Yaremko, John
Yaremko, John (Яремко, Іван), b 10 August 1918 in Welland, Ontario, d 7 August 2010 in Toronto. Barrister, politician, public servant. Born into a family of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada, who arrived in the Niagara region in 1912, Yaremko completed his studies at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School (from where he graduated as a lawyer in 1946). As a student he became involved in Toronto municipal politics. During the Second World War, he received military training and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Canadian Army in 1945. In the 1940s he joined the Progressive Conservative Party and became active in local politics. During his first election campaign in 1951 in Toronto’s Bellwoods riding, he defeated A.A. MacLeod, a prominent Communist leader of the Labor Progressive Party. Yaremko was the first successful candidate from the Ukrainian community in a Ontario provincial election and he held his seat through several elections until he retired in 1975. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1953. In 1956, after the Soviet suppression of the uprising in Hungary, Yaremko personally campaigned to allow the Hungarian refugees to immigrate to Canada. He travelled to Europe to investigate conditions and in Ottawa, he pleaded their case with the federal government. Canada accepted an estimated 38,000 Hungarian refugees. During his political career, Yaremko was appointed Minister without Portfolio in the Ontario Cabinet in 1958 and Minister of Transport in 1958–60. He was promoted Provincial Secretary and Registrar in 1960, and in 1966–8, he was appointed Minister of Public Welfare and the ministry was renamed at his request as Social and Family Services in 1967–71. He became Provincial Secretary as well as Citizenship Minister in 1971 and in 1972–4, he worked as the first Solicitor General in Ontario. As Provincial Secretary, he authorized the Report of the Royal Commission to investigate the events relating to the alleged ‘riot’ on 25 October 1971 during the visit of Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin to Toronto. Yaremko retired from politics in 1975. He was appointed Chairman of the Ontario Licence Appeal Tribunal in 1976 and served until 1985.
Yaremko is generally known as a strong advocate of social justice, human rights, and education. He campaigned actively that Canada become the first country to adopt an official multicultural policy. He helped to establish nursing homes for ethnocultural communities so seniors could enjoy living with their own traditions, language, and foods. Yaremko received many awards during his career including the Officer Cross of the Order of Merit from the Hungarian government in 2007 for assisting the 1956 Hungarian refugees. He worked to introduce Ukrainian studies at universities and arranged for students from Ukraine to study Canadian democratic institutions. In 1981 Yaremko became a founding member of the University of Toronto Chair in Ukrainian Studies Foundation and in 2010, he made a $2-million donation to the Chair. In 2010, the Chair was named in his honour. As a philanthropist, Yaremko also supported Ukrainian-studies initiatives at York University in Toronto and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hooper, Barrett. ‘Honouring Multiculturalism: John Yaremko made a $2-million gift to the Chair in Ukrainian Studies,’ University of Toronto Magazine (8 December 2010)
Myron Momryk
[This article was updated in 2023.]