Cheri DiNovo, MPP for Parkdale-High Park, has co-sponsored a bill, which once passed, will honour the victims of Holodomor the Ukrainian Holocaust, where 10 million people starved to death between 1932 and 1933.
"It's a historic wrong we need to make right," DiNovo said. "Twenty-five thousand people starved every day, not for lack of food, but because Stalin and communist Russia wouldn't give them access to food. Wheat would be harvested and locked in barns until it was shipped out of the country."
The NDP MPP sponsored Bill 147, an Act to proclaim Holodomor Memorial Day, along with her colleagues Liberal MPP Dave Levac and PC MPP Frank Klees in February.
Their collaboration represents the first time in Ontario's parliamentary history representatives from all three political parties came together on a bill, DiNovo said.
It also marks the first time in the province Holodomor will be commemorated. Expected to pass in the next two weeks, she said, the bill would set aside the fourth Saturday in November to honour the victims.
"The Soviet Union tried to eradicate Ukraine," DiNovo said. "This bill stands as an important symbol against the tyranny of oppression and genocide. These values exist beyond partisan differences and should be passed immediately."
Holodomor is considered one of the greatest national catastrophes to affect the Ukrainian nation in modern history. Millions of Ukrainian citizens died of starvation in an unprecedented peacetime catastrophe. DiNovo said she is hoping the Ukrainian Holocaust will be a subject taught in schools.
"The Memorial Day will prove to be a valuable contribution to recognizing past crimes against humanity as well as promoting human rights in Ontario," she said. "It is my distinct honour to be part of this solemn bill."