‘We’re here for him’: Ukrainian Canadian Congress meets with President Zelenskyy

President of the Alberta Provincial Council of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Orysia Boychuk speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about their recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: You were part of a separate meeting with President Zelenskyy Tuesday. Was that just a quick meet and greet? What did the opportunity accomplish?

Orysia Boychuk: We’re very grateful to have had this extraordinary opportunity to meet with him. It was a very quick meeting. It was initially scheduled to be a little bit longer, up to an hour. Unfortunately we had 15 minutes. But so grateful to have had that opportunity.

It was a very emotional, very humbling experience to meet the president after and following the G7 meeting in Kananaskis. It was an honour to be there and represent our community. There were 16 representatives across Canada that had the opportunity to gather and meet with him. We were initially meeting downtown Calgary, and then in the end, it was at the airport where we had some time to talk to him and thank him for his courageous and extraordinary leadership, defending democracy, civil society and national identity that was key for us to really appreciate him and show him that we were still supporting him.

We’re here for him, wanted him to know. We can only imagine how difficult and how stressful the circumstances are for him.

MH: On that very point about both the stress you mentioned emotions a moment ago, we understand that as President Zelenskyy was flying to Alberta, news was being relayed to him about another massive Russian attack. Many dead, many more injured. How did you get a sense for how heavily that was weighing on his mind at the time?

OB: It was huge for him. It was huge for us. It was it was a bittersweet meeting. We were gathering and unfortunately, as the day unfolded, there were bombings in Kyiv. Fifteen casualties from the bombing. There were over 100 people that were injured and they were ordinary civilians in downtown Kyiv that were impacted, so it definitely was bittersweet.

Canada was unrolling its additional supports, the G7 was coming to an end, and unfortunately there was that layer of attack, of Russian brutality, in continuous invasion on Ukraine. So it was very hard for all of us.

MH: I want to ask what you’re able to contribute to that conversation. From an Alberta perspective, how familiar is the President with our province as being a home to not only Ukrainians displaced by the war but so many who are of Ukrainian descent.

OB: He’s very familiar with us. When he was in parliament about a year ago, he did address Alberta, he addressed Edmonton, that Edmonton had established the first Holodomor, the genocide famine monument at City Hall, and he said that he would be back to Edmonton one day to visit.

So he’s very familiar. He knows that we are here. He knows that there’s a large community and that there’s a lot of work being done. He thanked us for our ongoing work and our support for the displaced Ukrainians and all the work Canada is doing, Alberta is doing, and all the support in Edmonton and Calgary.

He was very grateful and very supportive of us, and it was a mutual exchange of reinvigorating that hope for each other, that we continue to support Ukraine, and that we’re here. He was acknowledging and supporting us and the work that we were doing. So it was revitalizing, given the circumstances and the complexities of the day.

MH: I want to quickly ask as well about that huge welcome billboard for President Zelenskyy, the one outside Calgary airport. What prompted that? Do you know if he saw it?

OB: Yes. Our community really wanted to show a warm welcome to President Zelenskyy. We were speaking with the embassy, communicating and providing a lot of different options of how we could present this warm welcome to the president.

Obviously there are restrictions. It was very high-level security. There were a lot of things going on and a lot of leaders coming in, and so we were pretty limited. Our Calgary Congress was amazing. They designed, overnight, this billboard and together the congresses across Alberta had financially chipped in to finance it and put it up.

That was the minimum that we felt we could do to welcome and show our support to President Zelenskyy and to show the world that we’re welcoming him, and we’re grateful. We’re grateful for Canada for inviting President Zelenskyy because if Canada didn’t invite him, that’s a sign of further support that Canada stands with Ukraine.

This was another piece showing to the world that Canada stands with Ukraine, Alberta stands with Ukraine.

MH: As you look back now on President Zelenskyy’s involvement in the G7 summit itself, even the fact that he was not able to meet with the U.S. president, who left early, would you consider the visit a success?

OB: One-hundred per cent. The fact that he was invited, that he participated, that Canada gave support. He went home and he received additional support, and the support that he received was more than he received in the past.

We’re grateful to Canada, we’re very hopeful for Ukraine and we’re only wishing for peace. We’re sending our deepest condolences to those who’ve lost their lives just as recently as yesterday and the day before and in the past. So we’re hopeful for peace very soon indeed.