Mr. Speaker, Ukrainian Canadian settlers transformed the bush of the North-West Territories into the golden wheat fields of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. They are one of Canada's founding peoples, yet during World War I over 5,000 were interned in concentration camps, 80,000 declared enemy aliens and over 100,000 disenfranchised by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Borden.
On August 24, 2005 the Liberal government signed a historic agreement for $12.5 million with the Ukrainian Canadian community for the acknowledgement, commemoration and education of this dark episode in our common history.The ACE program was to be administered by the Shevchenko Foundation. The Conservative government not only cancelled this agreement, incredibly it claims it did not exist.
The Conservative government likes to reannounce Liberal programs under new names. Will the government finally reannounce this program while 98-year-old Mary Haskett, the sole survivor of the internment, is still with us?