Lecture │ A Reflection on the Redress Movement for Canada’s First Internment Operations of 1914-1920

A talk by Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Fellow at the University of Toronto.

Between 1914 and 1920, thousands of Ukrainians and East Europeans were unjustly labeled “enemy aliens” and sent to internment camps in Canada. They faced confiscation of their meager wealth, forced labor, and state-sanctioned penalties solely based on their identity. This lecture highlights this dark chapter in Canadian history, exploring the adversity faced by these individuals. It also delves into the Ukrainian Canadian community’s redress campaign, initiated in 1987, leading to the establishment of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund in 2008. This fund supported commemorative and educational projects, revealing Canada’s national internment operations from 1914 to 1920.

Dr. Luciuk, a full professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, Fellow at the University of Toronto, and author, sheds light on this history. A founding member of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Dr. Luciuk received Ukraine’s Cross of Ivan Mazepa in 2019. He has served as a GIC appointee to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada as well as the Parole Board of Canada, and was, for many years, active on the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, which he helped establish. His most recent book (with Dr. V. Viatrovych) is Enemy Archives: Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations and the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023). He lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Recorded on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, 7:00 PM CST.