OTTAWA - Canada is poised to formally recognize as a genocide the 1930s famine in Ukraine that claimed millions of lives.

Conservative MPs are planning to support a private member's bill introduced by Manitoba Tory MP James Bezan, a senior government official told The Canadian Press Tuesday.

It's a shift from last fall, when a government official told The Canadian Press during the 75th anniversary commemoration of the famine on Parliament Hill they have no plans to recognize the deaths as a genocide.

The famine saw millions of people starve in an area long known as Europe's breadbasket. People on Soviet-controlled collective farms went hungry as food was exported from the region.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is under mounting pressure to adopt the genocide label, as Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko is coming to Canada, starting with a visit to Ottawa May 26.

At a celebration last week with Manitoba MP Vic Toews to thank the Conservatives for acknowledging the Canada's internment of Eastern Europeans during World War One, a community leader mentioned the famine or Holodomor, sometimes translated as murder by hunger.

"Incidentally, Minister Toews, we would also be delighted with a rapid adoption of the Holodomor genocide bill, which is before Parliament," said Oleh Gerus, vice president of the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko.

Liberal and NDP members had earlier pledged support for the bill, which would also set aside an annual memorial day in November.

Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the Liberal MP for Ontario's Etobicoke Centre, said in recent weeks most Conservative MPs have carefully watched their words when describing the famine.

"If there's a better understanding of this historic tragedy as a genocide ... then that would be quite welcomed," Wrzesnewskyj said Tuesday.

More than a dozen countries, including the United States, already formally recognize the famine as a deliberate attempt by the Soviet regime of Josef Stalin to eliminate ethnic Ukrainians and end their aspirations for independence.

But some academics, and many Russians, disagree.

Some historians say the famine was a result of Russia trying to pay for industrialization through grain exports while leaving millions of rural residents - not only Ukrainians, but also Russians and Kazakhstanis - to starve.

Historians also dispute the exact death toll. The estimates range from three million to 10 million people.

In Manitoba, the NDP government passed its own bill declaring the fourth Saturday in November the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide Memorial Day.

Nationally, the Conservatives have made an assiduous effort to wrest away ethnic supporters who have traditionally voted Liberal. Harper appointed Jason Kenney to his cabinet with this express aim.

The prime minister has apologized to the Chinese for the head tax that was imposed on immigrants from that country at the turn of the 20th century. The government is also expected to apologize shortly for barring 376 Indian immigrants aboard the passenger ship Komagata Maru from entering Vancouver in 1914.

The Conservatives have been unswerving and unambiguous in their support of Israel in order to dislodge Jewish voters from their traditional ties to the Liberal party.

- By Tamara King in Winnipeg

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