An Act respecting Ukrainian Heritage Month

Bill S-210 in 45-1 is the Senate companion to Commons Bill C-203 of 45-1 establishing September as Ukrainian Heritage Month nationally. Approximately 1.36 million Canadians reported Ukrainian origin on the 2021 Statistics Canada census, the world's third-largest Ukrainian diaspora after Russia and Ukraine itself, and the second largest by share of the host country's population. The diaspora concentrates in the Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) where land-grant settlement began in 1891. Manitoba and Alberta already proclaim a Ukrainian Heritage Month provincially. The bill became particularly resonant after the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; Canada has accepted over 200,000 Ukrainian refugees under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program since 2022.