How did 338 Members of Parliament give a standing ovation to a Nazi?
Canada’s Parliament gave two standing ovations to a Ukrainian man who fought for a Nazi SS division. It’s become an international embarrassment that has forced the Speaker Anthony Rota to resign.
You can see Speaker Rota doing some quick on the spot math in his head.
— Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor) September 24, 2023
“from the second world war who fought… against the Russians… … …” pic.twitter.com/tMiwVBrlu8
The incident could have given Russia the opportunity to assert, once again, its brutal and illegal invasion was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin called the Canadian government careless in its memory of the Second World War.
“Such sloppiness of memory is outrageous,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Many Western countries, including Canada, have raised a young generation that does not know who fought whom or what happened during the Second World War. And they know nothing about the threat of fascism.”
Indeed, the incident raises many questions:
- What is this SS division for whom Ukrainian fought?
- How did a man fighting for a unit commanded by the Nazis end up living here?
- And why are there still two monuments to Nazis in Canada?
Once again, we recommend this episode of CBC’s Front Burner where our favourite journalist, David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen, breaks down the story for us.
David says, “So it is basic history, but a lot of Canadians don’t know their basic history. If he fought against the Russians during the Second World War, that means he was fighting on the side of the Nazis. The Russians were allied with the U.S., Canada, Britain and the various allied powers to defeat Nazi Germany.”
“You know, what Putin is saying [about de-Nazifying Ukraine] is obviously wrong. The invasion is wrong, but you don’t go, okay, well, Ukrainian Nazis are okay because now, Ukraine is fighting the Russians. You could say, for instance, Osama bin Laden fought the Russians in Afghanistan in the early days and we’re not erecting a statue towards him or a monument towards him. So I think totally two separate issues. And these Jewish groups and the Poles, they have valid concerns here. To put it bluntly, Canada fought against the Third Reich, fought against the Nazis. So it is mind boggling that an SS soldier was honoured by our MPs, by our Parliament,” he adds.
i dont think holocaust revisionism, or revisionism of ww2 more generally is particularly new here (or a generational problem, as putin puts it). hunka and his family have prospered here in canada for over 70 years with that ‘dad fought the ruskies’ shit. they expected to be celebrated because i imagine thats how most of the last 70 years has gone. its only a problem now because people believe doing it next to zelenskyy on a formal occasion somehow justifies russias invasion of ukraine (why would it? the nazis came here!).
we have never committed to denazification here and we treat it like such a joke that since last spring its become necessarily a putin thing. accusing a man of being a nazi just for “fighting for ukrainian independence against the russians in ww2” easily falls under the category of ideas we call ‘russian propaganda’ now and apparently have to wage war against. no wonder this didnt become a crisis until sunday. and trudeaus solution? better vigilance against this russian propaganda because he and the conservatives cant agree on what ‘government’ means and whos responsible for putting a bad man in the praise box.
So if its scandalous for Canada to have monuments to Nazi’s, then why don’t you address the fact that Ukraine has over 30 monuments. Address the fact that after the western led coup d’etat Ukraine has made a National holiday in honour of Stephan Bandera. They’ve created postage stamps with his picture. Address the fact that you seemingly cant take a picture of a Ukrainian soldier with out seeing a Nazi symbol. Address the fact that before the Russian mobilization there were numerous articles by the Globe and Mail, MacLeans magazine, Wall street journal, and others regarding Canada training troops in Ukraine that were sympathetic to Nazi ideology. For some colluding reason nobody will acknowledge those issues now. Your quick dismissal of Putin’s demand to de-nazify Ukraine speaks volumes. Putin’s demands should have been welcomed instead of challenged and denied. Lets not forget his other two demands were to have Ukraine be a neutral country free of NATO missiles , and no foreign militaries in Ukraine. That is the most peaceful set of demands I could ever imagine, but those were fighting words for the west. We could never submit to such terms. Those demands are enough to warrant the killing of 100,000’s . Maybe 1/2 million men… so far.