lingua franca of today's world is English should be obvious. While retaining our heritage language has deep and understandable meaning for some, doing so by making a Ukrainian language ability the litmus test of belonging means excluding many who have only a rudimentary ability or no proficiency at all in Ukrainian. While all documents generated by our organization should be in English, Ukrainian and French, our working language realistically has to be English, which, by the way, is the situation that prevails in most other similar ethnic groups in Canada, or at least those that wish to be effective. Does anyone believe the Canadian Jewish Congress works in Yiddish or Hebrew?

This, to my knowledge, is in fact the case. However, at least some of the top officials of UCC should be fairly proficient in Ukrainian. They need it when they deal with Ukraine.

9. A Canadian Focus: Since 1991 an internationally recognized Ukrainian state has existed in Europe. It has paid scant attention to the Ukrainian Diaspora, save when it has needed us to secure advantages for itself. If we are to become an effective body within Canada we must concentrate on domestic issues. This does not mean abandoning Ukraine, nor should we be neutral on issues there. But it does call for a focus, and Canadians of Ukrainian heritage want that concentration to be on what concerns us here. Canada is our home, not Ukraine. By becoming an ever more efficient organization in Canada we will, in time, be able to parlay that influence in the foreign affairs arena. But we must be strong here. First things first. Perhaps we could also start asking the 50 million Ukrainians over there to start helping us over here. That'd be nice for a change.

Why be strong here, if not to help Ukraine? And what does it mean to be strong here? As I mentioned above, our relative strength is decreasing. The only way to be strong here is to elect our own MPs, not constantly complain about past wrongs.

10. Gender Issues: For sixty plus years the UCC has been run by priests or other men. Isn’t it time for a woman to give it a whack? She couldn't do worse and my guess is she might do better.

Let the best person run the UCC. I fully agree with this. The best would be a woman who has a personal wealth of at least 10 million dollars.

Having put these thoughts into the public arena I now withdraw. I have no expectation that this commentary will result in any reforms of the UCC, although the last few defenders of that body will no doubt release great clouds of obfuscating fog as they rally under its tattered parasol, ignoring reality. Years ago, when a number of us were undeservedly turned out of the UCC, we formed the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties >Association (UCCLA). Since then we've completed many important initiatives, such as helping ensure that the wrongs done to Canada's Ukrainian community during this country's first national internment operations are not forgotten. Go to Banff, go to Nanaimo, go to Spirit Lake, go to Brandon, go to Kapuskasing, even wander around Winnipeg at the next UCC congress, and you will find plaques that UCCLA and its supporters placed there in our continuing efforts to right this historical injustice. In doing so we have often enjoyed the support of UCC branches and other members of our community. Why do they help UCCLA? Because they recognize that we're believers in the same simple gospel that motivated great Ukrainian Canadians like the late Bohdan Panchuk. "Do Something!" he said. We do. The UCC doesn't. We aren't afraid to take a stand. The UCC is. Or, at best, it waits so long that by the time it does mutter something up it's too late. Sometimes, of course, UCCLA makes mistakes. But we never act unless we believe what we are doing is in the best interests of the Ukrainian Canadian community. True, we don't attend many banquets. We don't have paid staff. We're all volunteers. It actually costs each of us to belong to UCCLA. And certainly we aren't an "umbrella group." We can't, don't, and won't claim to represent a million people. We're not that vain. All we are is relevant. The UCC hasn't been, not for a long time. And, I'm truly sorry to say, that's not likely to change.

Good for UCCLA. Organizations that deal with one or two issues can usually achieve a great deal in those areas. I note that UCC has not hindered UCCLA in its work. We need more organizations like UCCLA that would also be members of UCC.
 

Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD, is author of Searching For Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Canada, and the Migration of Memory (University of Toronto Press, 2000), and serves as director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. This editorial represents his personal opinion, not necessarily that of UCCLA or any of its members or supporters, including those in the UCC