Miners at Nanaimo and the Crowsnest Pass went on strike until erstwhile comrades of foreign origin were put behind barbed wire. Perhaps Ottawa should have ignored the public storm but the Borden government expected an election in 1915 and was listening to voters. Bishop Budka has long since been forgotten, not just by Ukrainian Canadians who want recompense for past injustices and old evils. Certainly Budka meant nothing to the Muslim imam in Edmonton whose response to the gulf war was to preach jihad against Canada's neighbor, friend and ally, the United States. Needless to say, this was a timely intervention only for bigots looking for an excuse to bully their Arab neighbors.
Any thoughtful person can understand the imam's passion.
One can even understand the late Bishop Budka, though that does not undo the miserable experience of his contemporary co-religionists. Canadians can understand how old loyalties matter more than the frail affiliation to a Canada that, in normal times, scorns public expressions of patriotism as a dubious Americanism. Ministers rejected the idea, some of them on the claim that it was unnecessary to draw attention to what was obvious. Within weeks, the cabinet was making plans to intern those same Japanese Canadians on the argument that they could not be protected from attacks by bigoted, panic-stricken white neighbors. School kids, with the cruelty of their species, make life miserable for Arab youngsters in the playground.