I'm in no way defending him or the government's actions here. I want to add though that Canada did have a commission in 1986 look into this person's unit (Galacia Division) did not find evidence implicating them in war crimes. If there is evidence of course I'm all in favor of extraditing and prosecuting him and others
The report also found that Canada was home to several thousand ex-Nazis who couldn’t be directly implicated in war crimes given the available evidence.
This was the inquiry’s verdict on the Galicia Division, the Ukrainian Waffen-SS unit in which Yaroslav Hunka – the man applauded Friday in the House of Commons – was a veteran.
It's still a nasty stink to have people whose ideological leanings went that way, standing up in parliament and getting recognition.
And it does a disservice to the Ukrainian people. Because it emphasizes the ugly side of Ukrainian nationalism instead of the legitimate side of their cause, and gives Putin and Lavrov an ideological weapon at home and abroad in BRICs countries, etc.
The line from the west should be clear: we will help defend you. Your cause is just. But the far right imagery has to end, they need to put their foot down about it. Was looking at photos of the liberation of (what's left of) Andriivka the other day and right there in a western news media article was an unfurled flag of a far right militia with a quasi-Nazi insignia. That's f'd up.
From my understanding of friends who grew up in the Canadian Ukrainian community, there have always been two sides to it, with "progressive" or "left" branches and nationalist and right-wing branches. I remember a friend telling me his parents sent him to a Ukrainian summer camps where they practiced shooting rifles to "fight against Russians" and stuff. In Canada. It's a messed up history.
There's this general error as seeing too many things in black and white, as a battle of two sides, one being the good and the other the evil. No, not all Ukrainians are heroes or saints, nor were they so. Right now they are invaded, true, but this doesn't erase any dark spots from their past. So let Putin bark his lies for as long as he want, and let those who must pay for their past deeds, pay for them. Or not, if a court decides they are not guilty - remember the guy is only charged, not convicted.
from Olesya Khromeychuk's "‘Undetermined’ Ukrainians: Post-War Narratives of the Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division" on the Deschenes Commission:
"These conclusions were based partly on the assumption that the Division underwent a thorough screening by the UK authorities while in SEP/POW camps in Europe, although that screening, as will be discussed in Chapter 3, was far from thorough. This, however, did not discourage the Deschênes Commission from relying on it, as is evident from the conclusions which cite the screening report of 1947"
"The confidence of the Deschênes Commission in the British screening report’s conclusions seems to imply that the Commission was either ill-informed as to the meticulousness of the screening of the ‘Galicia’ performed by the UK authorities in the aftermath of the Second World War, or that it chose not to subject the report to close scrutiny. According to Rodal, a key explanation for the Deschênes Commission’s collective exoneration of the Division is what she refers to as the ‘ethnic factor’,28 and ‘persistent lobbying efforts and backing from a demographically significant Ukrainian ethnic constituency.’29"
"While lacking conclusive documentary evidence, the assumption that those Ukrainians who joined the ‘Galicia’ Division in its post-Brody recruitment phase might have participated in war crimes in the earlier years of the war is highly credible."
Ah well so he's just a Nazi. That makes it much much better. As long as you didn't commit provable war crimes, SS Nazi officers get to have a standing ovation in parliament here in Canada. Not even 2 years after the same prime minister was so principled against Nazis that a single flag in a protest was used to classify the entire protest as pro Nazi. What a joke.
