Defunding the Myths and Cults of
Cold War Canada:
Ongoing state support for East European
émigré groups with deep fascist roots
(Collaborators, Crusades and Coverups in an era of “truth and reconciliation”)

Issue #70, Press for Conversion! (Spring 2021)
Publication of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
Read a summary of this issue            See articles on the state funding of fascist-linked groups

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Defunding Cold War Canada

Table of Contents

Canada’s anti-Red, Cold War propaganda in context
L.B.Pearson: Godfather of Cda’s Cold War on the new "Red" enemy
Pearson College and NATO’s United World Colleges
The CBC’s “Voice of Canada” --  Weapon of Cold War propaganda
‘Voice of America’ & the CIA’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ & “Radio Liberty’
L.B.Pearson: Groomed by King, St. Laurent & the ‘Big antiRed Machine'
Mackenzie King gave shocking praise for Hitler until the eve of war in 1939
Liberal immigration: "None is too many" and Too many is not enough
Why did King have such adoring admiration for Nazi Germany's dictator?
King loved Hitler’s hate speech against “Jewish international Bolshevism”

“Captive Nations” and their "Black-Ribbon-Day" crusade
The ignored historical context of “Black Ribbon Day” (Aug. 23, 1939)
“Captive Nations”: Nazi trope to CIA meme to Cold-War trump card
The “Captive Nations” conceit in Nazi propaganda
John Diefenbaker: Strong voice at the UN for “Captive Nations” bloc
The BRD campaign: Canada’s top Cold War propaganda export
The late Cold War context of the BRD crusade
Ongoing propaganda of the former "Captive Nations":
    (1) Canada’s anti-communism monument and (2) the Magnitsky laws

Far-right roots:
East European émigré groups in Canada & abroad
Estonian Central Council in Canada
   Estonia glorifies Nazi veterans as ‘freedom fighters’
Estonian World Council
Lithuanian Canadian Community and the Lithuanian World Community
   Lithuanian nationalists now have 'freedom' to glorify Nazi heritage
Latvian National Federation in Canada
World Federation of Free Latvians
Slovak World Congress and the Canadian Slovak League
Council of Free Czechoslovakia & Czechoslovak Nat'l Assoc. of Cda.

Ukrainian linchpin of Cda’s postwar, far-right diaspora
Krakow and Ottawa, 1940: "A Tale of Two Cities," and two UCCs:
(1) Germany’s Ukrainian Central Cttee. and (2) Canada's Ukrainian Canadian Cttee.
The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations & World AntiCommunist League
Yaroslav Stetsko: Leader of proNazi Ukraine, 1941
State-funded centres of Canada’s Bandera cult and its Bandera youth
Roman Shukhevych: Assassin, terrorist, war criminal and cult hero
Getting them young: Instilling Ukrainian patriotism in children and youth
Plast recruited for Nazi’s Waffen SS Galicia; now recruits for Ukraine
From Chomiak to Freeland: “keep that flame alive”
Chrystia Freeland: “Accidental journalist” or groomed for the job?
Myron Kuropas: Downplaying Holocaust; Exaggerating Holodomor
Turning from same page: Freeland wrote for pro-fascist publications
Yuri Shymko: From Bandera youth leader, MPP & MP, to elder statesman
Lisa Shymko: In the footsteps of family, community & far-right, war heroes
Rubbing political shoulders with the ABN in Toronto

The struggle continues...                                            Abridged Index

Yuri Shymko:
From Bandera youth leader,
MPP and MP, to elder statesman

By Richard Sanders

(Click here for a PDF to see this article as it appears in print)

1970, Oct. 21: Shymko created the Canadian Freedom Council (CFC). These "Canadians of Eastern European origin" fought to "preserve democracy" by opposing "Marxist-Leninist propaganda."3 The CLLU had a "leading role" in the CFC’s first propaganda project: "Lenin Without Makeup."4

1971, Jan. 30: Joining a melee at the Soviet embassy where windows were broken, the "double police line was rushed" and "breached" and "fireworks emitting smoke were tossed by demonstrators," Shymko "turned his bull horn at the embassy and yelled ‘And listen, you Russian b———!’" No arrests were made. Later, "the European division of external affairs ... received Mr. Shymko and a delegation to hear their request for Canadian intercession" against the USSR.5

1971, Mar. 31: As a member of the CLLU’s national executive and its former president, Shymko addressed a joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons.6

1971, Jun. 2: Shymko was a member of the "founding committee" that formed Paul Hellyer’s Action Canada Party (ACP). Hellyer was the Assoc. Defence Minister under Liberal PM Louis St. Laurent in 1957, Pearson’s Defence Minister (1963-67) and Trudeau’s Transport Minister. (1968-69). After being an Independent MP (1972) and a Progressive Conservative MP (1972-76), Hellyer went public in 2005 with his beliefs in aliens and UFOs. Shymko, who was a "Liberal riding worker" for Hellyer in the 1960s, described ACP as "a useful vehicle for ethnic groups ... anxious for Canada to pursue a more anti-Communist policy abroad."7

1971, Oct. 9, 1971: When running as a Tory in the Ontario election, Shymko’s campaign workers were accused of "‘scurrilous antisemitic’ attacks" against NDP incumbent Dr. Morton Shulman.8 Shymko’s supporters conducted a "nasty, dirty," "vicious campaign of hatred," said Shulman, that included stealing hundreds of NDP signs, threatening the lives of canvassers, tossing a brick threw his car window, making "ugly calls" to his office, circulating a fake document linking him to the NDP’s radical Waffle movement "for an Independent Socialist Canada" and "going around telling everybody I’m a communist." Shymko, who strongly denied this, blamed Shulman for resorting to "filthy muckraking tactics."9

1973: Shymko’s book For this was I Born, was published by proBandera Ucrainica Research Institute, then housed with the UYA, and CLLU’s weekly paper, at Toronto’s Ukrainian Cultural Centre. His book was promoted (1975-81) by Ukrainian Review,10 a global Banderite journal edited by Slava Stetsko. She led the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) after her husband Yaroslav died in 1986. Ukrainian Review was "published in cooperation with" the CLLU, which distributed it in Canada.11

1973, Aug. 24-27: Shymko spoke at the ABN’s global conference in London, UK, to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Its keynote speaker, ABN president Yaroslav Stetsko, also led Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). Shymko "conveyed greetings to the participants from John G. Diefenbaker, former Prime Minister of Canada."12

1973-78: Shymko was Secretary-General of the OUN(B) and its top global front, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians13 (WCFU), which is now called the World Ukrainian Congress.

1978, Fall: On Oct. 20, Shymko chaired a press event at the UN telling it to "dismantle the Soviet Russian Empire." His proclamation was signed by global groups whose founders and leaders included Nazi collaborators: the Estonian World Council, Confederation of Free Byelorussians, Lithuanian World Community, World Federation of Free Latvians and the WCFU.14 Shymko noted that his initiative "had the support of all three parties—the NDP, Liberal and Conservative."15 On Nov. 23, he and the presidents of the five far-right diaspora groups submitted their demands to the UN's Secretary General, Kurt Waldheim. (It later came to light that that Waldheim had served in the Nazi's Wehrmacht from 1942 to 1945, and that he had reached the rank of Oberleutnant.)

1981, Nov. 7-8: Shymko spoke at an ABN-Canada Conference in Toronto.16 (See also.)

1983, Jun. 25: Shymko hosted an "International Affairs Seminar, sponsored by the ABN."17 Held in the Ontario Legislature, its main speaker was Colonel Albert Koen, treasurer of the US Council for World Freedom (USCWF), the US branch of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL).18 Other speakers included ABN-Canada chair Orest Steciw, and Progressive Conservative MPs (John Gamble and Michael Wilson). Another speaker was Jay Parker,19 a Black member of USCWF’s board.20 In the 1960-70s, Parker helped lead a pro-Vietnam War group, Young Americans for Freedom. After working for Reagan’s administration, he was an advisor to the Christian right’s American Freedom Coalition.21 This front of the Unification Church (the "Moonies") was created by South Korea’s CIA. It worked with the WACL, Reagan and George Bush Sr., and helped fund and supply the contras.

1983, Nov. 16: Shymko had Charlton Heston at his Toronto fundraising dinner. The Reagan-loving actor, who later led the National Rifle Association (1998-2003), used Shymko’s event to "condemn ... the Communist regime’s repression of Solidarity in Poland" and the "horrors" of communism in Ukraine.22 Heston said he was "pleased" that PM Pierre Trudeau "issued a firm stand of support for the NATO alliance."23 Shymko paid Heston US$10,000 "for a speech so pro-nuclear armament," said The National Post, that "Tory cabinet ministers and civic leaders were squirming with embarrassment." Shymko "hit the jackpot," it said, selling $150 tickets24 to raise the 2020 equivalent of $250,000.

1986, Nov. 20-22: During the ABN’s global Campaign Freedom Conference (CFC), Toronto, Shymko got the Silver Medal for "outstanding work in promoting the ideals and goals of ABN."25 As part of the CFC he held an event at the Ontario Legislature for ABN pres. Slava Stetsko. (Yuri Shymko’s daughter Lisa Shymko was a CFC coordinator.)

2004, Nov. 25: "Shymko and [former Polish leader Lech] Walesa stood side by side ... [in] Kyiv’s Independence Square... addressing one million ... during the Orange Revolution" demanding "Let Ukraine be Ukrainian."26 This is virtually identical to the racist, "Ukraine-for-Ukrainians" slogan used by Bandera’s OUN (before, during and since WWII). Wanting Ukraine as an "ethnic nation state" "‘purified’ of non-Ukrainian inhabitants," said historian Grzegorz Rossolinski, the OUN-B elevated "ethnic violence" to one its "central concepts."27

2012, Aug. 15: When LUC leaders met Harper’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay, Shymko represented LUC’s National Executive.28

2013, Nov. 22: The Toronto-based International Council in Support of Ukraine (ICSU) met at Kiev’s Bandera Center for National Revival and made Shymko its chair. The ICSU unites proBandera groups around the world.29 The meeting took place the day after Ukraine’s first Euromaidan protest which led to a US-backed coup that installed a government rife with neoNazis.

2016, June 2: Started a petition urging MPs to pass Magnitsky Legislation.30

Chris Alexander (left) at Toronto's Ukrainian Cultural Centre being endorsed by Yuri Shymko (at podium). Note the portrait of Stepan Bandera (top right). (That Bandera portrait also appears here.)

2016, Oct. 1: When Shymko received the Taras Shevchenko Medal, LUC’s Ukrainian Youth Association proudly said he was one of its members, and praised him for receiving the UCC’s "highest form of recognition."

2017, Mar. 19: Under Bandera’s photo at Etobicoke’s Ukrainian centre, Shymko backed Conservative leadership hopeful Chris Alexander as "the only candidate with a clear & consistent policy on Ukraine."32 (Alexander is Canada's former ambassador to Afghanistan.)

Oleh Romanyshyn:
Oleh organized ABN-Canada’s 1981 conference. His uncle, Yaroslav Stetsko (the top deputy of fascist Ukrainian WWII leader Stepan Bandera), was its honoured, keynote speaker. Then an associate editor of the global, Banderite quarterly, Ukrainian Review, Oleh worked under its chief editor, his aunt Slava Stetsko. Oleh later become League of Ukrainian Canadians’ (LUC) president and edited its paper, Ukrainian Echo. He has served as a Board Director of many Banderite-led groups including the Ucrainica Research Institute, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), the Ukrainian Cultural Centre (Toronto) and the World Ukrainian Congress. Oleh’s activism began in the early 1960s. After their postwar escape to Argentina, his parents came to Canada in 1960 and he began his lifelong role in the Plast scouting movement. He soon led the antiSoviet Ukrainian Canadian Students’ Union and the global Central Union of Ukrainian Students, 1970-73.

Orest Steciw:
Under the UCC’s patronage, Orest began his antiSoviet activism as a university student in 1970 and is a longtime member of the Banderite Ukrainian Youth Association of Toronto. Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, he played key roles in the World AntiCommunist League and the ABN. As chair of ABN-Canada, he spoke at national and global ABN conferences in Toronto (1981, ‘86, ‘90, ‘92). He was chief organizer of its global 1990 conference and was made executive chair of the worldwide ABN at its 1992 event. Active in LUC since 1980, and its president (2011-17), he is now on its executive committee. President of the Ucrainica Research Institute and executive of Toronto’s Ukrainian Cultural Centre, Orest received the UCC’s top medal for "community development" in 2019.

Learn more....  You may also be interested in these resources...

Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Captive Canada
Renditions of the
Peaceable Kingdom at War,
from Narratives of WWI
and the Red Scare to the
Mass Internment of Civilians

(Or, how we learned to stop worrying,
keep calm and carry on loving the
myths that define and confine us.)
 

Read the introductory article:
"The Canada Syndrome,
a Captivating Mass Psychosis"
 

Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Fictive Canada
Indigenous Slaves
and the Captivating Narratives
of a Mythic Nation
 

Read the introductory article:
"True Crime Stories and
the Politics of Literary Escapism:
Canada as a Fiction in the
Imperial Genre"

Watch the COAT website
for news about....

  (1) an upcoming book by Richard Sanders

with the
  working title...

(2)  PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION to
Stop Canadian government
funding of groups that
glorify Nazi collaborators

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