Arsonist ex-Ukrainian government minister assisted Canadian government-funded Nazi propaganda bus tour

The Trade Unions Building in Odessa burning in 2014, after neo-Nazis and other right-wing forces, counting Stepan Kubiv among them, set it on fire. 42 Ukrainians opposed to the Maidan coup were killed in the fire. (Source: http://maidantranslations.com)

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Written by: Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba and Aidan Jonah

ATIP requests and an interview with Ukrainian economist Roman Gubriienko have revealed that a Canadian government-funded program spreading Nazi propaganda enlisted an arsonist and ex-Ukrainian government minister to assist it.

The Canadian federal and Ontario provincial government poured millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars into a bus tour which spread a myth from Ukrainian Nazi collaborators about a supposed genocide committed by the Soviet Union (prior to industrialization and the Second World War) to Canadian schoolchildren. Notably, Chrystia Freeland, known for her familial ties with Ukrainian Nazi collaborators as well, had been spreading said propaganda with Stephan Kubiv.

Kubiv is an economist and ex-Ukrainian government minister mired in a corruption scandal in Ukraine. Kubiv was found liable for damages towards the Odessa Trade Union Building, where the fire that destroyed the building killed 42 pro-constitutional union activists during the Euromaidan coup of 2014.


The Canada-Ukraine Foundation’s Bus Tour

ATIP documents revealed extensive information on the Canadian Heritage Ministry’s funding, which totaled $1.45 million. This grant isn’t titled on the Government of Canada’s grants and contributions database, and was only discovered via ATIP requests. The ATIP documents showed its intended purpose, and the Ontario government-controlled Trillium Foundation’s additional $750 000 grant to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, for a staggering total of over $2.2 million over three years.

The project ran from December 2017 to March 2020.

Under the guise of “promoting Ukrainian culture, diversity, and tolerance”, the Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF) used the funds to spread a fictional documentary promoting a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator inspired myth: the “Holodomor”. This is the myth of a man-made and deliberate genocide of Ukrainians by Joseph Stalin, Georgian Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The documentary was called “Hunger for Truth”, courtesy of the late state propagandist and ex-journalist Rhea Clyman, who pioneered using the special effects and tabloid journalism that characterizes every anti-communist media outlet today.

This propaganda was spread to schoolchildren with the assistance of the rightist Doug Ford and Liberal Wynne governments in Ontario. The tour spread the propaganda to schools throughout Canada from the period of 2017 up until 2021 via means of a “Holodomor” bus, colloquially called the “mobile museum”. 

This “Holodomor Bus” won Gold awards for the Health Care and Education category at the Digital Signage Expo, thus cementing the Digital Signage Expo’s status as a tool of reaction for the state, much like the Nobel Peace Prize and the Golden Globe Awards.

Software was also developed, called “Breaking The Sound Barrier: Raising Voices Into Action”. Children during 2018-2020 were playing with the software and had Nazi collaborator propaganda etched into their mind.

Many children were even in the presence of a convicted arsonist, kleptocrat, and accessory to murder: Stephan Kubiv. This was through an invitation extended to Kubiv, to attend a showcase of this “mobile museum” by the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, in November of 2018, while massacres of the people of the Donbass, and the blockade of Crimea were taking place.

Who Is Stepan Kubiv?

Roman Gubriienko, a renowned Ukrainian economist known for researching the effects of privatization of land on the national economy, took questions from The Canada Files via an interpreter, on Stephan Kubiv and his origins. Gubriienko explained that Stephan Kubiv is an ultra-right wing neo-liberal who idolizes the leader of the most violent and genocidal wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Stephen Bandera.

According to Gubriienko, from his time in university between 1988-1990, Kubiv identified closely with the “heritage” of Ukrainian nationalism. He infiltrated and rose to the leadership of the Ukrainian Komsomol (the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’s youth league) and publicly advocated nationalist ideas, such as the spread of the “Holodomor” myth and elevation of genocidal maniac Stepan Bandera.

His nationalist ideology was explicitly showcased in November 2021, in his capacity as people’s deputy of the 9th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada since “independence”. Kubiv represented the European Solidarity party, when he spoke in celebration of the public consecration of a Stepan Bandera statue in Lviv. He, as well as others said that the erection of the statue was “a worthy response to those political forces that conduct anti-Ukrainian, active politics”, in reference to the entire left wing of Ukraine opposed to the Nazi ideology.

According to Gubriienko, prior to Kubiv’s acts of arson, he ran the bank of PKO Bank Polski in 2008-2009 (of which he was dismissed from his position for allegedly looting), then emerged as the elected people’s deputy of Ukraine’s 7th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada since “independence”. Kubiv was representing the right wing, neo-liberal, and pro-European party Batkivschyna. This party was led by insurrectionist Yulia Tymoshenko, who was arrested and imprisoned for tax evasion, embezzlement, and abuse of office, and released thereafter by the strongly neo-Nazi influenced Maidan-coup government that took power in 2014. During the Euromaidan, Kubiv was designated as the “commandant” of the Odessa Trade Unions House, and used his position to facilitate the subsequent burning down of the building, which led to the tragic murder of 42 pro-constitutional union activists.

Kubiv, even by the strongly neo-Nazi influenced Maidan-coup government, was found liable for the arson, and ordered by the court to pay 8 million Ukrainian Hryvni (approximately $292 000 CAD) for his responsibility in burning down the building. It should be no surprise, however, that neither he nor his co-conspirators were charged for accessory to murder post-Euromaidan coup, since the primary culprits are now in power.

After the Euromaidan coup, Kubiv was appointed to the head of the board of the National Bank by the Verkhovna Rada, from February to June 2014, where he was also a member of the National Security and Defense Council.

From April 2016 to August 2019, Kubiv, then-Minister of Economic Development and Trade, publicly advocated for and implemented the streamlined sale of national assets and public land. This behavior was reminiscent of his time overseeing the collapse of PKO Bank Polski, which the International Monetary Fund incidentally favoured. The policies he implemented included:

Even after leaving the Minister of Economic Development and Trade position, Kubiv’s influence in the government and seat in the Verkhovna Rada gave him enough influence to bring forward the Transfer to Concession of State Property legislation. Its stated goal of exporting raw materials instead of finished products, in essence, would enable de-industrialization and re-colonization by Europe via privatization of the ports and other strategic infrastructure.

Breaking Down the Holodomor Myth and Its Origins

There is an incredible irony in how Stephan Kubiv opposed the blockade on the Donbass, according to Roman Gubriienko, as the situation deteriorated into Russia’s Special Military Operation. Roman Gubriienko explained and cited a local Ukrainian news article that had Stephan Kubiv comparing the blockade on Crimea and the Donbass to “Stalinism”. In Ukrainian Nationalist and Eastern Baltic Nationalist folklore, to cover up Nazi collusion (in conspiracy with the rest of the NATO states), communism was a conspiracy to ethnically subjugate the Ukrainians and other nationalities in the Baltics.

The myth begins with the “Holodomor” and extends from there, to false allegations against the Soviet Union of committing the Katyn Massacre, alleged blockades against the Polish, and more. This was a primary focus of Operation Aerodynamic: inciting nationalist/Nazi ideology through these myths.

The myth was spread with the fake news of William Randal Hearst, backed by Ukrainian collaborators with Nazism. Organizations like the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, backed in large part by the anti-communist propagandists and closet Nazis in the Canadian and Ontario government (Chrystia Freeland, for example), continue to back this myth with no shame, and at a very high price, according to the ATIPs on the Canadian Heritage department.

There was never a deliberate attempt by the Soviet government to starve Ukrainians during the Great Famine of 1932-1933. The Kazakhs suffered worse from the famine than the Ukrainians, with no national myth being spread to this day about Kazakh genocide. Even in the territories of Greater Russia itself, people starved to death. This myth is put to rest by this fact: exports of grain to Ukraine by the Soviet government during the famine exceeded any other region.

There was nothing the Soviet government could do about the crop failures with the current level of development, the sanctions against them by the west, and the environmental conditions of grain rust and frozen topsoil. Grain rust, in particular, complicated matters further due to being difficult to detect visually, but deadly enough to destroy the grain completely.

This terrible myth created a false equivalency that justified glorifying Nazi collaborators in Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine, and thus, set the stage for today’s terrible events. One example of the CUF bus tour’s impact is questionnaire answers from children at Markville Secondary School in 2016 (the tour was privately funded between 2015 to 2017). After visiting the “Holodomor” bus, these children felt very "informed" based on Nazi collaborator-authored fiction. Even letters where Stalin was railing against a class that was illegally extorting land from other peasants, hoarding crops, and exacerbating food insecurity were misinterpreted by children as evidence of his "genocidal" intentions. These false beliefs weren’t their fault however. The disturbing reality is that children are being primed to respect and defend Nazi collaborators while hating the Soviet Union.

University students were also targeted with “Holodomor” propaganda. A 2019 “mis-direct food” targeted all three Toronto universities, to “push the narrative that ‘food should not be used as a weapon in today’s world’”. Further campaigning saw the creation of a “Holodomor Fine Foods” campaign and the baiting of students across Canada, using a supposed food website to lure them in and introduce them to the “Holodomor”.

The justification for sending millions of dollars of weapons to Nazis in Ukraine is based on the myth of the Nationalist Ukrainians being “freedom fighters”, instead of the traitors to humanity that they always were. This bus tour, and other campaigning by right-wing Ukrainian Canadians, primes the next generation to support the next set of fascists the Canadian government will want them to support.

On The Current State of Canada’s Education System

The contemporary education system, in Canada overall, and particularly in Ontario, has revealed itself to be nothing more than a tool of propaganda for the prevailing neo-liberal and pro-colonial capitalist order. It is also in danger of being fully privatized on behalf of Doug Ford’s corrupt pay for play schemes.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), traditionally instruments for democratizing public knowledge, have been perverted into tools of state propaganda and are now being weaponized against the developing consciousness of children. Murderous, criminal, and corrupt politicians like Stepan Kubiv are even being asked to assist government funded programs.

Canadians should think very deeply about the state of the public school system, and what must be done, with millions of dollars being wasted on propaganda. Falsifying history and overlooking the historic achievements of other societies is not a solution. Unless, like Chrystia Freeland, you would prefer to keep your true family history under wraps.

ATIPs cited

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Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.

He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.

Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news outlet founded in 2019. Jonah has broken numerous stories, including how the Canadian Armed Forces trained neo-Nazi "journalist" Roman Protasevich while he was with the Azov Battalion, and how a CIA front group (the NED) funded the group (URAP) which drove the "Uyghur genocide" vote in parliament to pass this February. Jonah recently wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.

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