Dear John,

As I verbally indicated to you in our brief conversation today your Press Release misinterprets the facts and is pre-mature in its nature. For the record please note the following:

1) The historic day on the Hill was billed as Hellenic Friendship Day and it was organized by the Government of Canada. The invited organizations were SAE, PSEKA, the Canadian Hellenic Congress and AHEPA. This was a result of our requests to meet with our Government representatives in the pertinent Ministries to open channels of communication. Our meetings had nothing to do with your motion and in fact your motion and your name was never mentioned. We presented a joint position regarding some very important issues including the Theological Academy in Halki. Our organizations were invited guests and your comments about finding out about our presence a day later from a third party are misdirected in your Press Release and frankly misleading.

2) As far as we know no organization took credit for your motion or its passage. The President of Ahepa, Mr. Nick Aroutzidis simply stated his opinion that our efforts could only have helped enhance the awareness of the matter and could have easily assisted the situation. Admittedly this is a debatable point from your perspective but it hardly indicates that anyone is claiming credit for your work in the House of Commons. On the contrary we are all delighted with your efforts and your success in passing the motion. The Theological Academy in Halki is a matter that is of significant importance to all Greek Orthodox Christians and your initiative in the Canadian Parliament  should be applauded worldwide as should be our efforts to enhance awareness about the subject during our visit and in our written submissions.

3) You can rest assured that we are in agreement that in matters of Ethnic concern we should all be united. I am sure that you appreciate our decision to open channels of communication with our Government. Please understand that we are entitled as Canadian citizens to communicate directly and in a non partisan manner with the various people responsible at the Ministry level and with our Prime Minister. We certainly understand your prerogative to prepare and present motions in the House of Commons as a sitting Member of Parliament. However, while we appreciate any initiative that you or any Member of Parliament takes we feel strongly that our Hellenic organizations enhance the relationship it shares with the Government of Canada.

We are certain that upon reflection you will see that your Press Release does not serve the purpose of promoting unity within our community across Canada or assist in accomplishing your stated comment about the spirit of cooperation. Regrettably it can easily be interpreted as insulting and disrespectful of our Hellenic organizations and we want to believe that this was not your intention.

Sincerely,

Costas Menegakis