Digital Literacy: Exploring Russian and Ukrainian History in Canada

22 August 1914

War Measures Act Adopted by Parliament, Leading to Internment of Ukrainian Canadians

17 April 1913 First Ukrainian Canadian Elected to Provincial Office Ukrainian Canadians originally entered politics at the municipal level. They came to control elected and administrative organizations in rural areas. The first Ukrainian elected to a provincial legislature was Andrew Shandro (born 3 April 1886; died 13 January 1942). Shandro arrived in Edmonton with his family in 1889. In April 1913, he was elected to the Alberta legislature as a Liberal for the riding of Whitford. He also served in the First World War and retained his seat in the 1917 election due to legislation that allowed service members to be acclaimed. He won his seat again in 1921 but lost in 1926.

During the First World War, approximately 80,000 people, most of them Ukrainian Canadians from provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were forced to register as “enemy aliens,” report to the police on a regular basis and carry government-issued identity papers at all times. Those naturalized for less than 15 years lost the right to vote. The Canadian government also imprisoned 8,579 Ukrainian Canadians — men, women and children — in internment camps across the country. ( See Ukrainian Internment in Canada.) Many of the men were used as labour in the country’s frontier wilderness, particularly in national parks such as Banff. Personal wealth and property were confiscated.

1908 Peter Verigin establishes Doukhobor community in BC When they first immigrated to Canada, Russian Doukhobors lived communally in Saskatchewan. However, in the early 1900s, the Canadian government changed homesteading regulations. No longer were the Doukhobors allowed to collectively own their land. In addition, when asked to pledge an oath of allegiance to the Crown — a condition for the final granting of homestead titles — the Doukhobors refused and their homestead entries were cancelled. As a result, in 1908, 5,000 to 6,000 Doukhobors followed their leader, Peter Verigin, to southern British Columbia. Here they lived on land held under Verigin’s name.