(Toronto, CCSU). — The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development moved to hold hearings on Ukraine. MP Peter Goldring (Edmonton East) made the request to undertake a study on “the progression of rights and democracy over the past 10 years.”
“The member organizations of the Canadian Conference in Support of Ukraine deeply appreciate the impending study on the human rights situation in Ukraine, and that the hearings will be conducted before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development,” said CCSU Chairman, Oleh Romanyshyn.
Following Prime Minister Harper’s trip to Ukraine in October 2010, the LUC and its fellow organizations in the CCSU have been working with Members of Parliament to convene hearings on Ukraine. In this regard, during the 40th Parliament, MP David Sweet (Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale) tabled a motion on March 22, 2011 which was adopted unanimously at the Parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights to investigate human rights abuses in Ukraine. The motion was drafted in cooperation with MP James Bezan, MP for Selkirk-Interlake. However, the parliamentary election in May this year prevented the hearings from taking place.
With the convening of the 41st Parliament in June this year, the CCSU renewed its call for hearings at meetings with MPs, including: Peter Goldring, Mark Warawa, James Bezan, Ted Opitz, Peggy Nash, Wayne Marston, Peter Van Loan, Bernard Trottier, Robert Sopuck, Kevin Lamoureux, Jim Karygiannis, and Bob Rae.
The CCSU regards the hearings at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development as consistent with and an outgrowth of the Prime Minister’s historic trip to Ukraine, and the take note debate on Ukraine held on October 18, 2011. It also is in line with the meeting on Ukraine at the Committee on Foreign Affairs held on October 20, 2011, where the President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Paul Grod, testified.
“The study on the progression of rights and democracy in Ukraine will be an important next step in keeping the Canadian people and the world apprised of the situation in Ukraine. The CCSU is grateful to MP Peter Goldring for introducing the motion at the level of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development,” noted Orest Steciw, President of the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC).
“We also deeply appreciate the support of MP James Bezan for the CCSU initiative, beginning in November 2010, to convene hearings to investigate government efforts to suppress political dissent, free speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom in Ukraine,” added Olyana Grod, President of the Ukrainian Youth Association of Canada (CYM).
“Especially at this time, following the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko and many lesser known political prisoners, the harassment of rights advocates and historians, and in the light of the up-coming parliamentary elections in Ukraine in 2012, it is heartening to us that these important issues continue to be dealt with by our government in a direct and forthright manner,” concluded Adriana Buyniak Willson, President of the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women (LUCW).
