Trudeau, Zelensky honor 98-year-old Ukrainian WW2 veteran who served in Waffen-SS

The Parliament of Canada provided a loud, all-party standing ovation Friday to Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old who served with the Nazi Waffen-SS during the Second World War. 

Hunka was a soldier with the 14th "Galicia" division of the Waffen-SS, the military section of the Nazi SS, which was responsible for elements of terror from massive extermination camps to the daily torture and repression of citizens within occupied Europe. The International Military Tribunal that oversaw the Nuremberg war crimes trials declared the SS to be a criminal organization. 

The Associated Press captioned of a picture documenting Hunka’s presence, describing Hunka as having "fought with the First Ukrainian Division in World War II before later immigrating to Canada." The Galicia division was rechristened in 1945 with a Ukrainian name in order to avoid connecting it to the Waffen-SS.

Hunka was a guest of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Zelensky was in Ottawa to address a joint session of Parliament and to pick up more military aid from the Liberal government.  In his address to Parliament, Zelensky thanked Canada for its continued support to the war with Russia and suggested Canadians have  always been on "the bright side of history." 

House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota gushed over Hunka’s presence and told the Members of Parliament (MPs) that Hunka was a "veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98." 

Rota did not attempt to explain how Hunka’s belligerence against Russia did not serve Canada’s objectives during World War II. Canada did not fight against the Russians in the Second World War but, along with Great Britain, the United States and many other nations, was an ally of Russia, or the Soviet Union as it was then known.

Nonetheless, all the MPs rose to give Hunka a standing ovation. Such all-party demonstrations are extremely rare in Canada’s House of Commons. Hunka saluted the fanfare.

Noted journalist David Pugliese has recently written of how Canada allowed thousands of former Waffen-SS members into Canada after the Second World War in much the same way as the United States smuggled Nazi rocket scientists into the country during the same period under the auspices of Operation Paperclip.

It is not the first time the Trudeau government has supported Nazism – as long it comes from Ukraine.

As media publisher Ezra Levant noted, "Last year, Chrystia Freeland held up a scarf promoting a far-right Ukrainian Nationalist movement linked to Neo-Nazis commemorating Stefan Bandera, the Nazi criminal. Freeland deleted her social media posts, but not before the photo was saved."

Freeland’s office not only rushed to take down the photo from the minister’s website but maintained Freeland had been a victim of "Russian disinformation."

"A photo was taken, tweeted, and later replaced when it was clear some accounts were distorting the intent of the rally and photo," read a statement by Freeland press secretary Adrienne Vaupshas. She added that the origins of the scarf were not known and that "many people were jockeying for photos and giving the Deputy Prime Minister tokens."

Freeland’s grandfather worked as a Nazi propagandist, a fact she denied for years. 

Levant also noted: "Google has 738,000 hits for "trucker convoy Nazi", all stories from one fake photograph of an agent provocateur with a swastika flag that no-one else saw. 738,000 hits. Trudeau invited an actual Nazi SS veteran to Parliament and so far, not one story from the Regime Media."

During Zelensky’s visit to Canada, Trudeau dolled out more money to Ukraine, a $650 million "multi-year commitment that provides predictable, steady support to Ukraine," as well as armored vehicles to compensate for those and eight Leopard tanks believed already lost in the war.