The Ontario government is introducing new mandatory learning in the Grade 10 Canadian History course about the Holodomor famine and its impact on the Ukrainian community in Canada. This new learning will elevate Canadian values focused on embracing democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law. The new curriculum will ensure all students learn about the adverse consequences of extreme political ideologies like those from Stalin’s totalitarian communist regime, designed to ensure students learn from history.
Beginning in September 2025, the new learning will outline how the Holodomor, also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine, was a result of the totalitarian policies of the Communist Soviet Union leading to a man-made famine in Ukraine that killed millions of Ukrainians between 1932 to 1933.
Students will also learn about how extreme ideologies enabled mass-scale political repressions through widespread intimidation, arrests and imprisonment, along with the impact of this genocide on the Ukrainian community in Canada.
“The rise of extremism, including Communism and Marxism, are direct threats to our democracy, social cohesion and values as Canadians,” said Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education. “I am determined to strengthen education on our shared values, including by mandating learning about the horrors of state-sponsored persecution of Ukrainians in the Holodomor in Grade 10 Canadian History. This learning will help ensure students are never bystanders in the face of such horrors, understand the danger of totalitarianism and help safeguard fundamental Canadian values of freedom and democracy over communist extremism.”
To reinforce this learning, Ontario is investing $400,000 in the Canada-Ukraine Foundation to support the Holodomor National Awareness Tour and the Holodomor Mobile Classroom (HMC), a 40-foot mobile recreational vehicle (RV) with interactive hands-on lessons designed to engage students and assist in teaching about the Holodomor. The Holodomor Mobile Classroom travels to schools across the province and will engage up to 4,000 students in Grades 6 to 12 through experiential learning directly linked to the Ontario curriculum.
Following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Ontario Government took action to stand with the people of Ukraine, including by ensuring every child seeking protection in Canada from war could immediately enter publicly funded schools at no cost, along with the extension of trauma and mental health resources in their language. These actions are part of Ontario’s ongoing commitment to strengthening education to combat the sharp rise of hate afflicting Canadian societies and schools. It includes new supports and resources for Ontario students and educators and complements new expanded mandatory learning about the Holocaust in the Grade 10 Canadian History course to be introduced in September 2025.
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Erin Jones says
And it wasn’t just the Ukrainians that the Bolsheviks/communists murdered in the 1930s and after. They killed Russians (in the most barbaric and obscene ways possible) who did not go along with their totalitarian plans. As long as the communists stayed in power, they continued to oppress and murder everyone under their power. Any regime that would persecute and murder their own innocent citizens is evil in the extreme. May it never happen again. The best way to ensure that it never happens again is to learn about the horrors, how they came about and one’s obligation, once educated on the subject to protest proactively and often. Educating others about these things is an “ounce of prevention” and worth a “pound of cure”. There’s an old saw among historians: “You can vote your way into extreme ideologies like fascism or socialism/communism, but you must shoot your way out of it.”
Sandy McLennan says
“ “The rise of extremism, including Communism and Marxism, are direct threats to our democracy, social cohesion and values as Canadians,” said Stephen Lecce”
I’ll play along. The Minister of Backroom/What-Will-They-Come-Up-With-Next suggests we be on the lookout. I’m looking out for his statement here: Communism and Marxism direct threats to democracy and social cohesion? On the rise? Do we have social cohesion? I know, when asked he doesn’t answer; so I agree: keep watching out…
Allen Markle says
If you are studying history, I can understand there being time devoted to the Russian purges. But only as a part of an entire subject. Man’s inhumanity to man has been a trait ever since one individual found they could bully, beat or cajole less capable individuals. It built nations and empires, and it may be that a benevolent dictatorship delivers the best governance. Benevolent being the key word.
To zero in on one tragedy or holocaust, simple because it’s newsworthy at the time is a bit myopic. Lord knows there are enough injustices to build a curriculum on. But is this just building a government sponsored opportunity to stir the past. For sure people should be aware of the past; a good example of the consequences of not knowing, is when an entire legislature rises to applaud an old soldier, apparently ignorant of the whole story.
Read “Death by Government” by R.J.Rummel and discover ‘government’ has sanctioned the eradication of millions of people, their own and their enemies.
The Mongol Tolui managed to do away with about a 1,700,00 Persians. Sultan Kut-d-b Din Aibuk murdered his own. 100,000 s of thousands and likely into the millions. Mohammad bin Tuglak preferred to murder Hindus. The knights of the Crusades concentrated on Muslims. The holocaust concentrated on Jews. All into the millions of lives.
The murder spree most people are aware of is slavery. The millions of souls sacrificed as the Arab, Asian, African and European dealers in humanity, ended the lives of countless people of many races and colors. Maybe people will be surprised that slavery and the slave trade existed long before Europe became aware of the continents of North and South America. Even here, slavery was afoot upon the land. Back then, slavery was not considered ‘genocides’, just business.
History is there for anyone who so chooses to search out and study. The holodomor as an isolated item of study seems to me to be pointing a finger in one direction only. That’s just presenting an opportunity for bias and blame to become entrenched in a young mind. I don’t like the idea of going out to look for prejudice and don’t see it as helpful to study it in the light of what’s in the news today.
People move pretty much freely in the world today and we can’t keep from importing the regional, and national hatred of others. It comes inside them and crosses borders as easily as the do.
But concentrating on one item in a long list of inhumanities is simply a knee jerk. Because other opportunities will arise when some ‘old soldier’ will alert us to the fact that there was something else we just ‘didn’t know’.
Erin Jones says
Thanks, Allen, you make some excellent points. Mankind’s inhumanity to “other” humans is as old as humanity itself. I put “other” in quotation marks because casting “others” as less than our shared humanity is what is used as the excuse for one tribe to annihilate another tribe. Our Lord removed that excuse in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Otherwise, evil perpetrated by humans, would know no limits at all (thus the unspeakable acts of humans in atheistic communist regimes). Our Lord’s voice rumbles quietly throughout the New Testament, providing a louder reiteration of the Old Testament requirement for justice and mercy toward the innocent. It is the rubric underlying the formation of Western civilization, providing light to those held in darkness by the corrupt and predominantly evil systems of the past. We discard it to our peril.