Yet Another of Justin Trudeau's Unfortunate Lapses in Judgement

"[House Speaker Anthony Rota made an] unforgivable error [and] a sacred trust has been broken [in recognizing 98-year-old Yarsolav Hunka as] a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero [moments before Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was set to make his address to Parliament on Friday, prompting Members of Parliament and dignitaries present for the occasion in the House to offer him a standing ovation]."

"This is not something that should be any sort of political game."

"We, as parliamentarians, did something that was profoundly offensive, insulting to people around the world. That denied the ... reality of the Holocaust as a genocide." 

NDP House Leader Peter Julian

The Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota delivers a speech following an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023.   Sean Kilpatrick/AP

Speaker of the House Rota's error in judgement brought down calls from all political parties in the Canadian Parliament, including his own, to step down from his position. His resignation required for having invited a man from his constituency -- to a ceremonial welcome in the Canadian Parliament for the president of Ukraine preparatory to hearing him address Parliament -- who had fought for the Nazi SS. Several days later, on Wednesday, he did just that, reluctantly, and claiming himself and he only to have been responsible for the hugely unsettling incident.

"It's for that reason, for the good of the institution of the House of Commons, that I say, sadly, I don't believe you can continue in this role."

"Regrettably, I must respectfully ask that you step aside."

Two days after House Speaker Rota had referred to his invited guest Yaroslav Hunka, sitting in the parliamentary gallery, as a "hero" who had fought for Ukrainian independence against the Soviets during the Second World War, when all those present in Parliament erupted into an ovation of recognition, it was reported that Yaroslav Hunka in actual fact had fought for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. This was a Nazi-controlled unit comprised of volunteer Ukrainian collaborators.

Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Ontario on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023.    Patrick Doyle/AP

The Waffen Grenadiers was recognized post-war as a criminal organization operating in concert with Nazi Germany, willing recruits to mass murder, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles. Jewish groups demanded an immediate apology from the government of Canada. Poland's ambassador to Canada did the same. And Canadian parliamentarians were disgusted at having been invited unwittingly to applaud the exploits of a Nazi collaborator.

House Speaker Anthony Rota has apologized after arranging for a Ukrainian constituent to be honoured by MPs during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit. Yaroslav Hunka fought for a Nazi unit during the Second World War.

 

The Nazis established many collaborationist armies in the territories they occupied in Europe during the Second World War. There were collaborators from France, Italy and the Netherlands drawn by Nazi ideologies. And thousands of Ukrainians fought for Germany, believing fervently in German propaganda convincing them that Jews were at the helm of the Soviet government in Moscow and to kill Jews en masse would solve an oncoming event of Soviet occupation of Ukraine.

For its part, post-war, Canada chose to overlook and went so far as to provide official cover for emigrants from Ukraine that were Nazi collaborators portraying themselves as Ukrainian freedom fighters, though they fought with a unit founded by Nazis, served under Nazi command, and exclusively fought to serve the Nazi aim of annihilating Europe's Jews. Monuments to the unit were erected at Ukrainian cemeteries in Edmonton, Alberta and Oakville, Ontario.

When this situation was highlighted by the Russian Foreign Ministry in 2018, Canada's foreign affairs department rushed to deny it, calling it "Russian misinformation". Prime Minister Trudeau, in the wake of this latest dreadful affair, cites Russian "misinformation" as being responsible for Canada's own lapse of vigilance in bringing an old Nazi collaborator to Parliament for recognition as a 'war hero'. Speaking dismissively of Russian "disinformation" is Canada's deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Speaker Anthony Rota 'acknowledged his mistake' in inviting a Ukrainian who served in a Nazi unit to the House of Commons. Trudeau says he wants parliamentarians to refocus on standing against Russian propaganda and disinformation

 

Russian 'propaganda' was cited when Russian investigators pointed out that her family during World War II was also embroiled in collaboration with the Nazis; her grandfather as editor of a Ukrainian, Nazi-affiliated newspaper, published in occupied Poland where antisemitic propaganda found a good home. These unfortunate details have also been investigated and recorded by Ukrainian academics in Canadian universities.

Nazi commanders had called for volunteers to sign up for the Schutzstaffel (SS) a corp of elite military members loyal to the Nazi Party, as a distinct unit not part of the German army. A French SS unit was in existence, as well as a Norwegian SS unit, a Dutch SS unit, and SS units formed unbelievably from British and American prisoners of war. The Ukrainian recruits were accepted and indoctrinated into a unit of Ukrainians, created in 1943.

The initial "ground zero" for the Holocaust took place in Ukraine, where German and collaborationist death squads murdered over a million Ukrainian Jews. Galicia Division recruits were likely intrigued by the thought of seeking a sovereign Ukraine eventually, gaining momentum in joining the SS, swearing a personal oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, their actions directed by Nazi German commanders.

Following war's end, a large number of Galicia Division veterans emigrated to Canada. At that time immigration policy was ordered in rejection of any veterans of the German Wehrmacht or the SS, yet through a 1985 federal public enquiry into war criminals being sheltered in Canada, Galicia Division members were granted cabinet-level exemption in 1950. At the time, the Canadian Jewish Congress fiercely opposed that decision, but was ignored. 

The reason given was that the division's volunteer Ukrainians had become a willing part of the Nazi SS "not because of a love of the Germans but because of their hatred for the Russians and the Communist tyranny". A hatred that extended lethally toward Europe's Jews, enabling the Division members with a clear conscience to murder Europe's Jews in defence of their Ukrainian homeland's future as a sovereign nation. 

Canadian justice, empathy and humanity.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre blamed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally for the fact that Hunka was invited. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)