After Politics
In 1988, Shymko was appointed by the Government of Canada to serve on the Federal Immigration and Refugee Board (1988–1993). In 1995, he founded a private consulting company, Shymko International Consulting, in Toronto.
Shymko has remained an outspoken human rights activist, representing a number of NGO's before the UN General Assembly, the Council of Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the UN Human Rights Commission. He has been the keynote speaker at a number of international forums on human rights and nationalities policies.
Shymko is the recipient of a number of Canadian and international awards, including the Outstanding Service Award from the Reena Foundation (1985), which serves the needs of the Jewish community's handicapped children. In 1997, Shymko's support for the francophonie was recognized when he was officially inducted as an Officer of the Order of La Pléiade by the International Assembly of French Speaking Parliamentarians (1997). Shymko was inducted into the Ordre de la Pléiade together with Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau and Ontario Court of Appeal Justice, Roy McMurtry.
In 2007, Shymko was appointed for a three year term by the Stephen Harper government to the Employment Insurance Board of Referees. In 2010, his appointment was extended until June 26, 2013.
In 2006, Shymko was given one of Ukraine's highest awards, the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, by the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. Shymko thereby joined a list of eminent international recipients of the award including Javier Solana, Lech Wałęsa, and former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
Yuri Shymko is married to the former Stephanie Kowal. They have two daughters, Lisa Shymko (MA Political Science, University of Toronto) and Natalie Shymko (MA Fine Art History, University of Toronto).
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)