The Manitoba government will recognize the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s by setting aside a day in late November.

The government and opposition introduced a joint bill on Thursday that would declare the fourth Saturday in November Ukrainian Famine and Genocide Memorial Day.

"It's important that it be recognized," said Manitoba deputy premier Rosann Wowchuk, who has visited Ukraine and says she has spoken with relatives who lived through the famine in 1932-33.

"About seven million people died in this genocide, and it was deliberate," she said.

Many historians agree that the famine was largely created by the policies of the Soviet Union, but there is disagreement about whether the mass starvations were a deliberately engineered genocide directed at ethnic Ukrainians.

Ukraine has asked the United Nations to recognize the famine as a genocide, something several countries have already done and which the UN is still considering.

"There is no way that you can say that it didn't really happen," she said. "It's important that it be recognized and we recognize it here."

Wowchuk belongs to a Ukrainian population that makes up roughly 14 per cent of the Manitoba population, according to the 2001 census.

With files from the Canadian Press