Of note, Canada's deputy prime minister has a masters degree from Harvard in slavic studies and wrote a book about Russia. They knew what army the guy fought for, it's unlikely that she or anyone else who knew about history could really not have known if they'd thought about it at all.
Who is the 'they' you refer to? You are incorrectly assuming that there is some big consultation about every guest invited into the House. There is not. Indeed Freeland would have noticed this if she was involved with the vetting, but she's the deputy PM, she's not doing minutia like checking guest backgrounds.
Probably true, but as deputy PM and as a person also intimately acquainted with this issue she should have been very involved. She is of Canadian-Ukrainian background, lived there for some years post-Soviet, fluent in both Russian and Ukrainian, and has extensive networks there.
It's unclear to me in general why she hasn't been more prominent on this file in general (Ukrainian-Canadian relations during the war). Except that there have been controversies about some of her family's Ukrainian nationalist past, and maybe they're keeping her out of the limelight on this for that reason.
Or Trudeau sees her as a threat, and is doing to her what Chretien did to Paul Martin (keep them close but under wraps), I dunno.
In any case, she should have been involved, and would have known better. You hope.
There was a time a couple years ago when she was the clear "natural" successor to Trudeau. Since then her star seems to have faded, and he doesn't seem to know when to get off the stage, either.
The deputy prime minister should be involved in vetting other people's guests to the House of Commons? Personally? You don't think she has more important things to do? Vetting of guests should be done, and should be done much better than it was, but it's a job for (competent) staffers, not cabinet personally.
... Wait, how do you think this works? "I'm going to bring in a visitor, can everyone in parliament please give them the thumbs-up"? I mean, arguably it _should_ work like that, because "parliamentarian shows off someone who turns out to be a milkshake duck" does seem to be a recurring thing, but it is very much not how it works.
"Ms Freeland, you are a lifelong expert in Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Canadian history and politics, I'd love it if you looked over this list."
or
"Mr Speaker, I hear you're putting together a set of speakers for Mr Zelensky's visit, it would be great if you would share that set with me, as I have a special focus on this area"
I'm sorry, I don't see the confusion here. Unless you think that would be partisan interference with parliamentary procedure?
Putting it another way, if she was my MP I'd be pissed. Because she's not "just" the deputy PM & finance minister, she's an MP in the Canadian parliament in the governing party, and this has been one of her lifelong areas of study, and I would expect her to be applying her expertise on the public's behalf, because that's how she got voted in.
Yeah, it would have been good if the speaker had done that. However:
> He identified Hunka as a "war hero" who fought for the First Ukrainian Division
The speaker evidently did not think to so much as Google "First Ukrainian Division" (which would have made the nature of the situation clear) so it's... optimistic to assume that he'd think to check with an expert.
> "Mr Speaker, I hear you're putting together a set of speakers for Mr Zelensky's visit, it would be great if you would share that set with me, as I have a special focus on this area"
This probably wasn't even realistically on her radar; she's the _Minister for Finance_, which is, like, an actual job which requires a lot of work. Organising events like this is for backbenchers, and, apparently, speakers. Like, if she'd been chatting to the speaker at the coffee machine and he'd mentioned who he was inviting, I assume she'd have gone "wait, you're inviting a member of _what_?!", but it's not clear how you expect her to even have known about it otherwise.
I don't care about parliament, it's iterated below that it's a simple slip up. I agree with the poster who said a simple apology would suffice on their end.
It's the man himself. That's what really matters. Too many of these monsters got away in the ratlines and recruitment programs after the war. He should be drug and tried like the rest who were responsible for the atrocities of the time.
> Do you expect each MP to individually vet the guests that other MPs have invited to the house?
They have cell phones, don't they? Maybe do a quick search before you give a standing ovation to a Nazi war criminal, _especially_ if you hear "fought against the Russians in WWII". If that doesn't set off more red flags than Red Square during an October Revolution Parade then maybe the MP is just too stupid to be in Parliament.
I don't even think he should resign or be fired...a public apology of "I didn't know, and I'm sorry for that" should suffice. The problem is perpetually outraged people on the internet who can never forgive a mistake...they're a barbaric mob going around looking for who to let their anger on...if only they had better things to do.
Do people think public officials are all-knowing and incapable of making mistakes?
No, but if a Canadian engineer put their stamp on work that was this sloppy, an apology wouldn't suffice. They'd be suspended at least, or likely even lose their license permanently. Even if the work was prepared by their subordinates and just handed to them to sign off on it.
Why should the Speaker of the House be held to a lower standard of diligence, especially when their actions have international geopolitical consequences?
If it were any random MP, perhaps. But he's the Speaker, and that role requires he has moral authority and the confidence of the House. Will be interesting to see if the House decides to vote him out.
Indeed the tribal mob politics has gotten completely out of hand here.
The only upside here is all the parties in parliament applauded the guy, so there's limited possibility for it becoming a "F*ck Trudeau" crowd issue. Their own tribe were right there, applauding the same guy.
They did introduce him as fighting against the Russian in WWII... It's easy to put all the blame on a single scapegoat, this is the results of a lot of incompetent people. Shameful moment.
Who else fought against Russians in WW2? Did they think the guy is Finnish? Do you actually believe the parliament of a first world country with all the staff and process that it has did not know about it?
Why did Trudeau call it Russian propaganda when confronted about it, even if we assume that he magically didn't know anything about the guest?
Indeed; but in their defence, members of parliament did not know, at the time, that this guy was a Nazi.