Members of Parliament and Senators,

Most Reverend Fathers,

Votres Excellences,

Mesdames et Messieurs,

Шановні пані та панове!

I would like to thank all of you for being here today, honouring the memory of the victims of Holodomor-Genocide of 1932- 33 in Ukraine.

I would also like to thank Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Minister Jason Kenney for their support.

Holodomor was one of the greatest atrocities in the history of humankind, the result of deliberate actions of the communist totalitarian regime aimed at physical elimination of millions of Ukrainians.

In the fall of 1932 the authorities began total expropriation of food from the so-called ‘debtors,’ who did not comply with the heightened plans of bread expropriations. Everyone in Ukraine fell into that category.

Trade was totally banned, to prevent peasants from buying or selling bread. All of it was to be surrendered for free to the state.

And those regions and villages that “sabotaged” the expropriations were put on the so-called “black slates”, which meant a military blockade and a total confiscation of livestock and fowl, entire stocks of foodstuffs, all grains for planting and all edible things, such as onions. Being put on a ‘black slate’ equaled a death sentence. The fact that many of those villages no longer exist on the map of today’s Ukraine speaks for itself.

The so-called “law on five spikes of wheat” passed in 1932 made the stealing of a handful of grains a capital offense, with punishment readily administered by firing squads.

The territories of Ukraine and Kuban were surrounded by military cordons to block deliveries of food to Ukraine and to block the exit of people seeking food.

Between 7 and 10 million people died. Ukraine lost almost a quarter of its population. 17 people died each minute, 1000 each hour, almost 25,000 each day. 11,000 villages were deserted. Swollen and losing their minds from hunger, people turned insane after they ate their own children to stay alive.

This is what genocide is.

For those who have not lived through it, the magnitude of this tragedy is impossible to comprehend. For decades we could not speak about Holodomor, but a memory of it lives in every Ukrainian family.

Nous sommes très reconnaissants au Canada qui a reconnu la tragédie du HOLODOMOR. Il y a des monuments aux victimes du HOLODOMOR à Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Windsor, Hawkestone.

Nous apprécions hautement le fait que le 19 juin 2003 le Senat du Canada a voté la motion des Sénateurs Raynell Andreychuk et Terry Stratton et reconnu l’HOLODOMOR comme le génocide ukrainien. Nous apprécions aussi des motions pareilles soumîtes à l‘examen au Chambre des Communes. Et aujourd’hui nous avons entendu les déclarations sur l’HOLODOMOR faites par les Membres du Parlement Peter Goldring and Borys Wrzesnewskyj.

En 2003 le Canada était un des co-auteurs de la Déclaration commune des pays-membres de l’ONU sur le 70 (soixante-dixième) anniversaire de HOLODOMOR et en 2007 –  de la Résolution de l‘UNESCO sur la commémoration des victimes de HOLODOMORÉ qui a été adoptée a l’unanimité.

We count on Canada’s continued leadership and support in achieving international recognition of the tragedy of Holodomor as genocide against Ukrainian people. And we also hope that the House of Commons will follow the lead of the Senate of Canada in recognizing the Holodomor as genocide.

The Year 2008 in Ukraine has been declared the year of remembrance of Holodomor. Let us all remember about this tragedy, which was the tragedy of not only Ukraine, but the entire humankind. Let us all tell the story Holodomor – of the horrific premeditated and precisely inflicted slaughter of millions of our families, in a manner that conveys not only what happened but also the enormity, the agony and the horror of what happened on the direct order of the Stalin regime. Let us never forget about it so that nothing like this would ever happen again.

Thank you.