Today, November 28th, Minister Lecce announced that the Ontario government mandated the study of the 1932-33 Holodomor – a man-made famine orchestrated by the Soviet regime in Ukraine 90 years ago, to be included in Grade 10 Canadian history course beginning in September of 2025.
This is a momentous news for the Ukrainian Canadian community that lobbied tirelessly to make this brutal campaign of Joseph Stalin against Ukrainian identity and existence that claimed millions of lives, known. Canada was the first country in the world that in 2008 recognized Holodomor as genocide of Ukrainians, and now, including Holodomor in the curriculum will ensure our youth learns about adverse consequences of extreme political ideologies like those of totalitarian communist regime, in the classroom.
“The rise of extremism, including Communism and Marxism, are direct threats to our democracy, social cohesion and values as Canadians,” said Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education. “I am determined to strengthen education on our shared values, including by mandating learning about the horrors of state-sponsored persecution of Ukrainians in the Holodomor in Grade 10 Canadian History. This learning will help ensure students are never bystanders in the face of such horrors, understand the danger of totalitarianism and help safeguard fundamental Canadian values of freedom and democracy over communist extremism.”
The Canada-Ukraine Foundation is also deeply grateful to the Government of Ontario for reinforcing this learning by investing $400,000 to support the Holodomor National Awareness Tour and the Holodomor Mobile Classroom (HMC) that will enable the HMC to travel to schools across the province and engage students in grades 6 to 12 through the experiential learning directly linked to the Ontario curriculum.
The Canada-Ukraine Foundation developed Holodomor National Awareness Tour in 2014 to foster education and bring awareness of the Holodomor to Canadians. To date, the Holodomor Mobile Classroom engaged over 70,000 people across Canada and had visited more than 500 schools.
The Holodomor Mobile Classroom is a unique learning environment that uses cutting-edge technology to fully immerse and assist students in learning about the Holodomor in a digital classroom on wheels.
The fusion of technologies and interactive content that was developed for this program, defines an entirely new way to conduct lessons allowing both the facilitator and students to actively engage with each other.
This year, the Holodomor Mobile Classroom traveled Eastern and Western Canada, and just last week, was in Ottawa to mark the 90th anniversary of Holodomor on the Parliament Hill.
We are very grateful to the Donors who made the travels of the Holodomor Mobile Classroom possible over the years and look forward to many more thanks to the support of the Government of Ontario!
Today’s announcement ensures that students will learn about the unknown chapter in Ukrainian history, and that they will continue to embrace and value democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law that Canada holds in the highest regard.
Background
To learn more about the Holodomor National Awareness Tour (HNAT): https://holodomortour.ca/
