No More Prowling

Across the Canadian prairies, clotted in communities of their own, live groups of Slavic peoples who cling to their Old Country customs, languages and church ties. Last week the External Affairs Department at Ottawa decided that it was high time to fence off such folds from Communist critters who prowl about them.

Since war's end, members of the Soviet Embassy and the Yugoslav Legation in Ottawa have been out among the Slavic settlements. The Russians have tried to make the Ukrainians Soviet-minded. The Yugoslavs, working along somewhat similar lines, have already persuaded some 2,000 Canadian-Yugoslavs to return to Tito-land (TIME, June 2).

Official Line. The propagandizing reached a peak when, in St. Vital, Manitoba, last July, the Association of Ukrainian Canadians had a picnic. One purpose was to raise funds for Soviet Ukrainian war orphans. Another: to hear a speech by Ivan 0. Scherbatiuk, a clerk (according to his superiors) at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. External Affairs did not hear about it until the alert Winnipeg Free Press, which keeps an eye on the foreign-language press in its area, saw an account of it in Ukrainske Slovo and passed it along to Ottawa.

Scherbatiuk had told about the Ukraine's "heroic people, who, in fraternity with all other peoples of the Soviet Union, have created real conditions for an abundant development of the Ukraine." He had attacked Ukrainian Canadians who were bringing Ukrainian D.P.s to Canada. "The real Ukrainian people," he shouted, "are preoccupied with . . . the business of socialist construction, the business of improving the welfare of the working masses. . . ."

Official Warning. That was enough for External Affairs. Last week the department's Laurent Beaudry summoned the Russian charge d'affaires, handed him a seven-paragraph memorandum. Next day, to make sure every Canadian citizen heard about it, the press was called in and given copies of what amounted to a blunt shut-up-or-get-out warning:

"Mr. Scherbatiuk . . . used language which was not only clearly offensive but which was calculated to promote ill will and hostility between different groups of people in Canada. . . . The Canadian Government wishes to state that, should Mr. Scherbatiuk or any other member or employee of any diplomatic or consular mission in Canada use [similar] language in the future, the Canadian Government will have no alternative but to request the immediate recall of the officer or employee concerned."

External Affairs hoped that would do the trick. To be on the safe side, the department set about correcting an oversight. It was carefully reading Canada's foreign-language press.

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