Marcus Kolga: University of Toronto education project risks reinforcing Russian disinformation
This key fact in Canadian foreign policy is ignored. As then-prime minister Justin Trudeau stated in 2016: 'Canada never recognized the Soviet Union's occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and always supported their struggle to restore independence during decades of Soviet occupation.'
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Former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis recently put it plainly: 'Lithuania never joined the U.S.S.R. Moscow illegally occupied our territory, so we resisted until we restored our independence, and the Red Army went back home. We're not 'post-Soviet'.' A better description, he said, would be 'never-Soviet.'
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Vladimir Putin's regime has made this distortion of Russia's imperial history — and the manipulation of the terms used to describe it — a central pillar of its foreign policy. These distortions are used to justify aggression against Ukraine and to undermine the sovereignty of the Baltic states. Framing Soviet rule as a benign 'multicultural experiment,' and labelling formerly occupied nations as 'post-Soviet' risks legitimizing the very disinformation that fuels Kremlin imperialism. In both education and information warfare, the accuracy of terminology is critically important. Words matter.
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The project's blanket characterization of Canadian communities as 'post-Soviet populations' is not only inaccurate, it's deeply offensive. My nephew, born in Estonia in the early 2000s to an Estoniаn-Canadian father and now studying in Canada, is not 'post-Soviet.' Neither are the tens of thousands of Canadians of Baltic, Ukrainian, Georgian or Central Asian heritage whose families were displaced, terrorized and brutalized by Soviet Russian occupation. This kind of labelling reeks of Western academic chauvinism. It erases the lived trauma of colonization and flattens survivors and their descendants into a vague, ahistorical category — stripping them of agency, dignity and identity.
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Most troublingly, this project is federally funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In response to criticism from the Lithuanian Embassy, SSHRC President Ted Hewitt defended the project on grounds of 'academic freedom.' But academic freedom does not extend to legitimizing historical falsehoods, especially those that harm communities or align with authoritarian propaganda.
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The University of Toronto must acknowledge and apologize for the flaws in this project and not double down on them. In a letter responding to concerns raised by Lithuania's Ambassador to Canada, Egidijus Meilūnas, OISE Vice-Dean Creso Sá claimed that the 'primary aim' of the project is to 'deepen understanding' of diaspora communities. This is a laudable goal. But it cannot be achieved by distorting historical truths or marginalizing the very communities the project claims to 'understand.'
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OISE and SSHRC should instead engage directly with affected communities and experts to develop research that accurately reflects the complex legacy of Soviet colonization and celebrates the resilience of those who resisted it. The contributions of Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and other diaspora groups in Canada should be recognized, not distorted by false generalizations aligned with Kremlin narratives.
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