Peter Goldring remembers holodomor in the house of commons

November 26, 2009

Ottawa – In the House of Commons today Peter Goldring, Member of Parliament for Edmonton East and Vice-Chair of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Committee, spoke of the need to remember the atrocities of the past to ensure similar events do not happen in the future.

“Today we remember Ukraine’s Holodomor- truly genocide, a crime against humanity, the world had chosen to forget,” Mr. Goldring said. “By remembering we help the world guard against those who would repeat such genocide.”

More than seven million people died in 1932-33 in a forced famine imposed on Ukraine by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. For decades the Soviet government denied that the Holodomor (Ukrainian for “murder by starvation) had taken place.

On April 23, 1999, Peter Goldring was the first Member of Parliament to refer in the House of Commons to the Holodomor as a genocide.  He also spoke out forcibly internationally in Kazakhstan against Russia’s objections, which resulted in Ukraine’s Holodomor resolution passing with majority support of the OSCE’s 56 member states in July 2008. He is the former Chair, now Vice-Chair of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group.


The full text of Mr. Goldring’s statement reads:

“Mr. Speaker,

Today we remember Ukraine’s Holodomor – truly genocide, a crime against humanity that the world had chosen to forget.
 
More than seven million souls perished in Ukraine in a forced famine created by Stalin’s despotic 1930s regime.
 
This annihilation was not caused by the ravages of nature, nor the scourge of pestilence, nor by the obliteration of war, but by the hand of a dictator consumed with hatred.
 
Why mankind wreaks death and destruction on its own in such unimaginable numbers might not even have the understanding of it by the Almighty in the Hereafter.
 
The millions of Ukrainians, starved to death in the “Breadbasket of Europe,” are being remembered in ceremonies across Canada and around the world.
 
We remember today the victims of the Holodomor, of the dark side of humanity, and by remembering we help the world guard against those who would repeat such genocide.”