Canada introduces compulsory study of Holodomor in schools
The government of the province of Ontario has decided to include the study of Holodomor of 1932-33 in the school curriculum.
The course on the study of this Soviet crime will be included in the Canadian history program for the 10th grade starting from September 2025.
Source: Canada's Minister of Education Steven Lecce on 28 November during a press conference at the St. Demetrius School, the press service of the Canadian-Ukrainian Foundation told UP. Zhyttia.
"This is important news for the Ukrainian community in Canada, which has worked for many years to raise the world's awareness of Joseph Stalin's brutal campaign against Ukrainian identity in 1932-1933," the foundation says.
Photo: Tetiana Dodonova
In 2008, Canada became the first country in the world to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide of Ukrainians.
In 2014, the Canadian-Ukrainian Foundation launched The Holodomor National Awareness Tour to raise awareness of the Holodomor among Canadians.
"The rise of extremism, including communism and Marxism, is a direct threat to our democracy, social cohesion and the values of Canadians.
I am determined to strengthen education about our shared values, including through mandatory study of the horrors of the persecution of Ukrainians during the Holodomor in 10th-grade Canadian history," said Stephen Lecce.
In his opinion, such training will help students to never be "bystanders", to understand the dangers of totalitarianism and to protect the fundamental Canadian values of freedom and democracy from Communist extremism.
The Ontario government also invested $400,000 to support The Holodomor National Awareness Tour and a mobile Holodomor classroom.
The Ontario government has made studying the subject of the Holodomor mandatory from 2025
The funding will allow the mobile classroom to travel to schools across the province and engage students in grades 6-12 in experiential learning.
More than 70,000 people across Canada and students from more than 500 Canadian schools have already listened to lectures in the Holodomor mobile classroom.
"The Holodomor Mobile Classroom is a unique learning environment that uses advanced technology to fully immerse and help students learn about the Holodomor in a digital classroom on wheels.
The combination of technologies and interactive content developed for this program defines a completely new way of conducting lessons, which allows the facilitator and students to actively interact with each other," the initiators say.
The lectures tell the audience about the genocide committed by the Stalinist regime against Ukrainians – in particular, about why the Holodomor was not widely known in the West, how the Soviet authorities concealed the genocide, and how foreign journalists collected testimonies, fought propaganda and sought the truth.
This year, the Holodomor Mobile Class travelled across Canada's east and west, and last week, it was in Ottawa to mark the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor on Parliament Hill.
Reminder:
Earlier, Ukrainian developers announced that they would create a game about the Holodomor.
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