http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/canada/harper-awarded-shevchenko-medal-62854.html
Excerpt from http://www.theepochtimes.com
TORONTO—Prime Minister Stephen Harper received the Shevchenko Medal Award from Ukrainian Canadian Congress President Paul Grod on Friday for the contributions that he and the Canadian government made to the Ukrainian-Canadian community.
Harper noted that at the initiative of MP James Bezan in 2008, Canada adopted a bill in Parliament declaring Holodomor to be genocide.
Canada was the first country to recognize Holodomor as genocide, acknowledging the deaths of millions of Ukrainians in rural Ukraine in 1932-1933 through forced famine while the country was under Soviet domination.
The PM said he visited Ukraine last year and “took particular care to show Canada’s support for democratic debate by meeting with Yulia Tymoshenko,” adding that he was “seriously concerned about her situation.”
A court in Ukraine last Tuesday sentenced former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison in what the international community has widely called a politically motivated trial.
Harper said he has written Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to express his deep concern that “the conduct of Tymoshenko’s trial does not reflect accepted norms of due process or fairness.”
The award ceremony on Friday was attended by Senator Raynell Andreychuk and Toronto area MPs Ted Opitz, Wladyslaw Lizon, and Bernard Trottier, among other guests.
