The image of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has gone from bad to worse after he honored a Ukrainian Nazi veteran in the country’s parliament during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on September 22. His honoring of Yaroslav Hunka, a veteran of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, comes only days after he made allegations against India over the death of a Sikh separatist, described by New Delhi as a pro-Khalistani terrorist.
Hunka was sitting in the gallery of parliament and got a standing ovation during Zelensky’s visit. The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, Anthony Rota, apologized after Canadian Jewish group CIJA said it was “deeply troubled” that a veteran of a Nazi division that participated in the Holocaust had been celebrated. During his address, Rota went as far as to say that the 98-year-old was “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service,” with those in the building responding with applause.
Rota said in a statement that on September 24, “In my remarks following the address of the president of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so. No one, including fellow parliamentarians and the Ukraine delegation, was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered them.”
Trudeau’s office claims that the decision to invite Hunka was made by the speaker’s office alone, saying, “No advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition.”
His office also denied allegations that a private meeting occurred between Hunka, Zelensky and Trudeau. As it would turn out, though, reporters found a post published on September 22 by the granddaughter of the Nazi, Theresa Hunka, which said: “Dedo [Grandfather] is waiting in the reception hall for Trudeau and Zelensky.”
Trudeau and Zelensky applauded the Nazi in the parliament and personally met with him, even though they denied it.
As the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said on X: “No parliamentarians (other than Justin Trudeau) had the opportunity to vet this individual’s past before he was introduced and honoured on the floor of the House of Commons. Without warning or context, it was impossible for any parliamentarian in the room (other than Mr. Trudeau) to know of this dark past.”
The Liberals in Canada are scrambling to wash their hands clean of this incident. But as Indian geopolitical expert Alexei Arora highlighted: “Isn’t it funny how Canadian intelligence agencies are so good that they can claim India assassinated a Khalistani terrorist (without evidence) on their soil, but somehow couldn’t stop their own parliament from inviting a literal Nazi soldier for a standing ovation?”
Many Canadians questioned Trudeau’s move to ruin ties with India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, over the death of a separatist leader because it demonstrates how the Canadian prime minister is making the country a nesting place for foreign organizations. It is recalled that Trudeau claimed at the House of Commons on September 18 that the Indian government was behind the death of pro-Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was seeking an independent homeland for Sikhs in India, a charge that New Delhi says is “absurd”.
Canadian opposition leader Andrew Scheer said that Trudeau’s “conspiracy theories” led to deteriorating Canada-India ties.
“Baseless and unacceptable that’s how the Indian government described the Prime Minister’s bizarre theory that the death of a convicted terrorist is somehow the fault of agents working on behalf of the Indian government,” Scheer said on the floors of the House of Commons, before insisting that Trudeau’s “incompetence” had severely damaged relations and for him to “finally do the right thing and produce some kind of proof of his conspiracy theory.”
In an apparent backing of Canada, US Ambassador David Cohen recently disclosed that there was “shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners” of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged India was responsible for killing the Khalistani separatist on Canadian soil.
“Look, I will say this was a matter of shared intelligence information,” Cohen said. “There was a lot of communication between Canada and the United States about this, and I think that’s as far as I’m comfortable going”.
