New Delhi: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has found himself in a new controversy after Parliament gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian veteran who turned out to be a Nazi who served in the infamous SS which was instrumental in killing millions of Jews.
After widespread condemnation both at home and abroad, Canada’s House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota Sunday apologised for praising Canadian-Ukrainian Yaroslav Hunka, who was invited Friday to Parliament for the address of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to the House.
As Hunka was introduced by the Speaker, the Canadian Members of Parliament gave him a standing ovation, while Zelenskyy raised his fist in acknowledgement of Hunka’s services. Hunka served during World War-II with the First Ukrainian Division, known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, a voluntary unit under the command of Nazi Germany.
The Waffen-SS was declared as a criminal organisation in the Nürnberg trials after the end of World War-II. As per information available from the proceedings of the Nürnberg trials, divisions of the Waffen-SS were responsible for “many massacres and atrocities” in occupied territories such as those in Lidice and Oradour — where at least 1,000 civilians were massacred by the organisation.
The incident adds further domestic woes to Trudeau, who as ThePrint reported earlier has been overtaken by opposition leader Pierre Poilievre in opinion polls.
After Friday’s event, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, a Canadian human rights and social advocacy organisation, called the recognition given by the Parliament to Hunka as “deeply disturbing.”
“The fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to and given a standing ovation in Parliament is shocking,” the Center said in a statement. “There should be no confusion that this unit (First Ukrainian Division) was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians.”
Similarly, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), which represents Jewish federations across Canada, said that they were “deeply troubled and disturbed”.
“Canada’s Jewish community stands firmly with Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression. But we can’t stay silent when crimes committed by Ukrainians during the Holocaust are whitewashed,” the CIJA statement said in a statement.
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Hunka’s invitation raises political row
In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Pierre Poilievre of Conservative Party of Canada called the recognition of Hunka an “appaling error in judgement on the part of Justin Trudeau”.
“No parliamentarians (other than Justin Trudeau) had the opportunity to vet this individual’s past before he was introduced and honoured on the floor of the House of Commons. Without warning or context, it was impossible for any parliamentarian in the room (other than Mr. Trudeau) to know of this dark past,” Poilievre added.
This is not the first incident of Trudeau’s protocol office failing to vet an individual before inviting them to an event hosted by his government.
In 2018, during Trudeau’s visit to India, Jaspal Atwal, a convicted Sikh separatist, who attempted to assassinate a cabinet minister from Punjab, was invited to two events in Mumbai and New Delhi.
Atwal attended the event in Mumbai and was seen taking photographs with Trudeau’s wife. Later, Atwal’s invitation for a dinner hosted by the Canadian Prime Minister and First Lady in New Delhi was rescinded.
Canada’s tryst with Ukrainian Nazis
Over 10 percent of Canadians (roughly a million) of its 11 million people fought World War-II against Nazi Germany. In 1950, the Canadian cabinet decided to allow Ukrainians living in the UK to come to Canada, irrespective of their service in the Germany army during World War-II, as reported by the National Post, a Canadian newspaper.
In 1985, the then Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney called for a royal commission to study whether Canada was a “safe haven” for war criminals. It was found that about 600 members of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division were living in Canada at the time, according to the National Post.
Monuments have also been constructed in Canada for Roman Shukhevych, a Ukrainian military leader during World War-II. Shukhevych collaborated with the Nazis till at least the end of 1942.
In 2021, monuments to Shukhevych and the Waffen-SS Galicia Division in Edmonton, Canada were vandalised with a spray painting saying ‘Actual Nazi’ on the monuments, as reported by Canadian media.
The Friends of Simon Wiesnethal Center has reportedly argued for the removal of these monuments for years. But the promotion of Ukrainian Nazis in Canada leads to another problem for the Trudeau administration.
In February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly invoked World War II to justify the invasion of Ukraine, specifically stating that the operation was aimed at the “denazification” of Ukraine. This misstep of inviting Hunka, adds credibility to Putin’s claims of denazification.
On Monday, Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov, tweeted that Canada remains a “safe haven” for Ukrainian Nazis.
Polish Ambassador to Canada Witold Dzielski, too, sought an apology for the episode. “Poland as the best ally (to) Ukraine, will never agree to whitewashing such villains,” Dzielski tweeted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)