By Richard Sanders

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Like her father Yuri Shymko, Lisa Shymko has spent decades serving and leading a variety of pro-Bandera émigré groups in Canada and around the world.

1985: Her 23-page antiSoviet essay on Ukrainian nationalism was published in Ukrainian Review,1 the global quarterly of Stepan Bandera’s faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). Her article was reprinted in ABN Correspondence, the magazine of the Banderite-led AntiBolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). Both were edited by Slava Stetsko, whose husband Yaroslav was then ABN president.

1986: Lisa Shymko co-coordinated the ABN’s global conference in Toronto. Its keynote speaker, Slava Stetsko, had just become ABN president. Other speakers included Nazi collaborators, and delegates from contras and mujahideen "freedom fighters."

1990: She attended the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe with the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (WCFU) delegation.2 It was led by Ukrainian Andrew Witer, who, as a Conservative MP in 1987, stopped quick passage of a bill to create the Deschênes Commission. Witer called this inquiry into war criminals "a witch-hunting brigade" that "would only cause anger and panic in East European communities."3 He was named 1988’s Person of the Year by the government-created Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC). Shymko was on WCFU’s team as "an accredited freelance journalist" for Echo, the government-funded League of Ukrainian Canadians’ (LUC) newspaper.

1991-2014: Executive Director, Canadian Friends of Ukraine. It promotes NATO expansion and Canada’s military, political, and economic ties to Ukraine. Its patrons include her father, and former PMs Stephen Harper and Paul Martin.

1992: She co-chaired the public relations subcommittee of a WCFU affiliate, the World Federation of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations.4

1992: She was Program Coordinator for the Journalists Exchange Project (JEP), funded by billionaire George Soros. Set up by Ukrainian-Canadian Roman Melnyk, then a CBC executive director and "long-time member of the Canadian Friends of Rukh executive," JEP used CBC and TVO staff to train journalists from postSoviet Ukraine.5

1993: She was Executive Director of Canadian Friends of Rukh - Toronto.6 Rukh arose from an antiSoviet movement (in which Chrystia Freeland was deeply involved) that led Ukraine’s successful fight to break up the USSR.

1999-2003: She organized visits by proNATO Ukrainian leaders to Canada such as: President L. Kravchuk (1999), Foreign Minister B. Tarasyuk (2000), ex-Prime Minister Y. Tymoshenko (2003).

2009: She received the Medal of Merit from Ukraine’s proNATO President Victor Yushchenko.

2012: The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal was presented to her by Canada’s Governor General.7

2012-17: Managing Director, Forum TV. (She was succeeded by Stephen Bandera, Winnipeg-born grandson of Stepan Bandera.8) She appeared in Forum TV shows with portraits of OUN military leaders Yevhen Konovalets and Roman Shukhevych.9  In October 2020 Forum TV aired a documentary glorifying the OUN(B), its UPA army, the ABN, leaders Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko, and various campaigns to promote their Banderite causes in Canada by LUC and its affiliates: LUC Women (LUCW) and the Ukrainian Youth Association.10

2013-16: She represented LUCW on UCC’s board of directors.11

2014-17: National president, LUCW.12