Canada NewsWire (press release), Canada
June 12 2008
Toronto District School Board insensitive to Stalinist genocide
Ukrainian community to picket Board meeting
TORONTO, June 12 /CNW/ – A special meeting of the Toronto District
School Board (TDSB), scheduled for Thursday, June 12 at 6:30 p.m.,
will be picketed by the Ukrainian community. The community is shocked
by the exclusion from the grade 11 curriculum of the Holodomor –
Famine Genocide of 1932-33 in Ukraine that claimed up to 10 million
lives.
"I was appalled by the lack of interest and respect shown to our
community by participating trustees," said Valentina Kuryliw, a
teacher with over 35 years’ experience, referring to a meeting of the
Program and Services Committee held on June 2. "My parents and other
famine survivors came to Canada to escape the ‘show trials’ of the
Soviet Union and this charade was much worse, because it happened in
Canada."
Community representatives are demanding that the TDSB include this
Soviet-perpetrated genocide of the 20th century in the core curriculum
of the new course for 2008-09 titled Genocide: Historical and
Contemporary Implications.
"A tragedy that claimed up to 10 million lives and which affects 1.2
million Canadians of Ukrainian descent is surely worthy of inclusion
in the curriculum of one of the largest school boards in Canada," said
Markian Shwec, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Toronto
Branch.
The trustees will meet at the TDSB office, 5050 Yonge Street, Toronto.
For further information: Valentina Kuryliw, (416) 242-5361, (416)
605-5361; Marika Szkambara, (416) 243-2004, (416) 875-2004; Andrew Melnyk,
(905) 895-9414