The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons resigned Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
“No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker,” Rota said in Parliament. “I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskyy.
“That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions,” he added.
Rota stepped down after meeting with the House of Commons’ party leaders. All main opposition parties had called for Rota to step down, and House government leader Karina Gould said that lawmakers had lost confidence in Rota.
“This is something that has brought shame and embarrassment to all of Parliament and indeed all Canadians. The speaker did the honorable thing in resigning,” Gould said.
Gould said that Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine, adding that the fact that Rota didn’t inform anyone and didn’t do diligence broke trust with lawmakers.
Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka on Friday unaware of the details of who he was.
“Never in my life would I have imagined that the speaker of the House would have asked us to stand and applaud someone who fought with the Nazis,” Gould said.
“This is very emotional for me. My family are Jewish holocaust survivors. I would have never in a million of years stood and applauded someone who aided the Nazis.”
Gould said Rota found out about it over the weekend. “He probably should have resigned as soon as he learned about it,” she said.
Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland had called the incident “incredibly embarrassing.”
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said in a statement that the incident “has left a stain on our country’s venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally.”
“This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament and has also handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine. It has also caused great pain to Canada’s Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, veterans and other victims of the Nazi regime.”
In an earlier apology on Sunday, Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognizing Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speaker’s office said it was Rota’s son who contacted Hunka’s local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyy’s speech.
The prime minister’s office said it was unaware that Hunka was invited until after the address. The speaker’s office also confirmed it did not share its invite list with any other party or group. The vetting process for visitors to the gallery is for physical security threats, not reputational threats, the speaker’s office said.
In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said it was “outrageous” that Hunka received a standing ovation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.
“It’s highly unfortunate and the only winner here is the Putin regime, which is already spinning what happened on Friday to justify its ongoing military actions in Ukraine,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal,
The opposition Conservatives in Canada have blamed Trudeau, but Béland noted that the speaker’s role in Canada is as an officer of Parliament who does not participate in partisan caucus meetings and is not a member of the Cabinet.
“Canada’s reputation is broken. This is by far the biggest hit Canada’s diplomatic reputation has ever taken under in history and it happened under Justin Trudeau’s watch,” Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said.
Poilievre said everyone in the House of Commons on Friday should have been vetted with Zelenskyy in attendance.
Robert Bothwell, a historian and professor at the University of Toronto, called Rota clueless for waiting so long to step down. He said an apology from Trudeau is also justified.
“He should not make it personal; there is nothing he personally did wrong, but the event embarrassed the country and as PM he takes responsibility,” Bothwell said.
“Trudeau doesn’t have the strongest image and this will cause other leaders to see him as damaged goods.”
(AP)
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5 Responses
Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
This fellow was a willing and eager supporter, not just of the Nazis but of their ideology and their antisemitism. But the mere fact that the division was commanded by Nazis shouldn’t be an issue. Of course it was commanded by Nazis. Who else could have commanded it? The Ukraine at the time was occupied by Germany, and if a Ukrainian patriot wished to fight the Russians, which was an entirely right and honorable thing to do, there were no options other than units commanded by Nazis.
There’s no shame in Ukrainians having sided with the Nazis against the Soviets, any more than there’s shame in Canada having sided with the Soviets against the Nazis. It’s not as if the Nazis were any more evil than the Soviets. It wasn’t a matter of choosing the lesser evil; it was entirely a matter of which evil found it in its short-term interest to help you.
For instance, nobody blames the Finns for having accepted German aid in their struggle against the Russians. On the contrary, we admire the Finns for their moral courage in nevertheless resisting German pressure to act against their Jewish citizens.
If this fellow had merely fought under Nazi command without supporting his commanders’ war crimes, let alone participating in them, he’d have deserved the salute from Parliament. It’s his own offenses, not those of his commanders, that make him unworthy of that salute.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.
So what? How does that make Putin wrong? The fact that the Ukrainians elected a Jewish president proves nothing; the French elected Blum right before the War, then proceeded to eagerly collaborate with the Germans and ship their Jews to Auschwitz.
@Milhouse, I don’t understand why you are bending over backwards to tell us that Hunka was not really so bad. The Ukranians were as cruel to the Yidden as the Nazia were. Hunka is the lowest of the low and maybe now he should be prosecuted for war crimes! Also, I could not believe the sentence I read in your comment which states that “It’s not as if the Nazis were any more evil than the Soviets.” My parents both survived the war because they were in Siberia so I know well how evil the Soviets were. But they were not as evil as the Nazis. What the Nazis did can not be compared to any other atrocities!
Lakewoodbubby, Hunka really was so bad. But not because he fought under German command. The Soviets were every bit as evil as the Nazis. Not even one drop more. What the Nazis did was very far from the worst atrocity in history, or even the worst in the 20th century. To claim otherwise is simply Jewish parochialism, saying that the Nazi atrocities were worse simply because we were the victims.
It would have made just as much sense for the West to have allied with Hitler against Stalin as to do the opposite; what determined it was simply that Hitler declared war on the West, while Stalin was not yet ready to do so.
In particular, the USA would probably have remained neutral in the European war had Hashem not clouded Hitler’s judgment and caused him to declare war on the USA, defying all his generals’ advice.
(Don’t forget that Stalin was Hitler’s enthusiastic ally, supporting everything he did, until Hitler turned on him in mid-1941.)
@milhouse
you have a totally warped sense of history.
Clear your mind of all preconceived opinions .
Read and read .
Think .
And then comment .