Yuri Shymko

Yuri Shymko (Cyrillic: Юрій Шимко, born September 6, 1940) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative Party member of the Canadian House of Commons from 1978 to 1979 representing the downtown Toronto riding of Parkdale. From 1981 to 1987 he served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario representing the riding of High Park-Swansea.

As of 2015, Shymko is President of the International Council in Support of Ukraine which coordinates Ukrainian NGO's in North America, Europe, South America, and Australia.

Background

Shymko was born in Cosel, Province of Silesia, Germany (modern Koźle, part of Kędzierzyn-Koźle, in Poland). He is the grandnephew of the renowned Ukrainian poet and social activist, Ivan Franko, whose granddaughter, Hanna Klyuchko, lived in Canada. Shymko's family moved to Belgium, where he received his early education in a private school operated by the Catholic Redemptorist Fathers. He moved to Canada as a teenager and went to the University of Toronto where he graduated with a degree in modern history and languages. After university he worked as a high school teacher at Victoria Park Secondary School. He is the author of "For This Was I Born", a book that addressed the violation of human rights in the former Soviet Union.