Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Jars Balan]

I was just going to say that, in connection with the free trade agreement, one of the things that I always took great pride in as a Canadian was that we had such bipartisan support for Ukraine. I was involved right at the beginning in the initial negotiations. This was under Prime Minister Harper's tenure, when the initial negotiations took place to sign a free trade agreement with Ukraine. It's very important for Ukraine. To see it mixed into this discussion here is concerning. It's a little bit disappointing.

I'll just leave my remarks at that.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm finished.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Excellent. That was four minutes and 29 seconds.

There is some commentary being offered with regard to what's relevant and what's not relevant. I think we know this is a greater issue, and leniency has always been provided.

What I will say to members is that, if you like leniency when you're making comments and asking questions, then you're going to have to offer that same courtesy to others. It can't just be when it's convenient for you and not for others. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. That's kind of how it works around here. If you want to raise a point, then do it. Otherwise, as long as we have decorum and respectful dialogue, I am going to let the meeting function.

Mr. Duguid came in at four minutes and 29 seconds. I appreciate that.

You have five minutes, Ms. Gaudreau.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses.

I also want to say that today's meeting, it must be said, deals with a sensitive subject. For the purposes of the study, we want to get to the bottom of this situation, we want to know the background, so that we can then—and this is our hope—produce what we need to ensure that situations like this never happen again.

I have some very factual questions for the witnesses. Earlier, my colleague mentioned that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, when he was here on February 13, said that it was the Ukrainian Canadian Congress that provided the list. Earlier, we heard a little bit about who was on the list.

My question is for the executive director of the congress: Was Mr. Hunka's name on that list? I just want to make sure that across all donors and what you said—

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

The question I was answering earlier was about the event that took place in Toronto on Friday night. The UCC was asked to provide a large number of people to attend a rally as part of that event.

We had no involvement. We have never spoken to the Speaker's office or to the Hunka family about his invitation to Parliament.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

When the Prime Minister's Office asked for a list, in essence, did that list have to meet certain criteria?

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

For the Toronto rally—which was not Parliament—we were just asked to identify community organizations, leaders and people who had been involved in various positions. I have no insight into who was invited to Parliament or not.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay.

So, if I were to ask you whether the government chose to invite all the people on your list, you would answer that you don't know. Am I correct?

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

That's right. We provided a list of potential invitees. I don't know which of those people were sent an invitation or not.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay.

Following Mr. Hunka's presentation in the gallery and the tributes paid to him, did any contact take place with the Prime Minister's Office or the Office of the Speaker of the House?

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

I'm sorry. Were there contacts with UCC and the Prime Minister's Office? We were only talking to them about the Friday night event.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

After the event, there was no interaction or contact. Is that correct?

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

The UCC, we have never interacted with the Speaker's office. We received a letter from him apologizing a week after, but we never spoke to the Speaker's office before or after the Zelenskyy visit.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's enough for me, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That's fine. Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau. Your intervention was four minutes and ten seconds.

Madam Mathyssen, you have five minutes—through the chair.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To clarify again, Mr. Michalchyshyn, you said the list was very general and you provided it when requested on that sort of generality. There was never any specific drilling down of names, and you don't know who was invited.

Can you also let us know about any background checks or any filters that you, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, had in terms of any of those lists? There was nothing on your end that was requested by PMO or that you do on a regular basis. There was nothing like that done.

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

Regarding the list, we're a small, non-profit organization. We have lists of donors, volunteers and member organizations, and those are the kinds of lists that I have at hand and that I was able to provide.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

What kind of timeline did you have to provide that kind of list? What turnaround time did you have?

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

I'm trying to remember. I think we had three or four days to compile from our folks in the Toronto area and Ontario who was potentially to be invited.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay. I wanted to drill down a little bit on what Mr. Balan said.

You commented that it's important for us to not overreact or follow with that knee-jerk reaction when we hear about and deal with these major incidents. I liked hearing about that reconciliation effort you were discussing with Mr. Kmiec.

Have there been similar efforts here in Canada to reconcile or go through these reconciliation efforts in terms of the difficult histories we deal with?

[Jars Balan]

Not on a formal basis...if you're talking about with the Jewish community. We, of course, interact with the Jewish community and the subject is still fraught. The whole subject of the Second World War is still fraught. I should say that, in Ukraine, there's been a lot of progress within Ukrainian society. The discussion of these sensitive issues is taking place, especially with the younger generation. They're a little bit removed from the immediate situation and see things more objectively and calmly.

However, I think this is something that we can work towards going forward: conducting these discussions in a respectful manner based on scholarly research and shared information to arrive at some kind of improvement in our dealings with this whole issue. There's always room for improvement; there's no doubt.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

We can always do better—that's true.

In terms of those reconciliation efforts, then.... I'm trying to combine a couple of questions that I have. I wanted to hear a bit more because, after all of this occurred and as we go forward, the Ukrainian community in Canada are dealing with a lot. What are the overall sentiments? What happened after and how are we moving past that now?

Also, I would like to know in terms of those reconciliation efforts, who do you think would be best to lead that? Within this committee, as we move forward with recommendations, how could we as the Government of Canada support those reconciliation efforts?

[Jars Balan]

I could answer that. Our Canadian institute of Ukrainian studies is in discussions, obviously, with the university administration, and they are in discussion with the Jewish community. We are working towards some kind of a series of research initiatives, discussions, on these topics. Nothing final has been decided yet, but there are signs that there is progress on that and I'm sure that things will move forward.

What we need to do is take this off the media front pages, because it's impossible to discuss complicated and sensitive issues like this in the daily media. It simply is impossible. We need to take down the temperature. We need to move it off to the side where calm discussions can take place. The academic arena is probably the best place for this.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In terms of both initial reactions and the reactions now from the greater community...?

[Jars Balan]

The community is frustrated. Ukraine is in an existential struggle at this moment, as we speak, and this is a distraction.

This is, as Mr. Michalchyshyn pointed out, an issue that has come back repeatedly because the Soviet government, and now the Russian government, have invested heavily in continuing to open these wounds and drive wedges. They've been doing this for decades and decades, since the end of the war.

It's very disappointing to see a situation arise again where this has blown up and is being continually fed, even to this day. Articles keep appearing in the paper, rehashing the same issues. They're not providing anything new but are just keeping the issue in the public because it serves Russian interests to create this narrative that the Ukrainian government is a Nazi regime, which is absurd and whitewashes the past. All of this sort of stuff is simply untrue, but it keeps coming up again and again.