BOHDAN MAKSYMEC

Engineer, President of PLANMAC

Date and Place of Birth: March 1 1936 in Nyvyci, Ukraine

Date of Interview: July 5 2016

Place of Interview: Toronto, Ontario

Interviewer: Kassandra Luciuk

Length of Interview: 01:03:44

(Excerpt):

So what happened, when [Russian Cold War statesman Alexei] Kosygin came to Canada, there was a protest that I organized. And I met with police and members of the Ukrainian community, we met with police to discuss with them what we were going to do. This was going to be a peaceful demonstration, and this was going to be in the Don Mills, York Mills area. A plot of land was assigned to us. This is where we would demonstrate. Well we came out there to demonstrate. There were priests and women and children – young and old came to protest. What happened was that the Toronto Police sort of anticipated that there may be some trouble. The trouble actually began when some hooligans behind the Ukrainian demonstration picked up rocks. They were not part of our group. I think the Ukrainian community knows where they’re from, but I don’t want to say it, publicize it; but, they started throwing. Much before the motorcade with Kosygin came through, and police lines were there, they started throwing rocks onto the road and maybe hitting some policemen. So what happened then…the lines opened up, and Mounted Police came through, and started chasing people and beating them. People who had nothing to do with it because the kids who were throwing stones were at the back and were never caught. And they, in fact, caught several Ukrainian people. I know that Dr. Zurkovskyj’s son was arrested and he eventually was let go because there was no evidence that he did anything – it was peaceful. These horsemen ran over women. One of them had horse hooves on her back. They smacked a priest with a baton and beat up a number of people. And you know, that was it. Very, very embarrassing and very bad.

CROSS REFERENCES:

• Canadian Company Capabilities profile

• Wikipedia page for Parkdale electoral district

• PlanMac Engineering Inc. website

• Newspaper article 

• Newspaper article