Benjamin
The Living Force
When I started looking around for fallout on Yaroslav Hunka (also written: Jaroslav Gunka) and the SS Galicia Division, I came across a Liberal MP named Yvan Baker of Etobicoke-Centre, Ontario riding. I don't know why I started looking into his political life. I kinda picked him at random just to see who he was. I came across this write-up for his Ontario provincial, Liberal MP election run in 2014, thought it was interesting and so kept digging to see what else was there.
He really wanted to get the word out about (a certain version of) the Holodomor.
This bus has been all across Canada (except the Yukon and Territories), not just confined to Ontario.
In his 2018 nomination campaign running for the Federal MP position for the same riding, he credits his grandparents for his getting into politics:
A video by the UCRDC (Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre) from Dec. 17, 2018, is titled Ukrainian by Choice. It "explores the question of ethnicity of people, born in Canada, whose one parent is Ukrainian, the other from a different ethnic background." The 4:05 minute excerpt from a much larger 50 minute interview, is of Yvan Baker whose mother is Myroslava Oleksiuk b. Sept. 9, 1946, Kiel, Germany, and father is Donald Baker, b. June 4, 1944, Toronto, Ont. Canada.
In the actual interview, he commented on participating in Ukrainian community activities (not my transcript):
Here is a list of Holodomor monuments in Canada+. And Valentina Kuryliw, the historian and educator specializing in the Holodomor, who made the inaugural less for the Holodomor bus in 2016, and has had her second book (Holodomor in Ukraine, The Genocidal Famine 1932-1933: learning materials for teachers and students) vetted in 2018 "for use by teachers in schools in Canada and placed on the teaching resources lists of the following provinces to date: in Ontario, in the largest school board in Canada, the Toronto District School Board, Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning Diversity Education, Saskatchewan Teachers Federation. It is also sought after and used in curriculum units in the United States of America and other countries."
In a Sept. 14, 2021 election interview with New Pathway- Ukrainian News (Toronto), Yvan responded to some questions. On the same page, is an election poster that I can't translate because it's written in Ukrainian (Etobicoke is one of the hotbeds of Can./Ukr. communities in Canada). In the lower-right corner is an image of Yvan honouring an Azov/Bandera war memorial? I don't know what this is but the symbol on the stone is pretty hard to miss.
On Nov. 30, 2021, he tabled Bill C-204 (which never passed the 1st reading, btw) to establish the month of September as "Ukrainian Heritage Month" because:
Posted on the League of Ukranian Canadians (LUC) website (lucorg.com/2022/10/mp-yvan-baker-in-ukraine/, I'm not hotlinking to this one) is a letter by Yvan revealing a trip to Ukraine in the capacity of MP and Chair of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group.
They also "met with representatives of key partner NGOs working to help Ukraine rebuild and recover", and "met with a mobile psychosocial assistance team funded through Canadian support to the UN Population Agency and spoke with team members about the important work being done to support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence and other Ukrainians dealing with mental health trauma."
If you are unaware of the LUC, here are four excerpts from Chapter 9:
Also, the Lychakiv Cemetary that Yvan and Sajjan visited is a big place, so I don't know what specific areas they visited, but it happens to be the home of the Ukrainian National Army Memorial which includes soldiers of the SS Galicia Division. Pictured here are members of the 'scouts'-like group Plast.
Chapter 10:
Yvan Baker, a Ukranian, is running for the Liberals, provincially, in Etobicoke-Centre
May 23, 2014 Estonian Life No. 21 2014
Yvan Baker came into politics honestly. His mother, Miroslava Oleksiuk is one of the co-founders of the Central and Eastern European Council in Canada (with Estonian award winning filmmaker Marcus Kolga and Estonian Central Council President Markus Hess) and an active member of the Ukranian-Canadian community. His father, Donald Baker was a Progressive-Conservative candidate in Etobicoke. ...
Baker has impressive credentials for his work in the Ukranian community. He is a past President of the Ukranian Canadian Congress-Ontario and continues to lobby Ontario MPP's of all parties to include information of the man made famine into the Ontario school curriculum. He worked on creating the Ukranian Heritage Day with MPP's of all three parties.
...
“I am proud that Premier Kathleen Wynne asked the federal government to impose sanctions on President Yanukovich's government when the demonstrations were happening in the Ukraine,” said Baker.
He really wanted to get the word out about (a certain version of) the Holodomor.
Minister Liz Sandals joins MPP Yvan Baker for Holodomor Mobile Classroom Launch
November 25, 2015
Yesterday at Queen’s Park I had the pleasure of joining Minister of Education Liz Sandals for a commemoration of Holodomor Awareness Week and for the launch of the Holodomor Mobile Classroom.
A big thank you to the members of the community who joined me yesterday, as well as Bishop Stephen Chmilar of the Ukrainian Canadian Catholic Church and Bishop Andriy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada who blessed the Mobile Classroom.
I would also like to thank Premier Kathleen Wynne and Minister of Education Liz Sandals for their dedication to the mobile classroom project. Bringing the mobile classroom to life will help young people across Ontario learn about the Holodomor in an immersive and powerful way.
...
Holodomor Mobile Classroom
Funded by the Government of Ontario, the bilingual, wheelchair accessible mobile classroom will provide students from across the province an opportunity to learn more about the Holodomor, the Ukrainian genocidal famine of 1932-33.
Earlier this year we celebrated the inclusion of the Holodomor in the Ontario curriculum as well as the funding commitment to complete the mobile classroom. This November I was honored to host the completed mobile classroom at Queen’s Park to share it with my colleagues to officially launch the Holodomor Awareness Tour!
Once again, I would like to thank the community members who organized the Holodomor Awareness Tour and everyone who worked together to realize the Holodomor Mobile Classroom. It is an important tool to help us share the tragedy of the Holodomor with the next generation and to ensure a crime like this never happens again.
Sincerly,
Yvan
This bus has been all across Canada (except the Yukon and Territories), not just confined to Ontario.
In his 2018 nomination campaign running for the Federal MP position for the same riding, he credits his grandparents for his getting into politics:
Baker said that he got into politics because of his grandparents, who immigrated to Canada after the Second World War. “My grandparents were incredibly proud of their Ukrainian heritage, but they also were incredibly proud to be Canadian. And they ensured that my sister and I appreciated how fortunate we were to live in Canada,” he noted.
A video by the UCRDC (Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre) from Dec. 17, 2018, is titled Ukrainian by Choice. It "explores the question of ethnicity of people, born in Canada, whose one parent is Ukrainian, the other from a different ethnic background." The 4:05 minute excerpt from a much larger 50 minute interview, is of Yvan Baker whose mother is Myroslava Oleksiuk b. Sept. 9, 1946, Kiel, Germany, and father is Donald Baker, b. June 4, 1944, Toronto, Ont. Canada.
Yvan’s maternal grandparents helped raise him and his sister and Yvan was very much influenced by his grandfather. Yvan and Meelena spoke Ukrainian exclusively as young children and their father, Donald was very supportive of their Ukrainian upbringing, driving them to Ukrainian school and dance lessons, sometimes despite their complaints. Neither their father nor their Scottish grandparents were adamant about teaching them about their Scottish roots.
Yvan’s Ukrainian grandmother had lived through the Holodomor and wanted her children and grandchildren to remember and honour the victims of this and other similar tragedies. Yvan was able to support, through his influence in Parliament, various projects involving the Holodomor, including Canada Ukraine’s project for the Holodomor Mobile classroom, a bus retrofitted with television screens and interfaces that teaches students across Canada about the Holodomor Famine/Genocide of 1932-33 in Ukraine.
In the actual interview, he commented on participating in Ukrainian community activities (not my transcript):
In terms of the events, very often, anything to do with, you know, advocacy on a cause that’s important to the Ukrainian Canadian community, that could be teaching and commemorating the Holodomor, it could be the work to build a monument which I was very proud to when I was a member of Provincial parliament to help the team at the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Toronto Branch, was trying to get that monument off the ground, eventually did, and I applaud them for the work they did , but that Holodomor monument is in a prominent location , it does justice, I think, it honours the victims in a beautiful, beautiful way and allows future generations of Ukrainians and other Canadians to, to commemorate those victims. Things like, Like I said, I was, when I was a member of Provincial Parliament working with Valentina Kuryliw and a number of others, uh, that have been trying to work in this building, we were able to ensure that the, uh, government of Ontario inserted, or included the Holodomor in the educational curriculum so that every young person in Ontario can now learn about the Holodomor. I think that is so, so important. And I’m so, of all the things that I have worked on that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of. And that’s . It was a team effort, led by Valentina Kuryliw.
Here is a list of Holodomor monuments in Canada+. And Valentina Kuryliw, the historian and educator specializing in the Holodomor, who made the inaugural less for the Holodomor bus in 2016, and has had her second book (Holodomor in Ukraine, The Genocidal Famine 1932-1933: learning materials for teachers and students) vetted in 2018 "for use by teachers in schools in Canada and placed on the teaching resources lists of the following provinces to date: in Ontario, in the largest school board in Canada, the Toronto District School Board, Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning Diversity Education, Saskatchewan Teachers Federation. It is also sought after and used in curriculum units in the United States of America and other countries."
In a Sept. 14, 2021 election interview with New Pathway- Ukrainian News (Toronto), Yvan responded to some questions. On the same page, is an election poster that I can't translate because it's written in Ukrainian (Etobicoke is one of the hotbeds of Can./Ukr. communities in Canada). In the lower-right corner is an image of Yvan honouring an Azov/Bandera war memorial? I don't know what this is but the symbol on the stone is pretty hard to miss.
NP-UN: As the Chair of Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group, what do you think should be the immediate and strategic things Canada should be doing regarding Ukraine?
Yvan Baker: As the head of the group, I spend a lot of time working to ensure Canada does everything Canada can do for Ukraine. We have to continue strengthening sanctions against the Putin regime, do everything we can to support Ukraine’s integration into NATO and continue Operation UNIFIER, which is the Canadian mission where Canadian soldiers are training Ukrainian soldiers. We need to expand it, not just the amount of training but also the locations of training. And lastly, I believe that we need to eliminate the visa regime for Ukrainians who want to come to Canada.
NP-UN: It is known that some NATO members including Germany and France are opposed to Ukraine’s getting Membership Action Plan (MAP) to join NATO at the moment. What can Canada do in this situation to help Ukraine’s aspirations to get MAP?
Yvan Baker: I think Canada has been doing a lot of work on a couple of fronts. One is to help Ukraine meet the requirements that are needed to become a NATO member. Our military is not just training the frontline soldiers within Operation UNIFIER, they’re also working with senior members of the Ukrainian armed forces to make sure they have the leadership skills and technology, the interoperability with NATO. On the question about Germany and France, Canada has been and will continue to advocate with our NATO allies, to urge them to support Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Not just because it’s good for Ukraine, but because it’s good for Canada and other countries. Russia poses a security threat to Ukraine and our allies in Europe, including Germany and France. If Ukraine becomes part of NATO, we will have another strong member committed to the alliance and protecting European and North American security.
NP-UN: What do you think about updating and upgrading Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement on the background of Ukraine’s trade deficit with Canada in 2020?
Yvan Baker: I am in favour of continuous improvements to the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement. I think there’s a number of other issues that cause Ukraine’s trade deficit, unrelated to the free trade agreement. For example, Ukraine is undertaking reforms of its judicial system, and Canada has invested a significant amount of money in helping in those reforms. Canada has also helped to reform Ukraine’s police and other institutions. These reforms are really critical for the success of Ukraine’s foreign investment and trade.
On Nov. 30, 2021, he tabled Bill C-204 (which never passed the 1st reading, btw) to establish the month of September as "Ukrainian Heritage Month" because:
Whereas the first official Ukrainian immigrants to Canada, Vasyl Eleniak and Ivan Pylypiw, arrived on September 7, 1891, and Ukrainian immigrants began arriving in Canada in larger numbers in the years that followed;
Whereas today Canada is home to more than 1.3 million Ukrainian Canadians;
Whereas Canada was the first Western nation to recognize Ukraine’s independence in 1991;
Whereas Canada has recognized that the Holodomor was a genocide perpetrated by the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin, causing the death of millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933, with the intent to destroy the Ukrainian people’s aspirations for a free and independent Ukraine;
Whereas Canada opposes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continues to support Ukraine in its fight for its sovereignty and territorial integrity;
Whereas Ukrainian Canadians have left and continue to leave a historic mark on Canada, with contributions that span communities across the country and are reflected in Canada’s economic, political, social and cultural life;
And whereas Parliament wishes to recognize the inspirational role that Ukrainian Canadians have played and continue to play in communities across the country and to educate Canadians about that role by celebrating it;
Posted on the League of Ukranian Canadians (LUC) website (lucorg.com/2022/10/mp-yvan-baker-in-ukraine/, I'm not hotlinking to this one) is a letter by Yvan revealing a trip to Ukraine in the capacity of MP and Chair of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group.
Oct 14, 2022
On Wednesday, I was in Ukraine with Minister Harjit Sajjan. We were there in the aftermath of Russia’s horrific missile strikes on Monday and Tuesday that targeted and killed innocent civilians in Ukraine.
We came to show Canada’s steadfast support for the brave people of Ukraine courageously defending their country from Russia’s genocidal war and to hear directly from Ukrainians about their needs and how Canada can help.
While in Lviv, Minister Sajjan and I visited the Lychakiv Cemetery with Governor Kozytskyy to pay respect to fallen Ukrainian soldiers. We learned about the work being done to rebuild the Ukrainian economy and support internally displaced people – refugees from other parts of Ukraine who have fled to the Lviv region from the regions of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
We also met with the Mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi and thanked him for his continued support of internally displaced persons. Since the beginning of February, Mayor Sadovyi has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to his city.
Everyone we met with told us that after Russia’s missile strikes this week that Ukrainians are more defiant and determined than ever to win this war.
In fighting this war, Ukrainians are not only fighting for themselves, they are also defending our security, our democracy and our quality of life. They are fighting for us.
Canada is determined to ensure that Ukraine wins and will be there until that happens, until we all win.
On Thursday, I joined John Moore on Moore in the Morning on Newstalk 1010 radio to discuss my visit to Ukraine.
They also "met with representatives of key partner NGOs working to help Ukraine rebuild and recover", and "met with a mobile psychosocial assistance team funded through Canadian support to the UN Population Agency and spoke with team members about the important work being done to support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence and other Ukrainians dealing with mental health trauma."
If you are unaware of the LUC, here are four excerpts from Chapter 9:
Canadian Banderites and their organisations have dominated the UCC's leadership for some 20 years. The OUN(B) in Canada is organised primarily through the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC), whose publication Homin Ukrainy (Ukrainian Echo) is published in Toronto.
The LUC's major national affiliates include the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women, the Society of Veterans of the UPA and the the Ukrainian Youth Association.[xviii] The latter is basically Canada's Bandera youth association, a scouting organisation (similar in military structure and appearance to the one set up by British imperialist Lt.Gen. and Baron, Sir Robert Baden-Powell).
The following declassified "Secret" CIA document outlines the post-WWII history of the Agency's close working relationship with the above mentioned Nazi-linked organisations: UHVR, OUN, UPA and "the underground."
Kevin C Ruffner, "Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA's Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists," Fifty Years of the CIA, 1998.
A 1978 book published by the Ukrainian War Veterans Association (Edmonton Branch) notes that on November 22, 1964, Michael Chomiak was the keynote speaker at a banquet for the Ukrainian Organisation of Nationalists (OUN), the Ukrainian War Veterans, the League for the Liberation of Ukraine (a Banderite group), the Bratsvo UNA (i.e., the veterans of the Waffen-SS Galicia), Plast and SUM, the Bandera youth organization of the OUN(B). This 1978 event commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Canadian association of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, which had been a unit in the Austrian Army during WWI.
Also, the Lychakiv Cemetary that Yvan and Sajjan visited is a big place, so I don't know what specific areas they visited, but it happens to be the home of the Ukrainian National Army Memorial which includes soldiers of the SS Galicia Division. Pictured here are members of the 'scouts'-like group Plast.
Chapter 10:
In 2013, when asked whether Plast had been influential during her childhood, Freeland responded:
"Absolutely. Plast was a very important part of my life growing up and it is a very important part of my daughters’ lives. I grew up in a Ukrainian community and was active in Plast. Now my two daughters are active plastunky in New York (my son is only 3 years old). My elder daughter went to Lviv this summer for the 100th anniversary of Plast."