Anthony Hlynka

Anthony Hlynka (May 28, 1907 – April 25, 1957) was a Canadian journalist, publisher, immigration activist and politician of Ukrainian descend.

He moved to Canada with his family in 1910, when he was three, and was raised in a homesteader community in Alberta's Delph district, about 18 miles northeast of Lamont.

He was educated in both Ukrainian and English.

Hlynka moved to Edmonton in 1922 and graduated from Alberta College the following year, but was unable to attend university.

He taught English to other Ukrainian immigrants, and worked at an insurance firm from 1929 to 1931.

He also wrote for the paper Novyi shliakh (New Pathway), and was elected to its executive in November 1931.

Hlynka was a founding member of the conservative Ukrainian National Federation of Canada (UNF) in 1932 and served for a time as its acting General Secretary.

He was responsible for soliciting advertisements for the paper until it was moved to Saskatoon in 1933.

He started a periodical called Klych (The Call) in 1935.

This paper had a strongly anti-communist editorial line.

Hlynka joined the Alberta Social Credit League in 1937, and launched the party's Ukrainian language paper, Suspilnyi Kredyt (Social Credit), in February of that year.

He later worked for the publicity department of the provincial Social Credit Board, and for the Department of Municipal Affairs.

He delivered several speeches, and became a prominent figure in the Ukrainian community.

He represented Vegreville in the House of Commons of Canada from 1940 to 1949 as a member of the Social Credit Party of Canada.

He is best remembered for his attempts to reform Canada's immigration laws after World War II to permit the immigration of Ukrainian displaced persons.

Hlynka was born in the Western Ukrainian village of Denysiv, in Ternopil Oblast of Halychyna, then a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He considered running for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1940 provincial election, but ultimately declined.

Hlynka was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1940 federal election.

At the time, the Vegreville Social Credit organization had a two-stage nomination process: delegates elected three candidates at a nomination meeting, one of whom was later chosen by an Advisory Board.

Hylnka received the greatest number of votes in a field of five candidates, and was confirmed by the Advisory Board after a formal interview.

The incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), William Hayhurst, had been eliminated in the first round of voting.

The second-place candidate, Paul Lesiuk, officially challenged the Advisory Board's decision, and Hlynka's candidacy had to be reaffirmed by Alberta Premier William Aberhart and his cabinet.

In the general election, Hlynka defeated four other candidates in a closely contested race to win his first term in office.

His election win made him the second person of Ukrainian descent elected to federal parliament, after Michael Luchkovich.

Hlynka was the only person of Ukrainian background in parliament from 1940 to 1945, and received extensive coverage from the national press as a community representative

Hlynka was a strong supporter of Canada's involvement in World War II, and worked with the Ukrainian Canadian Committee to campaign for a "yes" vote in Canada's 1942 plebiscite on conscription.

Despite their efforts, many ridings with large Ukrainian populations supported the "no" side.

Hlynka wrote A Struggle for Freemen in 1942.

(It has been reissued in 2022 as a print on demand product.)

He supported Ukrainian independence in a well-publicized 1942 speech, despite the fact that the Soviet Union was a Canadian ally at the time.

Citing the Atlantic Charter, Hlynka argued that the Ukrainian people had a right to self-determination and that an independent Ukraine would help create stability in a post-war Europe.

This proposal was denounced in the Edmonton Journal, which argued that the Soviet Union was playing a vital role in the war effort and could not have its territorial integrity threatened.

Hlynka was known for calling for the liberalization of immigration policy to help bring displaced persons to Canada and for assisting in the immigration of Ukrainian displaced persons in the aftermath of World War II.

Hlynka was re-elected in the 1945 federal election, but was defeated in the 1949 federal election by Liberal candidate John Decore.

He traveled to Europe after the end of the war in 1945, and undertook a fact-finding tour of the camps operated by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

He then played a leading role in the public campaign for immigration law reform, which culminated in Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's decision in 1947 to open Canada's borders to able-bodied displaced persons from Europe.

It is believed that Canada accepted more than 34,000 Ukrainian displaced persons and refugees between 1947 and 1952.

Following his first defeat in 1949, Social Credit MP Frederick Davis Shaw alleged that the communist Labor-Progressive Party which had received over 3,000 votes in the 1945 election in Vegreville, did not run a candidate in 1949 and backed Decore in order to ensure Hlynka's defeat.

Hlynka ran against Decore again in the 1953 federal election but was again defeated.

In 1964 the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada (UNF) named a street (Hlynka Place) in honour of Hlynka in the subdivision of "Sokil" located in Hawkestone, Ontario.