Since its inception in 2005, the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group (CUPFG) has proved to be an invaluable tool in promoting and enhancing relations between our two countries. As an all-party group, it serves as a forum for the exchange of ideas between Canadian parliamentarians and their counterparts in Ukraine, and to promote and enhance the political, economic and cultural relations between Canada and Ukraine. This is not unlike the U.S. Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, founded in 1997, and its Senate counterpart, established in 2015.
Many parliamentarians of all stripes have participated in it over the past 14 years, but this year marks a watershed as three of the group’s most venerable members will no longer sit in Parliament. The first to go was Raynell Andreychuk, a Conservative senator who reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 on August 14 (See The Ukrainian Weekly August 9).