Calgary vandals damaged plaque recalling internment
By Letter to the Editor on July 8, 2021.
Editor:
Those who vandalized a Ukrainian Catholic church in Calgary also damaged a historical plaque recalling the victims of Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914-1920.
Thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were unjustly branded as “enemy aliens” and many were forced to do heavy labour, including in the national parks at Banff and Jasper.
Some died in captivity and were buried in unmarked graves, including those transported to Spirit Lake in Quebec’s Abitibi region. To this day Ottawa has ignored our repeated pleas for restoring this internee cemetery, doing precisely nothing to help hallow the remains of the men and children left there.
The hooligans who spray-painted our plaque at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church obviously know little about Canadian history and demonstrated only cowardice as they perpetrated this hate crime.
Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD
Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Kingston, Ontario
-1
hate to say it, but a fine line is being tread between orange shirts and orange jumpsuits.