OP-ED By Taras Kuzio, Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Apr 7, 2004

The myth of influence is probably the biggest one in the Diaspora, and it can be examined by dividing the question into several components.

MEDIA BLACKOUT

First, there's the media.

Generally, the Canadian media is uninterested in Ukraine. The national English-language media, based in Toronto, (the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post) rarely publish feature material about Ukraine, whether editorials, feature articles or commentary pieces. I cannot recall a single instance when a former high-ranking Canadian government minister wrote an opinion piece on Ukraine in a Canadian newspaper in the manner in which former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright did in the New York Times of March 8, 2004. In three years in Canada I have published one opinion piece in the Globe and Mail; usually when I've offered my ideas or articles, they've been met by widespread disinterest.

In contrast to the U.S. and British media, the Canadian media didn't put correspondents in Kyiv after Ukraine gained independence. In the 1990s the five British quality newspapers (the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times) and the Economist magazine all had Kyiv stringers. The Washington Post, Washington Times and Los Angeles Times did, too.

What about the Canadian media? Compare the paucity of information on Ukraine published in the Canadian media with the huge volume of it that has appeared in the U.S.

Which raises the question: Why couldn't Canada's Diaspora help fund young journalists to work as Kyiv stringers for the Toronto press?

BUSINESS ISN'T GOOD

Another part of the myth has to do with business relationships.

Canadian business links to Ukraine are few; Canada doesn't even feature among the leading foreign investors in Ukraine. For the record, Ukraine's seven top foreign investors in order of size are the U.S., Britain, the Virgin Islands, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.

An institution to promote business ties between Canada and Ukraine did exist in the 1990s, but it has long been closed. Chambers of commerce lobbying for business links with Ukraine still exist in London and Washington DC. One wonders why the Canadian version vanished.

ACADEMIC INERTIA

In Canadian academia, meanwhile, there have been three problems regarding Ukraine.

First, there's been a general disinterest in contemporary Ukraine, at the same time as there's been too much concentration on culture, Ukrainian history and Ukrainian-Canadian history. This focus on non-political issues indirectly influences how the Ukrainian-Canadian Diaspora views Ukraine, because issues of contemporary political science get subordinated to issues like language, for example.

This is as true of the main academic body in Canadian academia, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), as it is of supporting institutions in the Ukrainian-Canadian community. In Canadian universities, the CIUS has preferred supporting teaching fellowships in Ukrainian art to financing courses on contemporary Ukraine.

There is widespread disinterest in contemporary Ukrainian issues in institutions such as the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTScH) and the Ukrainian Professional and Businesspersons Association (UPBA). Until the 1980s the UPBA was heavily involved in contemporary Ukrainian issues, helping raise funds for the Ukrainian Studies chair at the University of Toronto. Since the 1990s its interest in political topics has dwindled, and today its primary focus is on organizing social events for its members.

There is no Ukrainian lobby in Ottawa. Incredibly, the headquarters of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress are in Winnipeg, which is a three-hour flight from the Canadian capital. That's like putting a group meant to lobby the Rada in Paris. Ottawa has no equivalents to the Washington Group of Ukrainian-American Professionals.

Second, Canada has only two academic centers devoted to post-Soviet affairs: one at Carleton University in Ottawa and the other at the University of Toronto. Of these two, the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) at the University of Toronto is the more influential and active in contemporary Ukrainian studies.

At CREES, Ukrainian studies since 2001 have been funded by two private foundations. The Petro Jacyk Foundation helps fund visiting fellows from Ukraine and seminars and conferences on contemporary Ukraine.

The Wolodymyr George Danyliw Foundation funds an annual lecture series and a political science course on Ukraine. The course, now in its second year, is taught by myself and represents the only political science course on Ukraine in the whole of Canada. It attracts an average of 20 undergraduate and graduate students.

Ukrainian-Canadians are usually stunned to find out that there is only one course on contemporary Ukraine offered in Canada. Many are equally surprised that CIUS does not exhibit any interest in this field, especially as there is a demand.

How does this affect Diaspora views of contemporary Ukraine? No courses on contemporary Ukraine mean there are no students entering graduate programs in that field. No PhD students mean that no political scientists specializing in Ukraine apply for professorships in Canadian political science departments. No political scientists with an interest in Ukraine mean there are no courses being taught in that area, and no academics writing articles about contemporary Ukraine or being interviewed by the media about it. This also means that the Canadian government lacks experts to consult in formulating its policies towards Ukraine.

Third, there's limited federal government support. The Canadian government has either not been lobbied by Ukrainian-Canadians or is itself uninterested in funding academic positions in contemporary Ukrainian studies. By comparison, in Britain, which has a minimally influential and relatively small Ukrainian community of 30,000, the government funded the creation of four tenured political science positions on Ukraine in 1996-1999 (at Birmingham and Essex Universities, University College London, and the London School of Economics).

Canada's one million Ukrainians have obtained no government support for any single academic positions on contemporary Ukraine. Canada has only one tenured position in political science in Ukraine (at the University of Ottawa), funded by a private endowment.

Canadian academics are rarely brought to Ottawa for policy seminars on Ukraine and the CIS. In the U.S., such seminars are held many times a year, and the government provides funding for post-Soviet research (for example, at the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research).

BRINGING THE DIASPORA INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

In Canada, the action is in Toronto and Ottawa. That the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has a head office in Winnipeg shows to what degree Ukrainian-Canadians are stuck in the last century.

It is also unclear why the World Congress of Ukrainians continues to be based in Toronto. This was logical during the Cold War, when the Canadian Diaspora was both important and influential. But today it no longer is. The action today is in Washington DC (the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO), New York (the UN) and Brussels (NATO, the EU).

Maybe it's time to contemplate a geographic move, to accompany the Canadian Diaspora's psychological shift from the 19th into the 21st century.