Borys Wrzesnewskyj

Wrzesnewskyj helped pass MP James Bezan's Bill C-459, An Act to establish a Ukrainian Famine and Genocide Memorial Day and to recognize the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as an act of genocide, at all stages through the House of Commons and Senate.

He also worked with MP Bob Rae to introduce and help pass unanimously through the House of Commons the Black Ribbon Day motion establishing an annual Canadian Day of Remembrance for the victims of Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes on August 23, called "Black Ribbon Day", to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the infamous pact between the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes.

Borys Wrzesnewskyj ( born November 10, 1960) is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Etobicoke Centre in the House of Commons of Canada.

In the late 1980s he helped organize and finance the nascent People's Movement of Ukraine (also known as Rukh).

Throughout the 1990s, he was involved with various civil society and humanitarian projects in Ukraine, such as the building of libraries and providing scholarships for gifted students.

Through his family foundation, Wrzesnewskyj has provided funding support for the following:

In 1991, financed and organized a group in support of the referendum for the independence of Ukraine.

One of his projects was an underground printing press which produced and distributed several million pieces of pro-independence literature in the South and East of Ukraine.

He held the riding from 2004 to 2011 and again from 2015 to 2019.

He is a member of the Liberal Party.

Wrzesnewskyj was born in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada (now a part of Toronto).

He is a third-generation Ukrainian Canadian, of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and partly Polish from paternal family.

He attended Humber Valley Village Public School and Upper Canada College.

He received a Bachelor of Commerce from Trinity College, University of Toronto and has been a member of Plast.

He speaks English, Ukrainian, Polish, French, and Spanish.

He is the owner of Future Bakery, founded by his grandparents, and M-C Dairy.

Wrzesnewskyj is known for his humanitarian work both in his riding of Etobicoke Centre and abroad, including helping children causes in Ukraine.

Through Future Bakery, Wrzesnewskyj was one of the original sponsors of the Out of the Cold program to aid the homeless and numerous other charitable organizations working in a number of Toronto's most challenging neighbourhoods.

Wrzesnewskyj was actively involved in the Canadian delegation to the contested Ukrainian election of 2004, Orange Revolution, and has often spoken to Canadian media on its behalf.

Then, Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin said that he was personally briefed by him to publicly warn Russian President Vladimir Putin "hands off the Ukrainian election" in the House of Commons of Canada which fundamentally shifted Canada's position (Wrzesnewskyj telephoned Martin from Kyiv during the Orange Revolution).

Originally, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa took a "hands off" approach to the contested Ukrainian election.

Martin says that he, and the Government of Canada would not have stood up for democracy in Ukraine "if it hadn't been for Borys".

Subsequently, he was instrumental in securing the Government of Canada's commitment to sending five hundred Canadian election observers to the December 2004 Presidential elections in Ukraine.

His House of Commons legislative work saw the introduction of several private member's bills and motions including:

Regarding Bill C-181, Wrzesnewskyj gave a press conference in Ottawa together with David Matas and David Kilgour, authors of "Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China".

While saying that "consumers benefit from trade with China", and that "Canada would like to do more trade with China", he asserted "it does not exonerate us for addressing the issue of Organ transplantation in China" and questioned "trusting a country that would engage in this sort of horrific crime against its own people."

Between 2004 and 2010, he served as member on eleven committees, including Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and Standing Committee on Transport among others.

Wrzesnewskyj discussed the importance of Ukraine's accession to NATO at meetings of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe parliamentary assembly meetings and official meetings of NATO member states.

He was later selected as an official member of the delegation of the Speaker of the House of Commons to Ukraine (a trip geared toward developing relations between Canada and Ukraine).

He helped the previous Canadian government to negotiate and sign the historic agreement for $12.5 million with the Ukrainian Canadian community for the acknowledgement, commemoration and, education of Canadians of the dark episode of internment operations against Ukrainian Canadians.

In April 2007, Wrzesnewskyj publicly called for a full judicial inquiry into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pension fund scandal and spoke to the media on the matter.

He was instrumental in bringing forward to the Public Accounts Committee, and pursuing, an investigation into the misuse of the RCMP pension and insurance funds involving the upper echelons of Canada's national police force which pressured the government into establishing the Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the RCMP.

Here again, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin emphatically stated that "nothing would not have been done (with the RCMP pension scandal) if it hadn't been for Borys."

From 7–14 August 2009, Wrzesnewskyj took part in a self-financed fact-finding mission to Jordan, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem along with fellow parliamentarians from the New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois.

The mission's goals were to gain firsthand knowledge and understanding and assess the opportunities to build towards a peaceful and just solution between Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

He subsequently co-authored a report which offered several key recommendations to the Government of Canada.

He also self-financed a fact-finding mission to Darfur, Sudan, regarding the Darfur Conflict, and another to Somalia.

In December 2010, he created the Roman Wrzesnewskyj Polish Endowment Fund with a $35,000 donation toward the preservation and development of advanced Polish language studies at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto.

Additionally, each Christmas and New Year's Day, he donates his time by delivering toys and gifts to children in community housing projects in Etobicoke Centre.

In 2010, Wrzesnewskyj served as vice-chair on two committees: (1) Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, (2) Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.