By Scott Taylor
The dust has yet to settle on Canada’s blunder of honouring a Second World War Ukrainian Nazi soldier with two standing ovations in the House of Commons.
Described by Australian media as a ‘Catastrophically Stupid” mistake, what made this incident worthy of international headlines was the fact that the salute to Yaroslav Hunka was made on the occasion of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s official visit to Canada.
Zenlenskyy is Jewish and a number of his relatives were killed by Nazis during the Holocaust, and yet he dutifully rose to his feet for both standing ovations to thank Hunka “for his service.”
When recognizing Hunka as his special guest in the gallery, House Speaker Anthony Rota identified him as a Canadian veteran “who fought for Ukraine independence during WWII, against the Russians.”
To anyone with even a basic understanding of Second World War history, this should have set off alarm bells immediately. If Hunka was fighting against the Russians, that means he was fighting for Hitler’s Nazis.
Canada was allied with the Soviet Union during those dark days to liberate Europe from the Nazis. If some members of Parliament were indeed that ignorant of this chapter in our history, they can be forgiven for being unwittingly doped into applauding a man described by Rota as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero.”
To be fair, the mainstream media covering this event also collectively failed to grasp what it meant for Hunka to “fight against the Russians” and they reported the standing ovations to 98-year-old Hunka as a ‘moving moment.’
That bubble was burst shortly thereafter by Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa.
Within hours Katchanovski was tweeting out photos and translated text that clearly identified Hunka as a member of the 14 SS Waffen-Grenadier (Galicia) Division. This was a volunteer SS unit stood up in 1943 with members taking an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
Once that shocking detail began to circulate, Members of Parliament could not distance themselves fast enough from the honour they had bestowed upon Hunka.
House Speaker Rota claimed to have not known of Hunka’s SS service, but the fact that the official recognition was bereft of any rank or unit mention suggests otherwise.
However, as the howls of indignation magnified, Rota took full responsibility for this colossal failure of judgement and he resigned as Speaker of the House.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dodged the issue for three days and then made a formal apology on behalf of all members of the House of Commons.
To date there has been no official apology to Ukraine President Zelenskyy, specifically and very few of the Members of Parliament in attendance at that event have personally apologized to their constituents for inadvertently paying respect to a Nazi.
Without a doubt, the true nature of Hunka’s war time service would not have come as a shock to all MP’s present for the ovations. In particular Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland is of Ukrainian descent and she has long prided herself on her detailed knowledge of Ukraine’s history.
Also present for the ovation was Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre.
As Canada’ top soldier, Eyre represents every serving member and veteran in the country. It is unthinkable that a career officer of Eyre’s rank would be so ignorant of military history as to not realize that Hunka must be a Nazi soldier. However, even if one gives Eyre the benefit of the doubt – perhaps he was distracted by an important text message when Rota read the citation – once the story broke it became incumbent upon the CDS to apologize for his misplaced tribute to a Waffen SS soldier.
Eyre recently did an interview with CBC wherein he reflected upon his experience as a young officer in Croatia. It was in reference to the 30-year anniversary of the Battle of the Medak Pocket.
Eyre was still emotional at having witnessed the ethnic cleansing committed by Croatian soldiers against Serbian civilians during that battle.
For him to rise to salute Hunka, whose SS formation committed similar slaughter in Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, can be forgiven as an error.
However now that the truth is out, Eyre needs to retract his tribute publicly and officially.
