Manoly R. Lupul. the Politics of Multiculturalism: A Ukrainian-Canadian Memoir

Manoly R. Lupul. The Politics of Multiculturalism: A Ukrainian-Canadian Memoir. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2005. xviii, 508 pp. Illustrations. Index. $34.95 hc. Manoly Lupul's book shows what many have known--that history would not exist if it were not written down, and also that the detail of history is often written in memoirs. Lupul's memoir tells us much about the policy of multiculturalism in Canada, particularly its early years, as Lupul was intimately connected with the pop icy's implementation through his work on the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism. He deals with the shifts in multicultural policy under the different political parties in power, with the efforts to entrench multiculturalism in the repatriated Canadian constitution in the early eighties, with multiculturalism, on the provincial and urban levels, with the political backlash against multiculturalism, and multiculturalism's decline, beginning in the late eighties and into the nineties. The discussion is, of course, in terms of Lupul's personal experience, but it contains much detail, the kind that one would not find anywhere else in the literature on the history of multiculturalism. As Roman Petryshyn, himself a veteran multiculturalist, points out in his succinct foreword to the book, for Lupul, the key to ethnocultural justice was a school curriculum that gave students a linguistic choice. The student could choose to learn as the second language the language of his or her ancestors. At the same time, the curriculum would portray Canada's cultural diversity. Lupul points out that in spite of the manifest statements on Canada as a multicultural society, the federal government considered multiculturalism to be second in importance to bilingualism and often showed resistance to a substantive multicultural program. The suggestions made by the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism, the federal government's own creation that Lupul chaired for a time, were often not followed. The attempts to bring together the federal and provincial multicultural bodies for any joint action were continuously resisted. Lupul points out how little power government advisory bodies have. He also shows how difficult it is to bring together different ethnic groups for common political action and what kind of ethnic leaders are most successful in gaining public assistance for their group's objectives. One of Lupul's most significant accomplishments was the establishment in 1976 of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. The memoir provides much of the nitty-gritty detail of the process of founding the Institute, the persons involved in its creation, the arguments that were presented for, as well as against, its establishment and its final success, not just as a regional, but also as a Ukrainian Canadian national institution. Likewise, Lupul describes the role he, as well as the main protagonists, played in the establishment of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He gives the history of the early stages of producing the English language Encyclopedia of Ukraine. He also says much about the introduction of bilingual programs in schools in Alberta and Manitoba, about the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (now Congress), and many other community efforts. …

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