Wall, William

Wall, William Michael or Wolochatiuk, Wasyl (Волохатюк, Василь; Voloxatjuk, Vasyl'), b 11 July 1911 in Ethelbert, Manitoba, d 7 July 1962 in Winnipeg. Educator and Canadian senator of Ukrainian descent. Born into a family of Ukrainian immigrants from Galicia (who arrived in Canada around the turn of the 20th century), Wasyl Wolochatiuk studied at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Manitoba, graduating from the latter in 1929. As a student he was active in the Ukrainian students’ organization. He subsequently worked as a teacher in rural schools in Manitoba and began to use the name of William Wall. He obtained his BEd degree in 1937 and was appointed as a teacher to the Winnipeg Public School Board. In 1939 he obtained his MEd degree from the University of Manitoba. He worked as principal of the Lord Nelson School in Winnipeg from 1943 to 1954. During the Second World War Wall enlisted in the Canadian Army (Reserves), held the rank of acting lieutenant colonel, and retired with the rank of major. After the war, he continued his studies at Yale University (1952) and Harvard University where he completed course requirements for a doctorate in education (DEd) in 1954. That year he became administrative assistant to the superintendent of the Winnipeg Public School Board. He was active as a community leader and served as vice-president on the executive of the North Winnipeg Liberal Association. Wall was also an active member (and then president of council and Honorary Life President) of the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood of Canada, and took part in other community activities.

In 1955 Wall was summoned to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. He was the first Ukrainian Canadian appointed to the Senate and, at age 44, he was the youngest new senator. During his meeting with the national executive of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee at that time, Wall acknowledged that his appointment to the Senate was in recognition of the overall contributions made by Ukrainians in Canada since the first settlers arrived in 1891. Among his first activities as senator, he was a member of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations in September 1955. In 1956 he made a special visit to Ukrainian communities in Hamilton and Oshawa in southern Ontario. During his career in the Senate, Wall advocated for federal aid to all forms of education and spoke on the Canadian economy, the Citizenship Act, naturalized citizens, the Bill of Rights, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He was active in the Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour and addressed immigration issues. He also represented Canada abroad in several important international relations missions. He was recognized as an outspoken opponent of international communism and the Soviet Union. In the Senate, he spoke on the first anniversary of the Hungarian uprising on 23 October 1957. He regularly brought up in the Senate the issues of the political situation in Ukraine and the fate of other oppressed nationalities in the USSR. Among his various addresses in the Senate, Wall delivered speeches on the consequences of the October Revolution of 1917 (on 7 November 1957), on the Ukrainian National Republic and the 40th anniversary of the Ukrainian declaration of independence (on 22 January 1958, when he provided a brief history of Ukraine), and on the suppression of the Ukrainian Catholic church in Soviet Ukraine (on 10 March 1960). On 17 May 1960, he spoke in the Senate in support of the protests by the Ukrainian community in Montreal against the broadcast (on 3 May 1960 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s French-language network) of a four-part television documentary L’Affaire Schwartzbard made in France and dealing with the Schwartzbard Trial that followed the assassination of Ukrainian statesman Symon Petliura in Paris in 1926. Wall criticized this documentary, and especially its second part, as ‘painfully distressing, offensive, and repugnant’ because of its blatant anti-Ukrainian bias. In general, during his career as senator, which spanned seven years (1955–62), Senator Wall initiated the tradition of speaking in the Senate on issues that were of importance to Ukrainians. This tradition was later continued by succeeding Ukrainian Canadian senators, such as John Hnatyshyn and Paul Yuzyk.

Myron Momryk

[This article was written in 2024.]