In the most populated Canadian province of Ontario, the study of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine was added to the compulsory school curriculum. 10th graders will study this genocide starting in 2025.
This was reported by the Minister of Education of Ontario Stephen Lecce.
"We stand for Canadian values. We are proud to announce that all school children will be studying the Holodomor and the brutal consequences of extremist political ideologies such as Communism and Marxism. The famine against the Ukrainian people was an act of genocide, and it is the duty of Canadians to remember that," Lecce emphasized.
During the speech, Lecce also announced the allocation of $300 000 to the Canada-Ukraine Fund to continue the National Holodomor Awareness Tour.
According to Statistics Canada, during the 2021 census, approximately 1.26 million people (almost 3.5% of the countryʼs population) indicated that they have Ukrainian roots, including more than 342 000 residents of Ontario.
What is the Holodomor?
The Holodomor of 1932-1933 was an artificial mass famine that led to millions of human casualties in the countryside on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. Then 7 million people died of hunger. In Ukraine and the world, the Holodomor is perceived as an act of genocide of the Ukrainian people, inspired by the government of the USSR. In 1928, the Soviet authorities introduced forced grain harvesting, when all or most of the grain was taken from farmers at significantly reduced prices. At the same time, the "liquidation" of the wealthiest farms and collectivization took place. Due to inefficient collective farm management and the onset of famine in Ukraine, opposition to the totalitarian regime grew. In the seven months of 1932, 56% of all anti-government demonstrations in the USSR took place in the country. Then the Soviet authorities decided to organize an artificial famine in order to reduce the resistance of the population by destroying part of it.