Why support for Ukraine runs deep in Saskatchewan

Dozens showed up in front of the Lesya Ukrainka statue on the University of Saskatchewan campus for a rally in support of Ukraine on Thursday afternoon.

“They're suffering,” said Jensen Beaudoin, president of the U of S Ukrainian students association, which is collecting donations and giving the funds to the Red Cross.

The amount of support shown for Ukraine in Saskatchewan is a testament to the long, rich history of Ukrainians in Saskatchewan.

“All my family is from here, but my family didn't move from Ukraine — it was from the waves before generations before,” said Beaudoin.

Nadya Foty-Oneschuk also attended the rally.

She serves as interim director for the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian heritage at St. Thomas More College.

“Many of the people that were here today are descendants of those people, and I think it is because of their bravery and their courage that we have been able to study and learn about Ukraine and Ukrainians at a place like the University of Saskatchewan,” Foty-Oneschuk said.

The administrator for the Ukrainian Museum of Canada Carol Cisecki says Ukrainians first immigrated to the area in 1891.

“There was a minister in Canada called Clifford Sifton, who wanted to populate the prairies with agrarian immigrants,” she said. “He wanted the farmers to come and to settle the prairies, and this appealed to the Ukrainians.”

She says more Ukrainians immigrated to Saskatchewan and Canada when changes were made to the Immigration Act in 1923, in the years leading up to and after World War II, and again after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

According to the 2016 census from Stats Canada, 143,700 Saskatchewan residents were of Ukrainian heritage — just over 13 per cent of the population in the province.

“Everyone, I'm sure, knows a Ukrainian. They know how hardworking they are, they know that they are leaders in the community,” said Cisecki.

"We have a lot of anxiety, because there is war in our country, in our homeland. It's devastating to see the beauty of the country being destroyed by what we see as a senseless war."