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)

How To Make Friends And Influence People Trudeau-Style

"Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty."

"Canada declared its deep concerns to the top intelligence and security officials of the Indian government last week at the G20. I brought them personally and directly to Prime Minister Modi."

"Canada is a rule-of-law country. The protection of our citizens and defence of our sovereignty are fundamental."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says any foreign government involvement in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is 'an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.'   CBC

So 'fundamental' that the investigation undertaken by Canada's federal police failed, in investigating the source and cause of the Air India Bombing where hundreds of innocent Canadians and others lost their lives when the aircraft blew up in midair thanks to a bomb placed aboard in a scheme cooked up by a group of extremist Sikh Canadians agitating against India in secessionist plots to divide India's Punjab and create a Sikh 'homeland', 'Khalistan'.  

A bungled investigation led to a trial with an inconclusive result, the guilty parties to the plot failing, due to lack of evidence despite credible witness testimony, to be held responsible for that act of pure terrorism aimed at India and at Indian Hindus that led to the death of 329 people, 280 of whom were Canadian, mostly Indo-Canadians. A substantial, shocking loss of life with no one held accountable, though it was well known the catastrophe resulted from Sikh Khalistan separatists.

The death by assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of a Surrey, B.C. Sikh Gurdwara, shot dead by masked gunmen in the parking lot of Guru Nanak Sikh temple could have been carried out by two thugs seeking revenge for the Air India bombing, since he was an important member of the Khalistani movement, and a colleague of the principal suspect in the Air India bombing. If, as prime minister Trudeau asserts, the government of India was involved in this murder, an investigation that is still ongoing, his decision to release this bombshell of an accusation against India was done to serve his own interests; a grudge against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Hardly how one democracy treats another on the basis of a 'suspected' involvement.

"We have seen and reject the statement of the Canadian prime minister in their Parliament, as also the statement by their foreign minister."

"Allegations of Government of India's involvement in any act of violence in Canada are absurd and motivated".

India Foreign Ministry

Members of the Sikh community are pictured on Monday at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara where Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in Surrey, B.C. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

Canada's leader of the official opposition, while in support of denouncing a presumed act of extreme violence by a foreign government on Canadian soil, criticizes the prime minister for failing to divulge credible evidence implicating India in the killing of a "Canadian citizen". The fact is that Canada has been badly remiss in its responsibilities to another nation with which it has always had amicable relations, one whose expatriate citizens make up a sizeable proportion of the Canadian public. Sikh-Canadians represent 2% of the Canadian population, while Hindi-Canadians make up 2.4%. In his wisdom, charging India with conspiracy to murder, the prime minister who excels at dividing Canadians, has created another schism between Canadian Sikhs and Hindus.

The murdered man lied on his application for refugee status, and he was denied entry as a refugee. He chose an oft-practised ruse, marrying a Canadian citizen who then sponsored him for legal entry to Canada; that practise is now on the radar of Immigration officials. He established himself finally as a Canadian citizen, and has worked tirelessly to rouse Canadian Sikhs to the controversial and troubling cause of a proposed Sikh homeland, to carve a 'Khalistan' out of India's geography in Punjab. Mr. Nijjar organized protests, some of which fulminated against Indian diplomats in Canada, going so far as to recommend their deaths, while celebrating 'martyrs' to Khalistan.

"Diaspora groups bring grievances from their home countries. Even though many Sikh Canadians are first-, second- or third-generation Canadians, that issue [secessionism] resonates."

"There's a lot of history there."

"There's no serious insurgency in Punjab the way there was in the 1980s. I think most Sikhs in India are very pragmatic and know it would never allow one of its major provinces to separate."

Vivek Dihejia, associate professor, Carleton University, Ottawa

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G20 Summit in New Delhi on Sept. 10. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

 

India has pleaded with Canada not to permit Sikh Canadians to openly and flagrantly protest against India, threatening violence and in fact often committing violence. Justin Trudeau has turned a deaf ear to India's overtures and has instead left the indelible impression of his complete sympathy with those Canadian Sikhs who are extremists. When India was beset with large and vocal protests by farmers -- mostly Sikhs -- who protested against plans by the Indian government to modernize its agricultural system in food conglomerate payments to farmers, Trudeau openly supported the striking farmers, a clear interference in another country's internal affairs.

Militant Sikhs in the UK which has a Sikh-British population substantially fewer than Canada's, and in the United States, cannot launch the kind of wild protests that Canada sees with its provocative outlines and its celebration of Khalistanis who have run afoul of the law and who have committed deadly crimes, that are seen in Canada. There is legislation to prevent this type of grave propaganda assaults against another country with whom the West has otherwise good relations. Trudeau's motivations are politically charged, to gain the approval and support of a sizeable voting bloc, as though all Sikh Canadians approve of his tolerance for Sikh extremism.

Canada is to India what Pakistan is to the United States, where Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, was hosted by and shielded from US vengeance in his Abbottabad compound, located in close proximity to a Pakistani military command compound. A Pakistani medical doctor whose compound was next to the bin Laden compound had cooperated with the US secret service in establishing the identity of bin Laden, and for his part in the drama, he was arrested and imprisoned as a traitor to Pakistan. Canada has done nothing to ratchet down the threats of violence emanating from extremist Sikh Canadians, despite New Delhi asking Ottawa to take the required measures to outlaw them.

"The prime minister hasn't provided any facts. He provided a statement and I want to emphasize that he didn't tell me any more in private [than] he told Canadians in public, so we want to see more information."

"[There would be] real [risk if Trudeau refuses to provide more information or if the allegations turn out to be inaccurate]."

"[Trudeau] said nothing and did nothing [regarding Chinese interference in Canadian affairs for years, even while two Canadians were imprisoned, as compared to his action on allegations against India for the extrajudicial killing]."

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, House of Commons

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a leader of a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia  Reuters

Expressing Indian government growing frustration with anti-India sentiments taking place in Canada, PM Modi pointed to a poster produced by a Canadian pro-Khalistan group which featured "KILL INDIA" in block lettering. Hardeep Singh Nijjar who arrived in Canada in 1997 was accused by the government of India of terrorism. The country's Central Bureau of Investigation issued a warrant against him, charging him with attempting to cause an explosion, making or keeping explosives with intent to endanger life or property, and making or possessing explosives under suspicious circumstances. There was an Interpol notice issued for Mr. Nijjar.

Trooping the Colours of Democratic Liberalism

"Putin's attack on Ukraine is an attack on the values that form the pillars of all democracies. We have a responsibility to make the case to people about why these values matter so much -- not just to Ukrainians but to us all."

"We must recommit ourselves to the work of strengthening our democracies, and demonstrate the principled leadership people are looking for."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Despite Canadian legacy media outlets burying the story, the reprimand of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by European parliamentarians in Brussels has made headlines around the world. True North

Canada's 'charismatic' prime minister, the man who rode to success during the 2015 election that brought him to the helm of government, enjoyed telling the international community at events taking him outside his country that "Canada is back!". He never stopped deriding the previous, Conservative-led government that preceded him, led by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His initial actions on coming to power included reversing most of the moves of the previous government, and then he put his own personal imprint on government departments, renaming them all. 

 

This man preened and presented himself as a 'feminist' and a supporter of Indigenous rights, yet when his government's female/Indigenous Minister of Justice and Attorney General refused to surrender to the pressure he and his cronies subjected her to in the interests of airbrushing away prosecution of a prominent Quebec company accused of international corruption, he moved her from her position, demoting her to a lesser portfolio, and finally removed her from caucus.

When the second-in-command of the Canadian military attempted to support the need for a re-supply vessel for Canada's ill-equipped navy, Justin Trudeau persecuted him, saw to his removal from office, and ordered a judicial enquiry into alleged wrong-doing, the consequences of which were an absolute acquittal. Justin Trudeau as prime minister of Canada has done more to drive a wedge between Western Canada and Eastern Canada than any of his predecessors.

He saw fit to elevate a spurious charitable enterprise during the initial days of the COVID pandemic; a group unqualified to fill a questionable position that would profit them greatly. A charitable enterprise whose operators were personal 'friends' engaged in questionable ethics, which paid the prime minister's mother and brother handsomely for celebrity appearances geared to give greater credibility to the charity, but which ended in a public scandal, forcing the Minister of Finance to step away from office.

During his time as prime minister of Canada, democracy has been eroded by decisions made by Justin Trudeau, with limited appearances in the House of Commons, and remotely-gathered sessions to conduct government business. He unnecessarily prorogued government for sustained periods of time, and would not be answerable for the lapse in government business, preferring lengthy adjournments attributable to his personal agenda.

This is a man who felt entitled to travel once again to Europe to speak to European parliamentarians to plead for unity in responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a man who drove separatist impulse in Western Canada over his unequal and dismissive treatment of provincial assets and governments with which he would not agree. Democracies, he informed the European parliamentarians, is under attack in Ukraine, as though he was a leading exponent of democratic justice.

Trudeau's penchant for personal unaccountability, his practised aversion to direct response to questions, indulging in circumlocution, his automatic response to critics, lapsing into accusations of 'racism' and 'anti LGBTQ2' prejudices are legendary, known beyond Canada. When he mentioned as an example the recent truckers' protests in the streets around Parliament Hill in Ottawa last month, citing the Freedom Convoy as a conspiracy to turn citizens against a democratic system he described as best-suited, he drew a principled response from a handful of European delegates.

A response that made long-suffering Canadians sigh in appreciation that the hypocrisy and egocentricity of the man who has spoken of Canada as a 'racist' country, a country without any culture of its own, along with his aspiration to make of it a 'post-national' country has received recognition. The protesters in Ottawa, fed up with their government's autocratic mandates verging on dictatorship asked to be listened to. Their government had mandated that the ten percent of truckers who were unvaccinated must be.

People who for whatever reason would not submit to vaccination became, under Trudeau, third-class citizens whom he regarded with repugnance as unspeakable riffraff. He directed that they be unemployable without vaccination. Families with no incomes, struggling to get through a difficult period in their collective lives wanted an explanation and an answer from their prime minister, who refused to meet with them. Their protest was an affront to his sense of infallibility. 

"To defend our rights and the rights of our children, which we have acquired over the centuries, many of us – including myself – are willing to risk our own freedom and our own lives. Unfortunately, today there are those among us who trample on these fundamental values."

"Canada, once a symbol of the modern world, has become a symbol of civil rights violations under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months."

"We watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank accounts of single parents so that they can’t even pay their children’s education and medicine, that they can’t pay utilities, mortgages for their homes. To you, these may be liberal methods, for many citizens of the world, it is a dictatorship of the worst kind. Rest assured that the citizens of the world, united, can stop any regime that wants to destroy."

Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakusic

 

"Based on article 195, I would like to point out that it would have been appropriate for Mr. Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, to address this house, according to article 144. An article, which was specifically designed to debate the violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law which is clearly the case with Mr. Trudeau."

"[You are a] disgrace for any democracy. Please spare us your presence."

German MP Christine Anderson

Anderson accused Trudeau of openly admiring the Chinese basic dictatorship and called out the prime minister for trampling on “fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalizing his own citizens as terrorists just because they dare to stand up to his perverted concept of democracy.”