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E-mail of the week

This response to one of my recent columns—I wish I could narrow it down for you from the evidence herein—arrived Tuesday:

just read your piece on Alberta's Stelmac premier...
just facce it, you guys can't stand the idea of a Ukraininan farmer running the province.
his English is certainly no worse than Klein's mangling style.
?
This feeling is even greater in Calgary where those "cowboy" racists still think they are decendants of Engish polo players.. the closest those British immigrants came to polo is cleaning out the stables of the horses.
get a clue and realize that other cultures can do it as well and better than anglo ethnic people.

a reader

What's interesting is that I know our friend is not alone in feeling that there still exists racial prejudice against Ukrainians (Ukraininans?) in Alberta; such an instinct wouldn't have occurred to any of the people I grew up with, but this gentleman seems to feel things are worse in the more consciously Anglo south of the province. Ed Stelmach's appeal to Ukrainian voters is certainly another one of those factors that the prognosticators underestimated.

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Comments (10)

AtlanticTy:

Is this email from the Ukraine? The first sentence sounds like someone who isn't used to English.

We will almost certainly never know the answer to your question (it came from a GMail address).

mclea:

Knowing that I'm a descendent of an English Polo Player is the only motivation I have to get up in the morning.

mclea:

And on a more serious note, I can't help but believe that most white Canadians are totally oblivious to the fact that they can be prejudice towards other white people. It certainly was news to me.

BlacquesJacquesShellacques:

"What do you call a Ukrainian in a tree?

A branch manager."

A halcyon moment from the days of my yout'.

BlacquesJacquesShellacques:

Not to mention:

Whats a paradox?

Two mallards over Admonton.

Sean:

I must've talked to over a hundred people (in the Oyen AB area) about the election and not one ever complained about Ed being a Ukrainian. There was plenty of bitching about the PC party's slide to the left and not a single person in "the patch" was happy about the royalties, but that's all that reached my ears.

Having spent a decade and a half of my life in Calgary I can't see Ed's ethnic background being much of an issue there. I can't remember hearing a any off colour remarks about Ukrainians once I got past grade four. I can see a lot of Cow Towners looking down their nose at Ed for being a farmer, but that's about the worst of it.

As for myself, the lady I'm married to is 1/4 Ukranian. Simply not a big deal to me.

DSM:

Never heard a single anti-Ukrainian sentiment growing up in Red Deer in the '80s, though I can't speak to what the adults were saying at the time.

One of the most attractive women I've met in the past five years -- a considerable understatement, but the phrase that comes to mind isn't fit for public use -- was a Ukrainian from Calgary. Plus she was smart and fun.

I'm just saying.

Half Canadian:

I remember telling Ukrainian jokes as a kid (How do you sink a battleship? Have a Ukrainian build it, so sort of things). I told some to a friend, he went home and told them to his mom, and his mom told him that he was Ukrainian.

Never heard any after I reached the teenage years, and never heard anything about Ukraine, or Ukrainians, until the USSR broke up.

Garth Wood:

Amongst all the people I talked to during the campaign here in Calgary, I can't remember anyone alluding to Stelmach's Ukrainian heritage.  Some liked him, some loathed him, but no one gave a rat's ass about his ethnicity.

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