Manoly Lupul

BIO

Professor Manely Lupul has demonstrated exceptional national leadership in multiculturalism from the 1970s to the mid-1990s by advocating for the better treatment Canada’s ethnic minorities, inter-cultural understanding and the advancement of Canadian values. As a senior faculty member in the academy and as a community volunteer, he worked tirelessly in several different domains where he played a critical role in spearheading an impressive number of innovations.. His efforts resulted in the drafting and adoption of national and provincial legislation; the creation of new programs; wider public recognition of multiculturalism; and the allocation of funds to support and fully capitalize on the emergence of the human talent inherent in Canada’s ethnoculturally diverse society.

During a twenty year period Dr. Lupul was one of Canada’s foremost proponents of a more inclusive Canadian identity, which while fully respecting English and French as official state languages also recognizes that other languages are sources of great strength for fostering individualism as well as inter-group and global communication. He called for a bilingualism/trilingualism policy that built on the resources of both state and heritage languages with the intent of ending the exclusion of minority languages and promoting broader representation in public institutions from all segments of Canadian society. Professor Lupul’s vision was to establish school curricula that maximized linguistic choice and a cultural policy that reflected Canada’s ethnocultural diversity in a spirit of integration and generosity that built bridges among Canadians from different backgrounds.

Dr. Lupul came to regard ethnicity as a creative cultural force and the cultivation of bilingual and bicultural individuals as a goal for a modern education system. He set up model programs, which proceeded from the assumption that ethnic groups had a right to exist and that the public should have access to a wealth of ethnic languages and cultures. He strove to demonstrate how state funding could be used to establish the preconditions necessary for the right of individuals to choose their ethnic identity freely.

Thus Lupul argued that the state should recognize ethnic identity through historical preservation with publicly funded museums, archives and ethnic histories in official and non-official languages; furnish state-funded language programs in schools to meet the needs of ethnic groups and other interested students; and should promote the naming of streets, buildings and facilities after notable leaders from various ethnocultural backgrounds. Professor Lupul understood that such public programs would better enable individuals to enter or leave ethnic collectivities and that this capacity extended individual rights in Canada. In doing so, his initiatives in these realms were a generation ahead of theory in Canadian multiculturalism.

Manoly Lupul’s first involvement in multiculturalism coincided with the hearings of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the early 1960s. After its report was tabled and government programming began, he worked to realize his ideas through the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism (CCCM) and the Alberta government’s Alberta Cultural Heritage Council from 1973 to 1981. He was a member of the federal Government’s first CCCM; chair of the Prairie Provinces and Northwest Territories region (1973-76); CCCM national vice-chair (1976-79) and co-chair of the CCCM Language and Education Committee, 1979-81. A third-generation Canadian of Ukrainian descent he became a national leader on these questions within his own community, in the academy and among government officials.

Among his many accomplishments he contributed to developing Section 27 of the Canada Act of 1982 which defines multiculturalism in the constitution. Lupul played a similarly important role in the passage in 1971 of Alberta’s first school legislation for bilingual programs, which later was also enacted in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These programs serve thousands of students to this day in Mandarin; Polish, Cree, German, Arabic, Hebrew and Ukrainian in several school districts across prairie Canada.

Professor Manoly Lupul’s efforts on behalf of youth were no less significant, as he taught the first undergraduate and graduate courses in multiculturalism at the University of Alberta. His course “The Education of Selected Minorities in Western Canada” (in historical perspective: French, Blacks, Doukhobors, Ukrainians) was initially offered in 1973. The “History of Ukrainians in Canada” was inaugurated in 1976, and the graduate course “Multiculturalism and Education” in 1988.

Dr. Lupul was a seminal figure in the establishment of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta in 1976, originally proposed by the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation when he served as its president. He was founding Director of CIUS until 1986, during which time he launched Ukrainian Canadian and Soviet Ukrainian study programs, organized public lecture series, and oversaw the production of numerous internationally acclaimed publications. The latter included the monumental, six volume, English-language Encyclopaedia of Ukraine. a standard reference work which is currently being updated and digitized for the internet. He successfully recruited young people to participate in these projects and mentored a younger generation who subsequently took over leadership of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and its programs.

As well, during this period, Professor Lupul chaired the Advisory Board that approved the blueprint for the multi-stage development of Alberta’s open air provincial museum, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. Dr. Lupul was committed to forging relationships among various cultural communities while he was advisor to the Edmonton City Historical Board (1972-78), Fort Edmonton Historical Park (1982-86) and Edmonton’s Multicultural Council (1985-86). He co-chaired the Multiculturalism Committee of Edmonton’s Ukrainian Professional and Business Club (1971-86); advised the Ukrainian Bilingual Association, Edmonton Public Schools (1973-86); and assisted the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies (1976-86).

He is the author of two books that owe much of their inspiration to his appreciation and understanding of the Canadian mosaic: The Roman Catholic Church and the North-West