A passion for justice and human rights, and a commitment to public service, are some of the defining qualities of the long and illustrious career of Conservative Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk.
The well-known Saskatchewan resident was appointed to the Upper House in 1993 on the advice of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. On August 14, after 26 years in the Senate, Andreychuk will retire on her 75th birthday. Canadian senators are required to retire when they reach this age.
During an interview on the University of Saskatchewan campus, where she obtained her arts and law degrees in 1966 and 1967, Andreychuk referred to herself as the “dean” of the Senate. She noted it feels strange to be facing retirement, given that she’s been employed in some capacity since the age of 15.
“I’ve never been without a job or a responsibility, so all of the sudden people are coming up to me and saying, ‘So what are you going to do next? So are you going to take up golf?’ And I’m going, ‘Don’t talk to me yet, because I’ve got a full plate,’” said Andreychuk, who was born and raised in Saskatoon.
Although retirement is very near, Andreychuk isn’t slowing down. She still has Senate business to wrap up — she chairs the Standing Committee on Ethics and Conflict of Interest for Senators, for example — as well as some travel plans and upcoming conferences. With her many interests and busy lifestyle, it’s common for her “to be running from one thing to the other,” she said.
“A lot of senators are very focused on certain issues,” said Andreychuk. “I do foreign policy, I do human rights, I do family issues. I do Saskatchewan — pulse crops forever — so international trade. And then I do Ukrainian things. So I’m all over the world and all over Canada and Saskatchewan.”
Justice has been a central theme in Andreychuk’s life, even before she entered the Senate. In 1976, she was appointed as a judge to the Saskatchewan provincial court and went on to establish the first family court in Regina.
Andreychuk is also known for her work in other high-profile roles, serving as Saskatchewan’s associate deputy minister of social services, chancellor of the University of Regina and Canada’s High Commissioner to Kenya and Uganda. In addition, she served as ambassador to Somalia, the Comoros and Portugal, and was selected as Canada’s representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
An advocate of women’s rights, Andreychuk has broken barriers during her career. She became the first female senator to represent Saskatchewan when she was appointed in 1993. She remembers receiving the surprising telephone call from Mulroney offering her the position, and asking him for five days to think about it.
“He said, ‘Some people in Saskatchewan think you would make a wonderful senator,’” Andreychuk recalled. “That dropped into my lap — it was never part of the equation — and so many things did come that way.”
Andreychuk said she never sought to be part of the “leadership” of the Senate; rather, she wanted to remain “policy-driven,” and that opened up opportunities for her to serve in various capacities.
“I understand the government side and I understand the Opposition side, and I respect both. But I was more interested in the policies,” she said.
Although Andreychuk is leaving the Senate at the mandatory retirement age of 75, she’s an advocate of Senate term limits. If a senator was appointed for eight, 10, 12 or 15 years, for example, they would have enough time to make a difference and to develop some “corporate memory,” but they would also have “an exit strategy,” she said. Andreychuk believes that “would be good both for the person and the institution.”
“I think if you go in and you knew when you were going out, you’d plan the next move,” she said. “When I went in, I said, ‘I’ll just do this for five to 10 years’ — because it was a career change for me. I was an ambassador; I came back and I said, ‘It’s a career change.’
“But the Senate gives you so many opportunities — particularly if you’re outwardly focused like I am — that I am sort of career-changing every month inside the Senate,” she added.
When she looks back on her time in the Senate, Andreychuk is proud of many things. Something that stands out is her focus on public service.
“I went in and said, ‘It’s not a job. It’s not a reward. It’s public service.’ So I think what I’m proud of is the number of opportunities that I’ve had from working on the Holodomor — the Ukrainian internment — and the Magnitsky sanctions.”
In 2017, the Senate approved Bill S-226, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), which was sponsored by Andreychuk. It was inspired by the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died while exposing government officials involved in a $230-million tax corruption scheme. Andreychuk, who helped found the Senate Committee on Human Rights, said the bill was intended to signal to the world that Canada cannot be used to enable or shelter gross violators of internationally recognized human rights.
A Canadian citizen of Ukrainian heritage, Andreychuk has long been known for her work in Ukraine and with Ukrainian Canadians at home. In 2014, she received the Mikhnovsky Medal of Merit for her contribution toward recognition of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 as an act of genocide by famine. The award, created by the League of Ukrainian Canadians and the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women, honours Ukrainian political leader, jurist and publicist Mykola Mikhnovsky, who is considered the father of the modern Ukrainian liberation movement.
Also notable is Andreychuk’s sponsorship of Bill C-459, an act to establish a Holodomor memorial day and to recognize the Ukrainian famine as genocide, which received royal assent in 2008. Over the years, Andreychuk has participated in several election observer missions to Ukraine as well, as chair of Ukraine-NATO Inter-Parliamentary Council and as vice-chair of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group.
Sen. Denise Batters, a Saskatchewan Conservative senator who has worked with Andreychuk for the last six years, said Andreychuk’s “wisdom on so many different subject areas” will be missed when she retires. Batters, who also trained as a lawyer, considered Andreychuk to be a mentor and was honoured to travel with her to Ukraine in 2014 to monitor the presidential election.
“(Former) Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper had actually named Senator Andreychuk as head of that mission for Canada — so that was an amazing experience, because my ancestral background is also Ukrainian and that was my first trip to Ukraine,” said Batters.
“We worked hard, but we had some fun as well. I’ve just been very grateful to have this time with her in our Conservative caucus in the Senate and to learn from her. She’s always been a steadfast supporter of Saskatchewan and our people, and she’s always helped to ensure Canada speaks with wisdom and grace on the world stage.”
In addition to human rights and justice, Andreychuk has focused on agriculture, international trade and energy issues during her time in the Senate. Family and women’s issues, as well as maternal health, have also been close to her heart. In 2016, the YWCA Regina bestowed Andreychuk with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“YWCA celebrates the participation of women in every sphere of endeavour,” Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen, chief executive officer of YWCA Regina, said in 2016, calling Andreychuk “an aspiring model of principled leadership in realms where Canadian women continue to be under-represented.”
Batters also lauded Andreychuk’s leadership and praised her work with the Senate’s ethics and conflict of interest committee. Batters pointed out that Andreychuk worked on the Senate ethics code in 2014 during the “challenging time” of the expenses scandal.
“She led the revamp of that, and so now our Senate ethics code is actually the most stringent ethics code in the Commonwealth,” Batters said.
While Andreychuk has lived and worked in various parts of the world, including Africa and Portugal, she continues to honour her Saskatchewan roots and remains a proud advocate of her home province. When she was growing up, she said, it seemed everyone was leaving Saskatchewan — but that trend has reversed.
“I find the opportunities are here now, and we’ve changed our mentality about ourselves,” she said. “I would sit at the Canadian table (previously) and we were the quiet ones. ‘I’m from Saskatchewan’ was not something you crowed about; now, you’re proud of being from Saskatchewan or you’re proud of staying in Saskatchewan.”
So what’s next for Andreychuk? She has no firm plans yet, but she will likely remain busy after retiring. Another career change could be in the works.
“I can’t envision retirement, so it’s ‘What will I do next?’”
